Sadly, our last day

 Well, today was our last full day in Honduras.  Sadness has settled in, but we are going to power through it.

Today we set out to place a Bio Sand Filter in a home in Tejeras.  When we arrived, we (luckily) realized that the sand had NOT been washed yet - a major catastrophe had been averted.  While George, Maynor, and Pastor Wilmer stayed at the house, placing the large and small gravel in the filter, Justin, Jenn, and Kandace headed back to wash the sand that had been prepared.  After washing it, we spread it out on a tarp to dry in the sun.... except the sun wouldn't cooperate.  It quickly became overcast, and a rare mid-morning shower hit.  We were not deterred; we moved the tarp to a covered area and brought it back out as soon as we could.  We stopped to eat a quick bite of lunch of delicious tacos (what would be called "flautas" in some parts of the U.S., but I am told that in Mississippi, this dish is pronounced "fa-lu-tas") and proceeded back to the sand.  After gathering up the sand, we headed over to the house to place it in the filter.  We were VERY short in our estimate, so we dashed back to sift and sift and sift (and wash) more sand.  It was quite a process, one that makes us very carefully consider what may be in the sand at the beach!

After speed-sifting (thanks to Justin, Maynor, Pastor Wilmer, and George) and power-washing (thanks to Jenn), we raced back to the house to place the rest of the sand.  We did notice that the water started to run more clearly, which made us all feel much much better.

While we were all madly running about, finalizing everything with the sand, Kandace bravely volunteered (or was volunteered; the details are a little murky) to wash Enrique the Expedition.  Now, if you have watched the video we posted yesterday, you know what a task she had ahead of her!  Her job was interrupted several times by our need to use the car to transport sand.  But she was not easily deterred, and Enrique was a gleaming sight within an hour or two.  After another rain shower honored us with its presence, Justin & Jenn & George came over to help with the arduous task.

After dinner, we returned to the Vasquez home to do a chlorine disinfecting wash in the output tube.  Even though Justin looks like a miner in this picture, we needed his light to see, because the lights at the home are not very strong.

After convincing Sra. Vasquez to pose for the picture:

 (her protest: ¿los niños?, meaning she'd rather have them in the picture than herself - can't most of us relate to that? :)), we bid her good night with a prayer and she again expressed her gratitude to us for the filter. 

All in all, a fantastic end to our July Honduras adventure!

Thanks for keeping up with us - we are returning to Atlanta (and eventually Beaufort, SC)/Houston/West Point, MS tomorrow!

part 2 - video of stuck Enrique the Expedition :)

  

enjoy the video - the "whoo-hoo"ing you hear is Jenn celebrating the successful exit from the mud!

We've been so busy we haven't had time to blog... (also, we just got internet back ;)) - this is part 1!

Hello to all of our fans anxiously awaiting our next post.  We again apologize for the delay, but thankfully, our lovely hostess Martha called the "internet repair guy" and he was able to make it out last night to repair the damage.  This was before he left us at 7pm to head to Santa Rosa de Copan, which is about 3.5 hours away.  He was still working that late!  Makes us wonder why we can't count on such diligent service from our internet repair guys... but I digress.

We've been up to lots of great things.  Here is as quick a summary as I can make:

Sunday afternoon, after the amazing Spain victory in the World Cup Final (sorry, Justin.  But The Netherlands sure put on one great World Cup performance!!), we headed over to the kindergarten to visit with the Agape Promises students.  We arrived just in time to help serve the snack: delicious baleadas and tasty tamarindo juice to drink.  It was wonderful to see all the children gathered together to study and worship!  We headed back home to clean up before church at La Cosecha at 5pm.  We were asked to come to the front of the congregation to be prayed for on our trip, which was a very moving experience.  The sermon was about the importance of honesty, and how there aren't really any "harmless lies" - interesting stuff to ponder.  We headed over to El Comedor Fermin (more commonly known as "Goyita's Restaurant") and enjoyed a wonderful meal.

We went home to resume the fierce competition that has arisen over Phase 10.  Such cutthroat playing has never been seen in these parts before! :)

Monday morning was a flurry of activity.  While George was preparing to drive Christa to the airport in San Pedro Sula, Jenn, Justin, & Kandace hiked off with Nemo, the amazing toothy fish, to 2 kindergartens in Quimistan to help reinforce the importance of brushing our teeth correctly.  The children seemed to remember very well that they are supposed to have their toothbrushes in a special place, that we brush in circles and not too hard, and we are supposed to brush twice a day.  Once everyone was back, we prepared to take glasses over to the Luz del Valle school.  We were able to see many people from this community, and we've just about wiped out the supply of readers we had after Monday and Tuesday (see below) - if anyone can get some more reading glasses donated, I'm sure they will be put to good use!

Tuesday morning was full of nervous anticipation, as we were headed to Texoxingalas, by far the coolest-named town Jenn has ever heard before (perhaps because it sounds like "Texas").  

 

 (This is the view from the road TO the town.  We were blown away by the elevation.)

We were told the road was treacherous, but our worry turned out to be unfounded (well, until Wednesday... stay tuned!)  We arrived in the lovely town of Texoxingalas and, after checking out the school and kitchen, (including the justa stove):

we quickly made our way to Vilma's home, who turned out to be both a wonderful hostess and a wealth of information.  Her home also serves as the nebulizer headquarters.  Since there is no electricity in Texoxingalas, they connect the nebulizer to the car battery to get power.  Pretty ingenious!

She helped us walk to about 60 homes during the morning to conduct the census - so we've "censused" about half of the town so far, and she has agreed to get the information for the homes we weren't able to reach. 

While we were at her house, we made the acquaintance of Paquito, the family's pet bird.  He seemed nice at first:

but Jenn quickly learned the hard way that Paquito has quite a beak on him!  After some hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid, we set out to census the town.  After a yummy lunch of flour tortillas, peanut butter, and honey, we set up the eye clinic (and beauty shop!) in one of the classrooms at the school.  

We were inundated with patients!  After this eye clinic, we have less than a full box of reading glasses left (when we arrived, we had close to four boxes full!).  We have also handed out quite a lot of sunglasses as well.  This lovely lady told us she was 109 years old! (Her 74-year-old husband later corrected us and told us she was "only" 108):

Wednesday morning brought what might be the most harrowing travel so far!  We got stuck in the mud on the way to El Pinal to give parasite treatment and flouride to the children there.  We tried to upload a video for you, but after waiting for over 30 minutes, we decided to call it a night.  We will try to post the video in a separate post. After we treated about 50 children (and a few of the adults, including the cooks), we headed back to Quimistan.  Before we got there, we were faced with a road block:

We arrived safely back home, and started to prepare a Bio Sand Filter to be placed in a home Thursday morning.  We also rode with Sandra out to the land she purchased, to which the title/deed is being finalized this week!

Our first blog post, delayed by lack of accessible internet...

Well, it's Sunday, and we have had a hard time having reliable internet access.  This afternoon we find ourselves in El Restaurante Herradura (translation:  Horseshoe Restaurant) eating lunch, watching the World Cup Final, and catching up on email.  We're so sorry for the delay!

We've been up to a lot since we arrived on Tuesday.  After an uneventful trip to the grocery store in San Pedro Sula to buy provisions, we drove up the hill towards Quimistan, the van loaded down with suitcases, backpacks, and lots and lots of grocery bags.  Of course, since our bags were on top, it started to rain!  Luckily, no harm was done, and we were able to settle in quickly.  We've had rain every day, and it has definitely cooled things off in the evenings for us.  We sat down with Maynor Tuesday evening to plan out our visit, and boy we have a busy schedule - stay tuned for updates.

First thing Wednesday morning, we headed over to Santa Clara to visit the White Dove School, and Ardyn and Christa, too.  It was great seeing the children and everyone there, and we were able to give them flouride treatment before we left.  On our way back to Martha's house for lunch, we stopped by Las Brisas to see the Bio Sand Filter that the previous team.  In order to get to the house, we had to walk across a "hammock" bridge (una puente hamaca).  Fortunately, none of us fell into the river!

Thursday brought us to the town of La Montañita - we started to walk from house to house to perform a rudimentary census ("How many people live here?, How many children are in school?, Do you have a church affiliation?, etc).  After the sixth house, we met a woman who volunteered to get all of the information for us!  Since she knows everyone in the town, I'm sure the residents will be much happier to see a familiar face knocking at the door & asking questions rather than four North Americans. :)  We learned that this community has been busily embroidering tortilla cloths (mantas) for us to take back to the US - right now we have about 75 (!!), and we should have a few more by the time we leave on Friday.  On our way up that morning, we spied a soccer field in the middle of the mountain, so we headed back down there for lunch to look around.  All I can say is, the goalies better be very talented, because it would be really hard to retrieve the ball once it went over the edge!  In the afternoon, we assisted Dr. Constantino and Enferma Edith with a medical brigade.  Maynor and Jenn were filling prescriptions like mad, while George, Kandace, and Justin helped pass out reading glasses & sunglasses and played with all of the kids. 

On Friday, we set out for the town of Nueva Esperanza, about an hour and half up into the mountains from Quimistan.  We stopped in Pinalejo to pick up Sonia, the teacher in Nueva Esperanza.  After an extremely bumpy ride, we arrived at the school in town.  Since classes had been cancelled for the day, we didn't expect to see many students, but of the 46 school-aged children in town, at least 10 came out to play with us.  We were able to pass out almost 40 pairs of reading glasses, and a similar number of very stylish sunglasses as well!  On our way back to Quimistan, we stopped in the town of Buenos Aires to take a few pictures - from there, you can see Quimistan as a tiny speck!  We also could see Guatemala in the distance - very cool!  As we were driving, we noticed lots of beautiful plants, including coffee and cardamom, and flor de izote, which is used to make polyester, and also happens to be the national flower of El Salvador.  When we returned, Gary invited us to watch the cows getting milked, which is an amazing operation in and of itself.  We were also invited to feed two new calves!  We then headed out to help feed the families in Tijeras that evening, and cleaned up to go to church at La Cosecha, where the power went out about 5 times during the 2 and a half hour service.  Talk about determination!

Saturday morning we drove to Tela, a beach town about 3 hours from Quimistan.  We stopped at a Burger King in El Progreso, and Kandace enjoyed a Hershey Pie with glee.  Once we arrived in Tela, we went to a bank to change some dollars into Lempira, as there is a rule preventing money laundering which prohibits the ease in changing money we used to enjoy in Quimistan.  After a very very long wait, we were on our way to the beach.  We ate at "Steakhouse Restaurant" which was beachfront, and then walked along the beach for a while.  Even though it was overcast, it was beautiful.  Justin and Pablo wanted to go to Punta Sal, but it would have entailed an expensive 30-minute boat ride, and some of our group weren't quite ready for that level of adventure.  After hitting a few shops, we piled pack into the Expedition and headed for home.

So far this morning, we went to Martha's Sunday School, and met with a woman in Tijeras that seems like a fantastic candidate for another Bio Sand Filter, which we hope to construct and transport to her home on Wednesday and Thursday.  We'll be heading to the Promesas gathering in a little while, and on to La Cosecha for church at 5pm, followed by dinner at Goyita's - we hope fried chicken is on the menu!

Thanks for reading all of this; we hope that future updates will be more frequent so they won't be so long!

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!
George, Jennifer, Justin, & Kandace

Last Day in Honduras...

Friday, July 2

Today was an day filled with events. The events started with a filling breakfast. After breakfast, we secured Christa's items and departed for Santa Clara. After arriving, we dropped off Christa and her items and went on a tour of her new home. The girls then went back to the White Dove school to drop off some school supplies and visit with three of the students-David, Ariel, and Roni, otherwise known as the "3 Amigos."  Ariel demonstrated his ability to read and Roni entertained them with his smiles and silliness.  Several of the children from the village came by and were treated to balloons, hand/arm painting, bubbles, and frisbee.  Mike, Joshua, and Ron fixed Lencho's water filter by adding new, finer, sand to slow down the flow rate and improve the effectiveness of the filter. Around lunchtime, we said goodbye and left for Quimistan.

Once back, we dropped off the girls and left for La Brisas del Rio to finish the water filter we installed yesterday. On the way there, we had to cross the suspension bridge over the river. At the pastor's house, we flushed the tube of the filter with chlorine to disinfect it and gave the instructions for maintenance to Adam.

We returned to Martha's, and the girls went to assist with the feeding program in Tejeras. While they were in Tejeras, the guys cleaned up the BSF equipment and stored them for future use. The girls returned as we were finishing and we decided to wash the car  in preparation for the next team (challenge for the next team... clean it as well as we did!!!). We then ate chicken tacos from Gloria and "Tres Leche" cake made for us by the mother of one of our sponsored children. We then finished packing up the team items and took inventories of the construction and BSF boxes. We then finished out the day by packing our luggage and some soccer.

Removing the older, coarse sand

The bridge to cross the river

Tejeras children waiting for food

Storing BSF materials and sieves

Flouride and Filtering

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Hello to all. Today was slightly busier than yesterday, so hopefully this blog will cover everything. This morning Maynor, Kristen, Karen, Pamela, and I (Christa) set out for Jicaro, a small town outside of Quimistan. We provided fluoride and deworming to the twenty students there. All in all, it was successful; worms were removed and fluoride was swished. We also covered proper dental care, a lesson that the students seemed to remember very well from their last lesson with the team. While most of the class still had their toothbrushes, a few didn't, so we left some for the teacher to distribute.

While we were working in Jicaro, the guys were hard at work on the filters back at the compound. They sweated over sifting rocks, moaned over washing the sand, and generally got a lot of work done. They finished the two filters with the help of Adam (pronounced Adan), the pastor from Brisa Del Rio. We returned for a delicious lunch of espaghetti, and then went right back to work washing and sifting sand which would be used in the newly constructed filters.

Shortly after lunch, the team presented Adam with his own filter, which we delivered to his house. Though his house isn't too far from Martha's place, we had to bypass the less than sturdy rope bridge across the river and go the long way around through San Marcos because the filter was too heavy to carry across the bridge. Once there, the guys set the filter up, and Mike went over all the features and rules that accompany such devices. The filter was filled with a small amount of water and gravel and the flow rate was checked to insure proper flow of the water before the rest of the filtrate was added. Fine gravel and sand was poured in slowly, then water, then more water, then they took some of the dirty water out, then they put fresh water it back in and so on until the level of filtrate and water flow were properly adjusted. I'm sure the guys knew what they were doing but it was too hot in the house for me and it was taking too long. Eventually they got it up and running, and they will return tomorrow to check up on it again and do a back flush with chlorine bleach. Several team members drank fresh coconut milk harvested from Adam's coconut tree.

Afterwards, we returned to Quimistan for a brief visit to the the souvenir shop in La Flecha before visiting some more of the little kiddies that I'd met and had the pleasure of drawing from years past. I was successful in finding one of the girls in my picture, and her mother said the other two boys lived nearby so overall I guess it went well. The girl was really young when I met her, but I know her mom remembered us so I didn't feel completely weird about giving it to her. From there we went and found Francisco, my grandparent's sponsor child. Kids around here apparently have no qualms about getting into cars with white strangers. Mike and I took him shopping for a new shirt and shoes which he seemed to really appreciate. The rest of the team invited Ortwin, the Livingston's sponsor child, to join them for ice cream while they waited for us to finish. Back at Martha's, there was an epic "Machete Fight."

Then it was off to do more sifting and various other sand related tasks. In the evening Nelson and his friend Franklin came by to play volleyball and a fun time was had by all.

BSF Work Continues

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Today’s focus was on BSF construction.  We worked with two pastors from local communities (Tejeras and Breezes) to complete BSF shells that we fabricated yesterday.  Then we cleaned the molds and started the process to fabricate two additional BSF shells so the pastors would learn or at least experience the entire process.  We now have four completed shells and two that will be completed tomorrow morning.

 

Wilmer Portillo--Pastor for Tejeres cleaning mold

 

Adan-Pastor for the Breezes cleaning the outer mold

 

Joshua and Jose washing gravel

Wilmer, Mike, and Adan assembling the BSF outer mold

In the mid afternoon, we began working with the “special” sand that is used for filter media.  This process includes sieving the material through four grades of wire mesh from ½ inch down to 0.03 inches.  This smallest fraction of sand is then washed to remove particles that are too small to use in the filter.  We are able to produce about one bucket of filter grade sand for every 10 buckets that start the process.  So, we are very grateful for the assistance of Maynor and Jose Maria who worked all day long to assist with training the two pastors.    

 

Ron and Maynor preparing cement

  

Washing the sifted gravel

 

Sifting the special filter sand to proper sizes

 

Some of the BSF team - still smiling after a long day of work

After our evening meal, we went to visit a couple families that Christa met two years ago.  Christa presented several of the children with pictures she had painted of them.  It gets dark here by 7:00, so we chose to limit the number of visits.  The daily power outage started just as we reached the town square, but we were still able to locate a place for ice cream with the help of Nelson and a very good tip from one of our blog readers.  Thanks!

 Christa, the artist, with her special friend

Karen’s devotion this morning was from Isaiah 55, which helped remind me that the Lord directs the path of all things.  By remaining in step with His plan, we have the opportunity to impact people and nations!  So, as we work to help the people here with medical needs, clean water and other services, we pray for His guidance and blessing, so our labors may produce good fruit.  Thank you for praying for us.