Back in Santa Cruz

Friday, October 30

After many months of waiting, I am back in Santa Cruz. Thanks to many others who are interested in helping allow Hondurans a chance to receive further education, I am able to continue the Computer Assisted Learning Program. As always, it is difficult to be here in Honduras and, at the same time, have family in Canada. Rather impossible to work in development and do otherwise. Fortunately, communication is possible via phone, Skype, email and Facebook.

In Miami, I was puzzled to watch CNN spend over twenty minutes, along with supposed experts, discussing whether it was critical that President Obama played pickup basketball with men only. Sigh. The world goes to hell in a handbag and we focus on irrelevant trivia.

Arriving in San Pedro Sula was relatively painless. As I mentioned before, they x-ray luggage coming into the country. My family gave me a Toaster Oven as an early Christmas present and that was of some concern to the officials. A young lady approached me to ask about the bag in question. Of course, I was unable to understand any of her Spanish and, after a few seconds of mutual smiling she gave up and waved me on.

At the office, the growth of some of the plants has been spectacular. The Chipilin (a nitrogen fixing plant with highly nutritious leaves and flowers) is over two metres high and is flowering and setting seeds. Papaya plants tower above them and other shrubs are filling out well. There are scores of Stevia plants ready for transplanting. Hopefully we can get that done next week.

It was fun meeting many of the people I had gotten to know while here earlier. My apartment was waiting for me, with all my things put back in place. A plumbing glitch which flooded it the morning I was to arrive was fixed and everything dried up before I walked through the door. There are two new babies in the four apartment block and a set of twins on their way. So, that will definitely change the dynamics. The two babies belong to two young girls in their late teens or very early twenties. That is such a common part of life here, children raising children. The girls’ schooling is now on hold (at least we hope they can return at some point) until the babies are old enough to allow them to return.

Manuel and I went to the bank to set up an account for me. We already have a set of accounts for the project there and there is a sum total of one Canadian person living and banking in Santa Cruz. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of paperwork and form filling to be done. When the print out came for me to sign, I realized that the computer already had the information and more. We recognized the true power and worth of the account opening secretary.

Started ordering some things for various projects and my apartment that first afternoon. The carpenter is making some wooden strips to put on my walls which will be used to hang pictures, hat hooks, and the odd shirt. He is also making a shelf for my toaster oven. He is delighted to have another source of business in the country. A metal fabrication shop opened across the street from the school while I was away. We took over two ideas for them to work on. One is a metal rod with hooks which will hang from the wall and accommodate eight hangars. Although it took Manuel a bit of time to grasp my drawings (my drafting skills are not always the best ... well ... rarely the best) the man at the metal shop got the idea right away. He is also going to work on a two wheeled cart that we can use to transport beehives and sacks of maize along pathways and over hill and dale. If he actually comes through with the projects we can get something done for chickens.

Today we went to see a project that CPI has initiated to build housing for ten families. Currently they live in deplorable situations (one family of five is in a two metre square shack). CPI is providing the land and the money for building on long term credit. The ten families are then working together to build the homes. They will build all ten before allotting the homes and moving in. Four have been started since August. I had helped get the land ownership settled while here before so it was great to see progress being made. The cement blocks are made by hand with a nifty little mold. They are able to form 200 blocks a day. So, one house worth of blocks each eight days.

The new houses will have two bedrooms (10’ x 10’) and a living room kitchen on the other half. A small shower and toilet complete the package. Manuel pointed out that such lovely houses may prove a problem as other women will be checking things out to see if they could find a way into such great living conditions. Hmmm.

While I was gone, there was a fairly severe earthquake. The bridge that links Santa Cruz to Tepiquilares was destroyed. The route is now a bit more adventuresome. An incredible system has sprung up to deal with the system. The bus goes up the riverside a ways to where the water is smoother and shallower. There, a flotilla of flat bottomed punts is waiting to take passengers, bikes and motorcycles across. The punters stand on the prow (the pointy end for us non-nautical types) and pole the boat backwards (from my perspective) across the river. They are making great money so there is a rush at the shore to get you to choose their boat. On each side of the river food vendors have set up shop to take advantage of people waiting for buses and boats. We enjoyed fresh watermelon as we waited for our return bus.

As we hiked back from the construction, we passed by a home where the lady was just finishing baking various types of breads to take to Santa Rita for sale. She had several large wash basins full of the pastries. I bought some for myself and for my neighbours. The price was three pastries for ten lempiras. It was difficult for everyone to figure out how to get the correct number of pastries for one hundred. Obviously the big spenders don’t hit the village very often. (100 L = $5.00) My bag of goodies made it home with relatively few of the pieces of bread damaged. There are pastries with cheese, with cinnamon, double layers of dough (makes for a textured finish) and some with pineapple jam. A pretty good haul. They have a lovely flavour as they are done in one of the traditional domed baking ovens.

My hammock is set up again and I am enjoying the benefits of a laptop and the fresh air outside of the apartment. The rains are strange this season so we have had some unexpectedly hot and humid days. The clouds are building up so we will have some rain this evening.

TTYL
bb