Keeping It Together

The last weeks have been busy and full of activity. I think that some things are being accomplished but sometimes it is hard to tell.

The most exciting thing for us has been the arrival of Natasha, a student intern from British Columbia. She is here for three months and we are so grateful to have someone willing to settle in and give a hand. She is going to provide three day English seminars in various villages and satellite centres. This will give the students their English component, give the school some needed advertisement and give Natasha a chance to see village life in Honduras.

We have given Santiago the responsibility of making sure that Natasha arrives at the villages safely and that classes go in an orderly fashion. His status is going to shoot off the charts. There was certainly no hesitation in his accepting that job.

We have had a number of students coming in for registration the last week and that is lifting spirits. Today, possibly, we have some people coming from La Ceiba to pick up the course material and start some students on the program there. That is truly a satellite centre. We may never even see the students.

We are looking at a graduation in six weeks so need to get everyone started on projects. It has been an uphill battle (which I am currently still losing) to advance the idea that projects could be started while students are studying the course work rather than waiting until everything else is finished. Two things at once seem too overwhelming at this point. Sigh.

A women’s group is working hard on a piece of property we have. I am eager to work with them but, so far, they are simply getting organized and cleaning out the fish pond.

At the agriculture project in Santa Rita we have planted the fruit trees, the passion fruit plants, lots of ground cover and cuttings of chaya and so forth. Last week, Muncho, my manager remembered me talking about a living fence in May. He also remembered us talking about the idea of using small cuttings of trees rather than the traditional Honduran cuttings which are two to three metres long. The electrical company had come along and lopped off the tops of trees in our area under their lines. Consequently, there were tonnes of smaller cutting sized branches available. Muncho put everyone to work and they planted over 600 cuttings along several fence lines. I was so pleased to see the initiative and I am very excited to see how they will grow and fill in. I had never thought to use that particular species of tree and so this is extremely pleasing.

Today we are going to find, I hope, some arrowroot seedlings to plant in beds that we have laid out. Again, beyond my expectation, we have 36 beds laid out and all with square corners and straight edges. That is truly incredible. I will post some pictures when they get passed on to me.

All of this takes time and so the days have flown by.

TTYL
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