The Honduran Mafia (by Todd)

They're not really the mafia. That's just my nickname for them. They are actually the "Comite Económico" for the Catholic church. Their job is to undertake fundraising projects and stuff for the church.

The first time I attended one of their meetings, I was met outside the door by four older men. They all talked in husky voices and addressed each other as "Don So-and-so." We had Don Mario, Don Guillermo, Don Guillermo, and Don Daniel. You can see where I got the mafia impression.

Most of their work these days is raising money to build a second Catholic church here in Talanga. Which is a really good idea because it takes an hour or more for some people to walk from the other side of Talanga to the church, and that's a big bar to participation for people who would like to come.

I have been working with them a lot. The Comite Económico is the comittee that is administering the scholarship fund I have started. One of them is a "public health promoter" in the Centro de Salud, and he has been invaluable in helping us set up for building latrines in the aldeas.

They are a great, great crowd. I really like working with them. They are enthusiastic and driven, and really excited about working to help other people. I could not have done the scholarship project without them! I realize all the time how much I don't know about how things are done in Honduras. But they have been so wonderful about managing the scholarships that it has compensated for my ignorances.

I just sort of stumbled across them one night by chance, but lucky me!

Tomorrow we have 4 college students arriving. They are coming for one week to volunteer here. I expect we'll be quite busy putting them to work all next week. They're going to build two pilot project latrines for us in Los Izotes.

Ok, I'm off! Until next time!

Los Izotes (by Todd)

By the way, just so you all know, it's not that I'm stingy about posting pictures. It's just that it takes forever, because the internet is so slow. For example, to post all the pictures for Terrero and Los Izotes has taken me a full 7 days of uploading pictures.

Anyways, here are the pictures from Los Izotes. James and I go there on Fridays. I think Los Izotes is the aldea closer to my heart. The people are just so welcoming (we can't visit a house without being offered food).

It's also farther from Talanga, which means that it is poorer. It takes us about 50 minutes driving to get there. They do not have electricity or running water. There is a bus that runs from Los Izotes to Talanga Fridays through Mondays, so that they can get into town fairly easily.

And they have AMAZING coffee. I don't even like coffee normally, but they grow, roast (in the sun), and grind their own coffee, and it tastes INCREDIBLE!! I doubt even the richest people in America have such good coffee. Not that I'm really an expert.

Ok, here are the pictures:

A view of a small part of Los Izotes. It is so gorgeous in this aldea. Sometimes I wonder if that's what really made me fall in love with it. You can't see the beautiful horizon in this picture, but take my word - it's gorgeous.

Also, that building whose roof you can just make out all the way on the left is the Catholic church, where James and I spend a lot of our time.

I'm really proud of this picture too. It's a shot of some sugarcane, which a lot of people in Los Izotes grow and sell to make some extra money. There's even a "galera" in Los Izotes - a place where the sugarcane is ground up, the juice heated until it turns the consistency of molasses, and then dried into cubes of sugar.

This sugarcane is probably 12 feet tall. The part you see sticking up is just the flower. Beneath it is a stalk like bamboo, which contains all the sweetness. The kids in the aldeas love to peel those stalks and munch on the tissue underneath. I like that too. It's not super super sweet, but its a bit sweet and cool and refreshing. And I feel quite Honduran munching away on it :).

Me with several of the kids in Los Izotes. They're a cute bunch.

Again, several of the Los Izotan kids.

James rides a horse for, I believe, the 3rd or 4th time in his life. They let him ride it in a circle around the house several times this day. James really likes that horse!

James and I run a youth group in the afternoons. Here, the kids are playing an icebreaker called "The Human Knot" (under James' watchful supervision). They all grab hands in a tangle, and try to untangle themselves without letting go of the hands. At first, they were super shy, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to play. But now, after several months, they go right to it.

This is me with my little friend, Cesar. For some reason, he has always been very attached to me (they say he mistakes me for his father). Whatever the reason, he likes playing with me a lot. A few weeks ago, we had a good scare, because poor Cesar got a really bad case of diarrhea, which kills a lot of young children here. They took him to a doctor, though, and fortunately, he pulled through just fine.

Several of the kids from Los Izotes, in front of the church. The people of Los Izotes are really proud of their church. They've worked hard to build it. It's still not done - you can see that the walls are unfinished, as is the floor inside. The big hitch is that they can't afford the materials. The cinder blocks and roof of the church were donated. From time to time, they have fundraisers to raise the money to continue work.

That's all the pictures for now. Until next time!

Terrero Colorado (by Todd)

James and I work in two aldeas: Terrero Colorado and Los Izotes. I've finally gotten around to putting up some pictures for them.

This entry is about "Terrero." It's the closer of the two aldeas to Talanga. James and I spend every Tuesday there. At first, it used to take us half an hour to get there, bouncing over this bumpy, pot-holed, dirt road. Now that we're old hands at the deal, James and I can get there in 15 to 20 mins.

Terrero Colorado is divided into two parts, an upper and lower part. In between, there's a stretch of road with no houses. The lower part has a pretty good water supply, although it is not piped INTO their houses, just to right outside. The upper part has water that goes INTO their houses, into sinks and stuff, but that water supply fails for most of the summer. No one has electricity.

As seems typical of the aldeas, the men typically work during the day, in some sort of agriculture. The women stay around the house doing house work. And the kids go to school or play around.

James' and my typical schedule is like this: In the morning, we go in and play with the kids. Since school started, instead of playing, we've been helping out in the one-room, one-teacher, 50+ kid school. Around lunchtime, we visit a few houses, just to spend time with the people and see them in their homes. Then, in the afternoon, we run an adult's group (the idea being that the adults can help us organize the community), followed by a youth/kid's group.

Ok, enough talk. Here are the pictures.

This is a view from the road through Terrero (in the lower part). You can see how gorgeous the vistas are - I love them. You can also make out three houses. They're spread far apart, which is pretty typical.

Gosh, these guys are cute. They're three of the younger kids we know well: Mauricio, Fernando, and Marcela.

This is me with Margery (left) and Bessy (right), two of the kids we know best from the aldea. Since day one, these two love to hang out with us and play games all morning. At this particular moment, we were singing Christmas Carols, and, unbeknowst to them, I was preparing to tickle them!

This is us with a bunch of the kids from the youth/children's group we run. More than anything, they love to play games. Sharks and Minnows, Red Light Green Light, Marco Polo - all of them are HUGE hits.

I am quite, quite proud of this picture :). I really can't claim credit; it was just dumb luck. Her name is Danisela - she's three years old and just ADORABLE. She's also a bit of a terror to all the animals that live around. She's been known to toss kittens through the air and leave puppies stranded on a stool. But she is cute.

I took the picture when they had just harvested the corn, which they themselves grow. Most of their food they buy with the wages of the men, who typically work with crops for some bigger land owner. But they grow their own beans and corn (for tortillas). For about a month there, every time we'd visit a house, the people would be scraping the corn kernels off the husks.

I love this picture. I like to call it, "James enjoys the company of the children in Terrero Colorado." As they all grab his ears. Heh heh.

And that's Terrero Colorado. This is one of the aldeas where we are sponsoring two girls to go to secondary school.

Until next time!