2010 Honduras Trip Journals

View the pictures from this trip.

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I hope that anyone who goes on the trip in the future enjoys it as much as I did!

Alex O'Connell's Honduras Journal Entry

Looking back on the trip, the one thing I still can't get past was the very first day of the trip. As soon as we had arrived and eaten breakfast, we jumped in the vans and drove four hours out to Copan Ruinas, our first stop on the trip. After a brief rest at the hotel, we headed back into the vans and drove into the mountains as far as the vans could go...and then we hiked for another half an hour or so to this tiny village in the mountains near the Guatemalan border.

It was amazing seeing this place after having been in New York City less than a day before. People were out working, preparing the coffee beans by hand, and some were running corn down from the town to be sold. It was really an eye-opening experience. Life in this community was so different from everything that is familiar to me.

While we were there, the leader of the village showed us the school they had set up, a simple building the size of a single classroom. The school taught grades one through six, and essentially covered Spanish and the local language in its curriculum. This was very different from what I remember school being like. Next, they explained how people in the village got their water. They had a distribution system which used hoses and pipes to run water from the springs to the homes without any treatment. It was simple, but people were very excited about having this system and continuing to build it. I probably remember this day best out of all the days on the trip; to me it really captured the reason why we are doing what we are with AguaClara.

In addition, it was great to see some of the plants designed by AguaClara in action. The Cuatro Communidades plant was so well maintained and operated that it was clear how much the people cared about it. It was pretty impressive what could get accomplished with enough support.

At the same time, we saw how much the success of the plants could be connected to local politics. In Marcala, the plant operators were very dedicated to keeping the plant running. However, many times they have gone without chemicals because the local government won't purchase them. Despite this, the level of enthusiasm I saw for the plants was encouraging, and they appeared to be making a difference in people's lives.