Allison Reiko Baugham
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
After a group reflection we were allowed to explore on our own. Nothing too exciting--souvenirs, baleadas, machetes. However afterward we were given several options of things to do that afternoon. I opted to go to the Marcala Plant & then hike to the water source. Being the eager students we are, we raced ahead and left behind those that actually knew the way...We traveled through a coffee plantation and spoke to people along the way, trying to ask for directions. More or less we were headed in the right direction.
Soon we stumbled on an old mud house and met a man. He had missing teeth, a dirt floor, and the biggest smile you could imagine (Eladio, i need your photos!). It was amazing to see someone live so comfortably in a place so remote and separated from the rest of the world; or so we thought.
We thanked him for speaking with us & hiked further to find the water source. We eventually came to the river and decided to head back since it was getting dark. When we passed the man again he invited us into his home & shared fresh plantains with us. We offered to give him money and he refused, but we did it anyway (good deeds are lost on Americans, it seems). He then told us about an accident in the U.S. involving a plane. Little did we know that he knew more about world affairs than we did!
I really wish we could have had more time to speak with him, but being the apprehensive person I am, I couldn't keep people waiting. To think if we had waited and took the correct path we would have missed this opportunity. It was such a wonderful experience and has really summed up my trip to Honduras: people can surprise you, there is a beauty in simplicity, and what makes people happy can redefine the way you will live the rest of your life.
Amelia Symonds
Anastasia Rudenko
Eladio Lopez Rodiguez
Haley Viehman
Heather Hunter
Heather Reed
Henry Zeng
Jeffrey Katz
From Day 5: Tuesday, January 6th
Although we've had three days of four hour van rides this is the first time I've felt like I've had any time to write in my journal. And it's definately an appropriate time after tonight's reflections.
Thus far we've hopped from New York to San Pedro Suelo, to Copan, to Gracias, to Siguatepeque where I lay now in a bunk bed beneath Po-Hsun writing in this journal and sampling vino jovan de Mesa, from the CEASO ranch. In this time we've seen two treatment plants, chlorinated cisterns, natural "wells", have ziplined a length of 5 kms over the canopy of Copan, explored the Copan ruins, and ate several reiterations of rice, beans, eggs, and tortillas. And this banana flavored wine is harder to stomach than the aforementioned. "Ugh, terrible," says Chris. "It's not that bad says Julia."
The people of Honduras are all really welcoming and pleased to have us there. My elementary Spanish is enough to communicate with some efficacy. Not being proficient however and the different tonalities of Honduran speech make it difficult to gauge emotion, but mainly truth in speech. [Ed: I go on to discuss the mayor of Copan who says he doesn't care about politics just only what's best for the people. I wishfully agree with him and if he's legit then I'm anxious to start designing for them but when the words come through a translator it's hard to gauge if he's just being a good politician.]
Our first water related stop was in a village with no treatment, just literally a hole in the ground. Still there are smiles on their faces. They "know about chlorine" and the need for clean water, but they still believe what they have is fine and that they can continue to drink it. The weird thing is, they probably can. Which cannot be said for us and the banana wine.
I can see why the people here can see why they don't need treatment plants. Especially when a plant can be dropped in from Spain, with high technology, but only runs at 1/2 capacity or when the power turns off at the plant and nothing comes out of the tap. Kids get sick without clean water but there is "no data" clearly showing this so when people cite that "less kids have diahrrea" we can only believe these reports instead of like good engineers looking of the numbers that say "200 cases in 2007 before AC, 50 after the plant. Woo hoo!" Still, numbers, charts, and tables may not appeal to the people that have drank water that looked like chocolate and lived to tell about it if it costs them less to have an ecru alternative. Hopefully when we get to AguaClara plants we see clear results (and water) and hear the people talk about their experiences before and after (once again, hopefully) clean water.
.......
Editor's note: The wine was for cultural and educational purposes as it was locally and organically made at CEASO.
Julia Schoen
Kellie Kress
Friday, January 16th, 2009
I think our last day in Honduras was one of my favorites. I ended up riding in the truck with Antonio, Heather Hunter and Henry. Since we had to make a stop at CEASO to drop off the key someone had accidentally take and pick up Lalo's dob kit(which really looked like a clutch purse), we were separated from the group for the afternoon.
As we drove from Marcala to San Pedro, the landscape was beautiful. We could see trees and fields everywhere we looked, which doesn't sound all that special, but there was so much green! I guess I'm just used to seeing so much gray: from cement, from smog, from exhaust. We drove past some people by the side of the road, so I asked Antonio what they were selling, and he replied "sandilla," which Heather then translated: watermelon. He asked if I wanted one, so we stopped at the next one we saw. After a few more hours in the car, we went to these caves that were pretty cool. Henry almost died by stalactite... just kidding. They had all these lamps so that we could see where we were going, and little plants had started to grow near them! We also encountered a bat!
For lunch, we stopped by a restaurant overlooking a lake. Antonio picked out three fish for us from a cooler of frozen tilapia, and then they fried them for us! After lunch we stopped by the side of the road to eat our watermelon! It was delicious! We had a great view of the lake in front of us, and the most vibrant green foliage on the mountain behind. We confirmed that I can throw watermelon rind much further than Henry, despite his several attempts to prove otherwise. After returning the knife and some watermelon to the woman, we were on our way.
We stopped somewhere to meet up with the rest of the team, but managed to keep ourselves busy in the meantime.