What Price Firewood – Jan. 12

Just returned from sitting with a family who lost a relative this weekend. The relative in question was a young twenty-three year old mentally handicapped man. He went off to gather firewood and, in the process, wandered on to private property. Obviously, the property was extremely private and was guarded by men with weapons. The end result was the young man was killed by six bullets. Such a shame for the family and community. There may be a bit more to the story because, so far in my experience, the mentally handicapped people I have seen have been treated with a great deal of respect and kindness by their neighbours and general community.

While at the family’s place, I was able to watch a Grade 3 Adult Education class in progress. Three students were busy preparing for a test from their textbook. One of the students was a Grandmother and the other two were young men in their twenties or early thirties. These students are being given this chance because of the work CPI Canada has done in this community. That was definitely a rewarding opportunity to see this education process in progress.

The weather was cloudy so evening lighting came early. This prompted the chickens to begin climbing up their night time roosting tree. What fun to watch as they judged each jump from branch to branch. One very enterprising bird went up via the electrical wires. These were rather saggy and thin so the bird had to do some major high wire acrobatics to stay aboard. A second bird watched the whole episode and thought about it for some time before deciding on the discretion over valour route. The tree is likely the way to keep track of population numbers. Whenever things get too crowded it is time for another pot of chicken soup.

We spent all day on the budget and description of this project for another trip to Tegucigulpa. It was a journey into Microsoft hell. So many of these new bells and whistles are wonderful at the time if you have never learned to type. But, if like me, you benefitted from the attentions (ruler and all) of Ms Carroll you don’t need those automatic things that get truly in the road when you are going back into a document to make corrections. We found a few errors and made them right. Then, we went to have them printed. Another fifteen minutes of “you can’t get there from here” before we got most of the document printed. Two pages wouldn’t cooperate so Manuel took them to San Pedro Sula to try at a place there.

Walking into town centre is more exciting now. Three streets are being fitted with cement roadways. There are mounds of dirt at each intersection to thread around and small puddles in unexpected places where new waterline leaks have appeared. People are enjoying the new roadways and bikes cruise up and down the block in between small soccer games and strollers enjoying the new smoothness of the road. We hope that our street is next.

Time to head home for supper.

Bryan