Somos Hondureños!

Now this may all be a bit confusing... I returned from Costa Rica at the beginning of May. I had a few weeks to hang out with folks and get ready to leave for Honduras. Now, the beginning of June, I am in Honduras for the start of a 10 week volunteer project constructing a water treatment plant. Those last few entries from Costa Rica were actually posted while I am here in Honduras, but I wanted to get caught up before moving on. But here goes...

And what a story it is! We arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on this past Saturday afternoon. "Teguc" is the capital of Honduras, and is sort of thrown among a bunch of hills. Quite literally. We landed and then were picked up by an engineer who works for Agua Para el Pueblo, the local organization that we are working with to build the plant. He brought us to our new home for the summer - Ojojona, about an hour or so south of the capital. We are staying at the house of the president of the "junta" - water board. He and his family have moved to another house of their families so we have there 2 room unit. "We" is myself, and two students who are also working through Engineers for a Sustainable World on this project. More on "we" later.

Some real basics on our lives so far... we have two very different experiences with basic needs. Our food is fantastic. Even more important to us than the president of la junta is the president's wife. She cooks for us - Marta - we love her and her cooking. We have no doubts that we will be gordo y feliz for our trip. The other basic need we are dealing with is water. Much of our trip, even aside from the treatment plant, we are creating will revolve around this. Monday night was miraculous as it was our first night with running water. My god, a shower in semi-dirty water shower never felt so good. Particularily because we were unclear whether it would ever come - a few days of water coming "mañana", and we were a bit concerned. It seems that we have water about every third day, and for about 10 hours. The rest of the time water is stored in open tanks. Ever hear about all the water related illnesses that people have? Yeah... we though they needed a treatment plant, but it looks as though a regular source of moderately clean water so that it doesn't have to be stored in an open tank would be a miracle too.

And our work. We have even managed to sort out a bit of that, despite the "we" that is here now. Right now myself and one of the students are here. This guy, we'll call him Scott as in fact that is his name, just finished his freshmen year of civil engineering. Have you been paying attention here? We have a student with freshmen civil eng classes and an electrical engineer. To build a water treatment plant. Did I mention that we also are a little spanish challenged? You see, Hondurans, they are really friendly, hospitable, and we are so happy we are in this community. But damn, they speak a lot of spanish. Luckily we are both very ambitious and so have been making valient attempts to understand spanish, the plant design, basic civil engineering drawings, plant design written in spanish, and the like. Luckily we are also forward thinking, and so we have been thinking to tomorrow, when the other student arrives. He just completed his civil engineering degree, speaks mucho spanish, and actually worked on the design of this plant. No kidding. No longer a new civil student and EE building a plant. Sweetness. Now the work... ah, we are just sorting it out. But it is definitely the rainy season. And the president of the junta definitely said that the workers can't do stuff during the rain. It seems though that the maestro de trabajo feels differently, so this made us very happy today. We are really here for after the plant is constructed so that we can test and train those that will be doing battle with the thing. Tranquilo. Best to have another cup of that great Honduran coffee.

This is a very photogenic little site so likely I will have many great shots to post. Not yet. I still am stomaching the really uberslow connection we have here in town, and may wait until we go to Teguc to upload pictures. But I promise lots of great stories... Until then, have a nice glass of clean water for me.