Sindikiza – November 6

Early in the morning, the night long chorus of dogs and roosters somewhat stilled, I had a quick bucket bath from my two new waste baskets – the only thing that could hold water. Then off to find the “Express” bus to San Pedro Sula (SPS). Amazingly, it was ready to roll within a minute of boarding and we began the trip.

Each time we stopped along the way, I noticed that the passenger waiting by the road had someone with them or nearby at the gate. Obviously, someone had the time to just be with their friend or family member and see them off – not from inside the house but from the end of the lane. In Swahili, that practise is referred to as Kusindikiza. People are so important that personal agenda is set aside to make sure they are safely on their way. In a deeper way, it suggests that we have control over our time, our lives ... our choices. It is hard to leave a person with too much friction in between when you have been given the gift of “kusindikiza”.

For breakfast I enjoyed a baleada – a large tortilla with bean paste, scrambled eggs and sausage and some heavy salted cream. They are lovely.

Arriving in the central part of the city, I met Manuel and some people who have been working with CPI for a number of years. There are some conflict issues with a former manager of the activities who has absconded with funds and assets. Although not part of the Education Project, I am still walking with these folks as they work on this.

We met with the lawyer working on the case ... who is also working on establishing the legal things we need to begin the education project. Why do legal things need to take so long? After the meeting we walked down to the Cathedral – located, of course, on one side of the town square. Two years ago, there were a score or more of little stalls set up each day on the side street to sell food. The city, concerned about hygiene and traffic congestion (thankfully), built a new, permanent set of food stalls around a large courtyard. You can go from stall to stall and load up with a variety of Honduran foods. The place is clean and the food is piping hot. There were nine of us for lunch and the bill was $25.00.

During lunch we talked about various ideas and things that the group felt were important in their lives. Before I left last year, I had built a small, solar grain dryer and left it with Chepe. He has been using it since then and thought it would be good to have a bigger model. He doesn’t have enough space with sunlight in his yard so he suggested that we build it in Antonio’s yard. We are going to build a 12 sq.m. greenhouse type structure that can dry two or three sacks of maize at a time. Currently, the maize is left on the stocks for a month of drying and then dried on tarps laid on the ground. Showers, chickens and foot traffic all create problems and lower the quality of the product. Using the dryer structure will enable the maize to be harvested much earlier (incidentally lowering the insect infestation) and will create a much better product with far less contamination. I have an idea that the high temperatures will also be hard on the insects and the UV light will sterilize things even more.

All of the people at the table talked about having to buy clean water. A twenty litre jug is $1.00. When you earn less than $100.00 a month, this is a sizeable chunk of the income gone for a simple commodity. We will build a sand filter (the concept was developed by a group in Calgary) at one of the homes and give it a test run. I am very excited about this potential. I think we can build one for about $20.00. Certainly for less than $50.00 the first time around. The first one is always more expensive. These filters are so simple – no moving parts – and can filter such huge amounts of water – up to 200 litres a day – that they can dramatically change the life of a family and, even, a community. I wish I could find a place to test water.

By late afternoon, we had done some shopping (moved up from trash can to basin for bathing, along with some plates and cutlery ) and loaded some of the computers for the project in the back of a little Mazda pickup. Chepe and I were in the back. Dark comes early (5.30 p.m.) so we were in twilight and darkness most of the way. Thank goodness for glasses when trucking through swampy areas. Rule #1 – keep mouth closed (unless you are a frog).

My living room is now awash in computers and monitors.

Bryan