...

I have some great memories from the trip to Honduras.
To begin with, I would like to point out that this trip completely changed my view of the project. While at Cornell, I always felt the project as a great idea to provide safe drinking water to different communities in Honduras, but was always more focussed on the technical aspects.
As engineers, I think that is inevitable, but once you go on this trip and you see the background, the Honduran part of the team, the perspective changes radically. I think that during the trip, I totally forgot about the technical aspects of the project and enjoyed learning how the whole process really works. I got to learn the really hard part of the project and also the most rewarding one, the people.
The whole trip was full of emotions and good lessons, but Agalteca, in my opinion, was something different.
First we got to know the area a little, the way of living, we had lunch and met our families. Afterwards enjoyed a soccer game together with a big group of Hondurans who immediately included us in the pool of players.
At night everybody had dinner with their families and shared thoughts with them. In my house there were a lot of little kids who where always asking us questions and willing to play. They taught us some card's games and we played for several hours.
We also did a some work in the construction site and, in my opinion, seeing the construction procedures, was a good lesson to improve the system.
It was great to know the engineer also and learn his point of view, thoughts and inquiries.
This trip was full of good lessons. Each plant we visited had a different story, the story of the people that manage each of them. There is when you see that those water treatment systems that you see in the drawings, which look all very similar, are only the base to create every unique Water Treatment Plant, that each community manages with pride.
I feel grateful for this trip and this project and look forward to continue improving this technology and being part of this great process.

Rachel Philipson's Honduras Journal Entry

Before this trip, I can honestly say that I had zero expectations. I am not very well traveled and certainly had never been to a third world country, so I wouldn't have been surprised if we were sleeping in tents or in nice hotels (I am very glad it was the latter). I will never forget our first van ride out to Copan when we pulled over to get gas and there was a guard standing outside the gas station holding a shotgun. I was astounded to learn this is the norm. The following two weeks proved to be one of the greatest learning experiences I've ever had. Not only did I learn a lot about water treatment, but we also got to truly experience the culture of Honduras. This was especially apparent in Agalteca when we stayed with families that graciously opened their homes to us. We were able to eat meals with our family, play soccer, attend a health fair and even wake up at 5 am to a combination of some very loud farm animals and the machine that our family had to make tortilla dough from corn. This is an experience that not many people have and it had a very profound impact on me.

The whole trip, and the home stay in particular really taught me never to take anything for granted. I never really appreciated the value of clean water, a hot shower or sleeping in a room with no giant cockroaches and I now know that none of these are assumed luxuries in Honduras. Now that I'm back, I look forward to helping make one of these luxuries, clean water, available to the people of Honduras.