Search for the Guilty

This blog will be short and sweet. Today’s winner of the coveted “el Grunon” award (put a tilde on the n) was Catherine Vandegrift. She was up to form but declined to have her award photo published.


Today Ken, June Denny, Allen and Nola Radcliffe met with a representative from two representatives from an NGO which receives support from the citizens of Spain. They have been at work in Honduras since 1974 and in Quimistan since 1994. They were investigating ways in which our organizations might be able to partner.

The rest of us went to Tejeras to teach kids how to brush teeth , wash hands, for deworming and fluoride teeth treatment. After all was set up and the folks had arrived, we discovered that we forgot to bring the medicines and tooth brushes. The culprit for this booboo will remain nameless but the finger pointing will continue. All worked out well in the end.

During lunch we had a guest, Margo Yost, a Peace Corp volunteer working in Quimistan. She told us of some of her health related initiatives in Quimistan. These were related to prenatal health, HIV Aids, birth control of any method.

After lunch we returned to Tejeras to feed the children which was a fun experience as it usually is. After lunch we took some of the Ladies to see the tumbling down house three doors up the road. This was to provide more support for our contention that something had to be done soon to prevent a disaster.

We then went for dinner at Canchita’s restaurant for a delicious dinner. Upon exiting Canchita’s we discovered we were to return via a school bus! On the way how the driver didn’t know we were to go to Shirley’s for ice cream. We didn’t sound the alarm until we were about a quarter mile down the road to the ranch. The driver had to back the bus up the quarter mile, in the dark, because he couldn’t turn around. NOTHING stops you from getting ice cream in Honduras.

Eventually everything worked out well and we got to bed. Unfortunately, some complained of snoring, otherwise it was a perfect day.

More Peace Corps

In yesterday’s blog we made brief mention of a presentation from a peace Corp volunteer here in Quimistan. We would like to expand a little bit on her mission here. Her name is Margaux Yost, and she spoke to us about her mission as a Peace Corp Volunteer and how she fits into the Quimistan community.


Margauex works on a monthly basis with four small mountain communities that have nurses located in their clinics. Her role is to teach various heath topics such as: personal hygiene, dental health, importance of clean water, etc.

The other part of her mission is to work with high school students on the subject of sex education. She is allowed to hold a class once a month for two hours with 7th and 8th grade students from one class of 44 students. Only twelve parents gave permission for their children to attend these sessions. She hopes to train these students to act as mentors for next year’s class of 7th and 8th graders.

She is attempting to get cooperation from the teachers to have them include some of her information into their curriculum. Because of the culture, talking about pregnancy prevention, HIV and STDs is taboo, and she is trying to overcome that. Judging by the numbers of teen pregnancies, prevalence of HIV and STD these are subjects that should be in the high schools as the children apparently are not getting this from their parents or guardians.