tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1646833912827881662024-03-12T19:07:52.015-07:00Latin American Rotary Aid: Santa Barbara, HondurasAshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-91481539385841378962019-01-13T06:19:00.002-08:002019-01-13T06:19:19.900-08:00Clean Water & SanitationWe raised the money to start a pilot project at twelve schools near the City of Santa Barbara in the western mountains of Honduras. The Rotary Club in Santa Barbara, Honduras is leading this effort in collaboration with residents of each of the villages or barios where the schools are. The Rotary Club has four teams of it members, each working with parents, teachers, and community members at each of three communities where schools are.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Community member at Tacahulapa School explains that, when it rains, the septic holding tank overflows into the schoolyard. Right now, the students do not use the current toilets.</td></tr>
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The initial funding for the projects was raised with Rotary leadership from the communities of Creston, British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. communities of Bemidji, MN; Park Rapids, MN; Wahpaton, SD; and Ashland, WI. Rotary clubs in districts on the U.S.-Canada border matched 100% of the funds each community raised, and the international Rotary Foundation matched 150% of the communities' funds. When one considers the breadth of effort, it is clear why the Rotary Foundation calls these "Global Grant" projects. They happen only when people of many nationalities, faiths, and cultures collaborate in a shared mission.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Community members in Gualjoco dig trench for the new foundation.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The family sow next door to the El Trabajo school in Inguaya escapes to the schoolyard to join the meeting of parents, teacher, and Rotarians.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBO0j3kEAABkiYk1BLoMfZ2SYIiO_c_-zcogX5M2xvbarD32PZPHXAiIQwnV3e05WmhmHu5ELXusMlEq8TTV2aE0bg5PyOdjKHqSJACVOT3dzPIAjXKPtKqQyPUPeR9QqjET_U2tkwT4Pk/s1600/20190112ElTrabajoGroup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBO0j3kEAABkiYk1BLoMfZ2SYIiO_c_-zcogX5M2xvbarD32PZPHXAiIQwnV3e05WmhmHu5ELXusMlEq8TTV2aE0bg5PyOdjKHqSJACVOT3dzPIAjXKPtKqQyPUPeR9QqjET_U2tkwT4Pk/s320/20190112ElTrabajoGroup.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Santa Barbara Rotarian Rene Vasquez explains how bathrooms will be added adjacent to existing classrooms at Inguaya.</td></tr>
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<br />AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-10456085603434029142018-01-28T04:25:00.000-08:002018-01-28T08:28:52.439-08:00Zorca!<i>"Before we start our conversation, let's first work together in commitment."</i><br />
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Roxanna Turner taught me the value of this statement today. Some members of previous teams have said we should provide funds for Honduran communities to maintain their own schools rather than bringing the supplies and doing the maintenance work with them. When I mentioned this to Roxanna as we arrived, she disagreed.<br />
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Roxanna Turner is a teacher at the high school in the Ashland, Wisconsin school district. She previously worked on a grant that the Ashland Rotary Club initiated through the Duluth-Superior Community Foundation to adapt the foundation's <i>Speak Your Peace</i> curriculum for high school students, and the project received the foundation's Touchstone Award as an outstanding example of achievement. Rene, a Santa Barbara, Honduras Rotary Club member, brought Roxanna and me, along with painting supplies, to Zorca while the others in our group purchased additional supplies for our day's work. When we arrived, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky above us.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View behind the Zorca school.</td></tr>
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Zorca (14.85183°N, 88.35183°W) is a small village in the mountains west of the small city of Arada. As Rene parked his truck on the side of the road, two women wearing pink pull-overs waved to us from the school atop a stairway to the road. Then a man and a boy came down to help us carrry the six-gallon buckets of paint, our ladder, and painting supplies up to the school. When we climbed the stairway, we saw several more men and women in the the two classrooms moving the desks, shelves, and tables to the center and scraping the walls to prepare them to be painted. A new kindergarten building had just been constructed next to the elementary school, and more parents were sweeping to prepare the concrete walls for their first coats of paint. We learned that everyone in the community was eagerly getting the schools ready for the beginning of the school year next week.<br />
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As we carried buckets and boxes up the stairs, I told Roxanna what some previous participants on these Rotary mission trips said about providing funds to these communities for maintenance rather than traveling to Honduras to help them do maintenance work.<br />
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"Not necessarily," she replied. "It is very important for me as a teacher to make my classroom an attractive space for learning. The work being done here takes that effort to a whole new level." Along with the parents and teachers, we picked up brushes, rollers, and trays filled with fresh paint and went to work.<br />
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As I painted trim around the windows on the front of the school, I overheard Roxanna talking with school boys around the corner as she worked a roller on a long pole. I do not speak Spanish, but their questions and answers of each other were interspersed with laughter as a shy, young father quietly worked alongside.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXFYA0_Wtoq43NKM2JpNl28SPJbXGLKaiYGEjuEdOvbIPXAb6mun_GsY1T7xWU0lkmZ-qmL2Vre7yZ1GahLF_JyK8V8e5blFSklGt1dJ-Wq6Athd5oWgDlgTZt-wYNeGYwLKiRMzrUl05U/s1600/20180125_162512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXFYA0_Wtoq43NKM2JpNl28SPJbXGLKaiYGEjuEdOvbIPXAb6mun_GsY1T7xWU0lkmZ-qmL2Vre7yZ1GahLF_JyK8V8e5blFSklGt1dJ-Wq6Athd5oWgDlgTZt-wYNeGYwLKiRMzrUl05U/s320/20180125_162512.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teachers paint the window grates (from left: Roxanna Turner,<br />Erlin Izaguirre, and Yara Enamorado).</td></tr>
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As the day progressed, I came to realize that this project provided a means for Roxanna and that father to build an understanding of each other without the tension of an interview process. The school kids' natural curiousity provided a means for learning about each other as the basic need to prepare the school for the new year was served. By the end of the day, we not only completed an important project in the little, mountain village of Zorca, but we also learned about each other and made new friends.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-71152441392182532882017-01-17T11:18:00.001-08:002017-01-17T11:35:18.460-08:00Being Called?There is an interesting story in the Old Testament Book of Samuel where Samuel, a boy helping an elderly priest, is awakened at night by a voice calling his name. Because the only other person around is the man down the hall, Samuel runs to see what the old priest wants. The old man is irritated because he did not call the boy and tells the boy to go back to bed. When the situation repeats two more times, the priest realizes that Samuel IS being called, not for work but for LIFE, and Samuel's life changes forever. The lesson I take from this story is that our true calling often is not obvious to us.<br />
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I thought of this story on Saturday night when we attended the Santa Barbara Rotaract Club meeting. Allison Radke, a youth minister who is part of our group and who is fluent in Spanish, served as interpretor. Rotaract members are people ranging from college age to less than thirty years old. This club inlcudes college students, an auto mechanic, attorneys, teachers, government administrators and others. As the meeting was about to start, Allison said in English "I just had an idea." Then she asked a question in Spanish that she told us was "How many people here use Whatsapp?" Almost all the Rotaractors raised their hands. After a brief explanation, the club members said that they would help us to effect our hope to establish internet communications between elementary kids in Las Brisas del Pinal and kids in the Chequamegon Bay area. When Allison explained the frustration that the teachers in Las Brisas had trying to project a Facebook video through their LCD projector, the Rotaractors pulled out their LCD projector and said "Here's how you do this . . .We will help." They responded immediately to our call for help. When my wife Becky quietly asked me, "who in the Ashland area is going to work with this vibrant group of young professionals," I replied, "They have not yet been called."<br />
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Earlier on Saturday morning, I wondered if I was hearing "a call" or just another solicitation when the leaders of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club met with our small group. They explained that the international Rotary Foundation and UNICEF (the United Nations International Child and Education Fund) had selected Honduras as one of five countries in the world for a pilot project promoting clean water and sanitary practices to reduce widespread diarrheal illness in children and communities and to help girls to stay in school past sixth grade. The local Rotarians asked if we would be the international sponsors for their projecct for the Department of Santa Barbara (about the area of Ashland and Bayfield counties in Wisconsin). The minimum contribution for us to be a sponsor is $30,000, including a matching contribution from the Rotary Foundation. In any case, we would need to raise at least $10,000 in order to be a WASH-in-Schools sponsor.<br />
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It seems like a risky proposition. The Santa Barbara Rotarians said that the project for Honduras is organized by their Rotary District to include all the Rotary Clubs in Honduras. The pilot project for the Department of Santa Barbara involves selecting at least five schools, and requires installing any necessary infrastructire, curriulum adoption, teacher training, and implementation within one year. The project requires before and after testing for measureable improvements and documentation that the pilot projects will continue after the international funding runs out.<br />
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Steve Rith-Najarian is a physician on our LARA team who is a national leader in helping Native Americans reduce the incidence of diabetes-related illness on reservations. He said there is no doubt about the serious need to improve access to clean water and to adopt better sanitation in schools and communities, but to expect a measurable change by the end of 2018 is unrealistic. I agreed that the project expectations are unrealistic, but it is appropriate to start small in these ambitious initiatives so that future projects can improve on the lessons learned from the preliminary projects. After all, there are many more than five countries plagued by contaminated water supplies and diarrheal illness.<br />
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Allison Radke facilitated a conversation about the project with the kindergarten teachers in Las Brisas del Pinal. This barrio on the outskirts of Santa Barbara has experienced rapid growth as families from small mountain villages come to the city in hopes of finding employment. These teachers know how little most children and their families understand the need for sanitary practices. They told us that there is no question about the huge scope of the problem, but added "You have to start somewhere, and Honduras is a good place to start." They said that the parents association in Las Brisas has become well aware of the problem, and they make sure that the bathrooms at the kindergarten are well supplied with soap and toilet paper. Even so, water runs into the community water supply only two days per week, and they have to ration use so that their stored supply does not run out.<br />
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Is a request of this scope just another of many solicitations for a hopeless cause, or is this our calling to take small, deliberate steps to improve children's and communities' access to clean water and adequate sanitation? Is it just coincidence that we are faced with a decision on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day? Can our small steps lead to a change of the scope of Rotary's commitment decades ago to eliminate polio from the world? Some of our group tired of the long discussion we had after dinner to determine whether we can commit to be a sponsor. One member said, "I just want to do the work. I can't deal with writing proposals or deciding who is responsible for documenting how every penny is spent. There is a great need. Let's not hesitate to do something about it." Even so, he recognized that someone needs to design projects, write proposals, and track progress. He said, "I want to help, but not with the bureaucracy.<br />
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In the end, we decided that we will raise $35,000, which we hope we can achieve by raising $10,000 from clubs and our communities and multiply with matching contributions from our Rotary District and the Rotary Foundation. Even if we cannot get matching contributions, $35,000 may not be enough for five separate, pilot projects. All of our clubs in the northern USA take pride in our abundant, clean water. People in the poor communities in Honduras did not consciously decide to contaminate their water supplies any more than the people of Ashland and Barksdale chose to contaminate theirs. Finding sustainable solutions to provide clean water "has to start somewhere."AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-69480753469400469822017-01-14T05:04:00.000-08:002017-01-14T20:10:53.785-08:00Seeking Sustainable Projects<div>
Our work in Honduras was reduced by a day because our flight from Duluth to Chicago was cancelled when a wet snow and fog prevented landings. Instead, we drove an icy highway to Minneapolis and flew directly from there to Houston. When we arrived in Santa Barbara, the local Rotarians were eager to put us to work on the project in Aridita that we planned last year: installing a roof on an expanded multipurpose building in the mountain community of Aridita (14.98037°, -88.30410°) northwest of Santa Barbara in the municipality (like counties in the USA) of Nuevo Celiac. Members of the community and the parents' assocation already had installed new cconcrete block walls and new metal beams when we arrived to assist in putting on new sheets of metal on the roof.</div>
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There always are interesting "synchronicities" on mission trips. The same day we arrived in San Pedro Sula, two missionaries supported by the United Church of Christ's One Great Hour of Sharing also were returning from a trip to Panama and Columbia. Don and Maryjane Westra are natives of Fergus Falls, MN who have been working to make a vocational school program more sustainable in Yoro, Honduras. In rural Honduras, fifty perent of the population lives in extreme poverty. Access to education beyond the elementary grades is very limited, and, therefore, most people lack the skills required for good-paying jobs. Last year one of the Santa Barbara Rotarians asked our group to assist with improving a vocational school in Santa Barbara, and the Westra's have the knowledge and experience to help us understand what approaches might be successful.</div>
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Another Santa Barbara Rotarian met with us during our first evening in the city and asked our group to be a partner in attracting funding from the Rotary Foundation to implement a multi-faceted program to improve rural sanitation and to reduce water-borne disease by enhancing sanitary facilities and practices in area schools. We also came this year with the intention to develop a program of enhanced communications between children in the community of Las Brisas del Pinal (14.94582°, -88.23488°) and children in the Chequamegon Bay area. When we attended the Santa Barbara Rotary Club meeting on Friday evening, a young woman, who is president of the Santa Barbara Rotaract club (young professionals engaged in community service), said that their club would like to collaborate with us in developing this project.</div>
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There is no shortage of important projects where help is needed. One person who is a great help in all these endeavors this year is Allison Radke, the youth minister at the United Presbyterian-Congregational Church in Ashland. Allison's fluency in Spanish and good humor have made her a hit with every group we encounter and a real benefit in our communications.</div>
AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-20841851337050615032016-03-06T10:16:00.001-08:002016-03-06T10:20:05.295-08:00Building Bridges Through The InternetOne of Rotary's four main objectives is "the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional people united in the ideal of service." This goal underlies more than twenty years of collaboration between the north country Rotary clubs and the Santa Barbara Rotary Club. The perspective of Rotarians from the north is that the professionals in the Santa Barbara Rotary Club are much more capable than we to identify critical needs in their home territory. Our tasks in the north are to help people in our area to develop a compassionate understanding of our connections to Honduras and to determine which of the critical needs we are best able to serve.<br />
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The Internet and digital technology are effecting dramatic changes in the ways we collaborate. Traditionally, communications between Santa Barbara and the north needed to occur face-to-face. Even then, we could understand a need only by sending an advance team of northerners along with local Rotarians to a place to prepare a plan of action. Now people in remote villages have cell phones with cameras and email -- even when there is not electrical utility service in the village. Before the north country Rotarians arrive, it is possible to have satellite images of a project site and instant photos of the inside of buildings and the conditions of the local population. Even better, communications no longer need to be limited to the annual mission trip.<br />
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I know only a few words of Spanish. This year I could send an email from Honduras to my wife Becky in Wisconsin (who is fluent in Spanish) and ask her to let the teachers in a village down the road know that i will bring them some instructional equipment at 8:30 A.M. the next day. The teachers sent Becky photos of the donation event before I returned to my hotel. There is nothing better than face-to-face communication, but today's technology allows us to stay in touch year-round.<br />
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Before Steve and i came to Santa Barbara, Becky sent an email to the teachers in that village (Colonia Las Brisas del Pinal; N14.94619, W088.23431), where we built a two-room kindergarten two years ago. A number of people from the United Presbyterian-Congregational Church in Ashland, Wisconsin assisted Rotary in building that kindergarten. Becky has stayed in touch with those teachers ever since, especially with Lily May Oliver-Urbina. Becky asked Lily May if her students needed notebooks, pencils, and crayons that our church had collected for me to take to Honduras. Lily May replied that the school really needed a digital projector so that whole classrooms of students could see a computer screen.<br />
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Our church provided me with a projector to give to the school. Our hope is that communications among the people in our communities no longer need be limited to annual trips. Kids in Honduras can watch kids up north sail-skiing on an ice-covered lake, and kids in Ashland can watch barefoot kids in Honduras adeptly passing soccer balls in the shadow of verdant mountain peaks.<br />
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When I was in elementary school, my teachers arranged for me to write "pen pals" at far-away schools. That entire process has been replaced by Facebook pages and instant messages. It is even more important in this age of instant messages that people have a more sensitive understanding of other people's cultures. We hope that, by sharing this technology, we can build digital bridges between our communities to enhance international understanding united in the ideal of service.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-45725157048602732182016-03-05T14:55:00.001-08:002016-03-06T18:23:35.171-08:00Serving Needs, Assessing NeedsOn Friday we went to another small village in the mountains: El Guineal (N15.15172, W088.28310) in the municipalidad of Trinidad (like an unincorporated village in a rural town in Wisconsin). As we did on Thursday, we helped the villagers to replace a leaky roof on their school with a new one, and we painted the concrete block structure inside and out.
In this season of Lent, there is a certain value in simply picking up a broom or a paintbrush and working alongside a new acquaintance on a community project. This practice reflects Rotary's Motto "Service Above Self." Even though neither of us speaks a common language, we each share a common sense that we are doing something that, in a small way, will enhance the educational experience of a child.<br />
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Does a classroom that is a little brighter and no longer has paint peeling from the concrete block walls make a math lesson more engaging? The teacher standing in front of 45 students in this tiny mountain village tells us that the quality of the classroom affects the quality of learning. So we quietly scrape, sweep, and paint side-by-sde. Neither of us is earning a wage today. We smile at each other and hope that we will help in a small way to enhance opportunties for another generation. Our sweat mixes with the paint in this remote village where families grow and pick cofffee for their livelihoods. The discipline of quietly serving a need without asking questions calms my soul.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from El Guineal.</td></tr>
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But as I track my progress to check whether today's project will be complete when it is time to pack up the tools and head back to Santa Barbara, I start to ask questions. Why am I painting a little schoolhouse on a Honduran mountainside? There is a part of me that wants to know about my daily cup of coffee. If I drink coffee, shouldn't I know something about what goes into getting it to my cup? I take pleasure in knowing the Tetzner family and their farm from which I buy my milk. It seems appropriate that I should learn about the people who provide me with coffee beans. Do these coffee farmers have a similar sense about the people who consume their produce as the Tetzners do about me? It is clear that there are far fewer community resources available for the education of the coffee farmers' children than there are for the Tetzner kids. Is that fair? How much of the market price of coffee goes back to the coffee farmers who produce it?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mayor of Nuevo Celilac and the community<br />
of La Aradita show us their old center.</td></tr>
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When we returned to Santa Barbara at the end of the day, several people made a point of crossing paths with Steve and me. It is good that Steve speaks some Spanish because I would have no idea what to say, even if they succeeded in getting me to understand what they were asking us. Two teachers from one of the Santa Barbara technical schools asked us to take a tour of their facility. It, too, has leaky roofs and inadequate instructional equipment. Then a teacher from the nearby city of Ilama (N15.05882, W088.23267) told us that there are not enough desks for all the students at her school. Then the owner of a coffee farm told us that the community near his farm needs a kindergarten. He said that his family would like to cost-share with us in building a structure. On Friday evening, we joined the meeting of the Santa Barbara Rotarians. They asked us to go to the village of La Aradita (N14.98037, W088.30410) on Saturday morning and meet with the Mayor of the municipalidad of Neuvo Celilac and the village people to discuss what it would take to rebuild their one-room community center, which currently has a ceramic tile roof that leaks badly and which they say is now too small for their needs.<br />
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How should we Rotarians and community members in the north country respond to all these needs? We hear some political leaders say "build a bigger wall on the border and send all these needy people away. Their needs should not be our worry." The fact is that the militarization of the US/Mexico border actually has INCREASED the number of undocumented workers in the US since the late 1980's. US tax dollars now fund a $74 billion private prison industry that employs 800,000 people and locks up migrants, most of who are not violent criminals. The US Border Patrol employs an additional 21,000 workers, and 63,000 undoumented people are imprisoned while awaiting trial. Each person held in detention costs US taxpayers $55,000 per year. It appears to be in the USA's own interest to consider the needs of the people who live south of the border. What needs of the people who grow and pick my coffee, bananas, and palms and who sew my clothes might be served in a way that enhances their lives in their own country?<br />
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All the requests that the Santa Barbara people laid before us are legitimate needs, but the needs are greater than the limited resources that the Latin America Rotary Aid (LARA) program has. At the end of the afternoon, LARA held its annual meeting at our hotel. The participants agreed that we need to set priorities. Somehow, we should look for synergies among projects, and we should explore if there are matching grants that might expand the amount of resources available for a project. That will be part of our homework as we plan next year's service. One LARA member asked if we could enhance the welding program and the wood shop program at the technical college and provide funds for the students to make desks for the students at Ilama. Another asked if we could obtain matching grants through the Rotary Foundation's Vocational Training Team program. The Rotary Foundation will not provide funds to repair leaky roofs, however. We have lots of questions to answer before we can assure donors that their funds will best serve the needs this area faces.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-72688295446454836262016-03-04T04:36:00.002-08:002016-03-06T18:29:44.750-08:00A Very Long Day - Monte Cristo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We worked in a remote mountain village -- Monte Cristo (N 15.12654, W088.301259). We travelled for about 10k on a winding, narrow dirt road up and down hillsides. The community people were already at work when we arrived. The old roof was off, and men were welding metal braces to the angle-iron rafters. 45 school kids were crammed into a tiny school room. We passed out school supplies and then started to work. I'll give more details later.<br />
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When we returned to Santa Barbara, two men were waiting to ask Steve and me to go on a tour of one of the public high schools "collegio technico" in Santa Barbara. It was late when we returned, and I fell into bed. I will have to download photos and write more details after the work in El Guineal today and the Santa Barbara Rotary meeting tonight.<br />
<br />AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-54541615519665037902016-03-03T02:39:00.001-08:002016-03-06T18:33:03.671-08:00Returning After Missing 2015The Latin America Rotary Aid (LARA) board of directors suspended its 2015 Honduras mission trip when we received word of gang violence in Santa Barbara late in 2014. A gang kidnapped a passenger from a taxi cab. There was a shoot-out with a rival gang. The driver was injured and taken to the hospital. The rival gang broke into the hospital and dragged the driver out and killed him. One of the shooting victims was a half-brother of one of our LARA Rotarians, and the incident left her feeling less secure about traveling on remote roads. He had always assured her that, when our team traveled on back roads, he had friends who would watch to assure that we were safe. Even when local Rotarians acccompanied us, she felt more secure because of her half-brother's promise.<br />
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Yesterday I returned with LARA direcctor Steve Rith-Najarian and will meet Mel and Lourdes Tangen tomorrow to start one of two school projects. On this trip we are assessing security and determining what risk management measures we should follow for future trips.<br />
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When we arrived in Santa Barbara yesterday. Rene Vazquez, a local Rotarian, met us at our hotel. He asked why we have such a small group this year. We explained that we were concerned about bringing a larger group until we understand what risks there are to traveling to remote villages. Rene was surprised. He said that conditions in this area are little different from those during our past trips. He said that we need to be concerned about conditions in the large city of San Pedro Sula, but we can continue to be active in the Santa Barbara area. As in the past, we will always have a local Rotarian with us when we travel to the remote villages.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of my clothes made in Honduras.</td></tr>
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It seems as important as ever to maintain our connections with Hondurans. American companies continue to rely on Honduran labor for manufacturing and for agricultural produce. US citizens should be aware of the conditions in the places where we do business. When I packed for this trip, I quickly saw how many of my clothes were made here.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-38444357990422109612014-02-25T06:21:00.003-08:002014-02-28T12:37:55.696-08:00A Family UnitedThis year’s LARA activities included a special dimension. One of the members of our group is a twenty-one year old man Yester Voss from Hamilton, Ohio. Yester was born in Honduras near Santa Barbara with a severe cleft lip and cleft palate. When he was a baby, Yester’s condition could readily be repaired in the United States, but his family could not afford to get the required series of surgeries. Nineteen years ago, Delores Williams of Casa Rosa arranged for him to be adopted by a family in the USA who agreed to see him through the surgeries and to give him a future that he could not have in Honduras. Today, Yester has no facial deformity and no speech impediment.<br />
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As a teenager, Yester began to wonder about his family roots. Did they care about what happened to him? Did they miss him? Did he have Honduran brothers and sisters? His uncle in his adopted family, as a frequent LARA participant, was a friend of Lourdes Tangen. Lourdes is a Honduran woman from Santa Barbara who fell in love with and married Mel Tangen when he came to Santa Barbara on a LARA trip about fifteen years ago. Lourdes moved to Minnesota with Mel and taught in a public school. Mel and Lourdes visit Santa Barbara every year, including the LARA mission. They already have built a house in Santa Barbara, which they plan to use much more frequently after Mel retires. Yester made contact with Lourdes two years ago and asked her to track down his sister when she next came to Honduras.<br />
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That year was my first time serving in LARA, and several of the people in this year’s group were here when we went with Lourdes into the mountains to find Yester’s mother and to give her Yester’s picture. It took all day to drive into the higher mountains where the coffee harvest was still under way. Every few miles Alejandro stopped and asked if anyone new where we could find her. Each time they would reply something like, “just take this road across the next stream and over the mountain to the next valley. About four times of crossing the “next mountain,” we found her. She was expecting us because word went out to the local radio station that a group of Americanos were looking for Yester’s mother.<br />
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The response from Yester’s mother and his sister led Yester to decide to visit his birth family. Lourdes arranged for him to participate in this year’s LARA program and for him to have as much contact with his birth family as he could manage personally. He had continued the contact with his younger sister in San Pedro Sula during the two years since his initial contact. During the flights to San Pedro Sula, Yester told us that he was excited, nervous, and afraid all at the same time. He made a scrap book of his life during the last nineteen years to facilitate a “conversation” between him (who speaks no Spanish) and her (who speaks no English).<br />
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Throughout our nine days in Honduras, Yester’s awareness of his birth family grew. His nineteen year-old sister Breci hoped to meet him at the airport, but she was not able to get off work before we left for Santa Barbara. They sent text messages to each other using translation software. She told him that he had four brothers and four sisters. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yester meets his birth mother for the first time.</td></tr>
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Yester’s mom, two sisters and a brother rode the bus from her village high in the mountains to San Nicholas (N 14⁰ 56.472’, W 088⁰ 19.555’) on Wednesday morning and traveled to San Jeronimo with us. He learned that she and Yester’s father divorced shortly after Yester was adopted, and she is planning a third marriage later this year. Breci actually is his half-sister. There were many hugs and tears on Tuesday, but Yester arranged for his mom, his little brother, and Breci to visit us again on Saturday. His mom and brother accompanied our group to a school restoration project in Santa Rosita (N 15⁰ 11.119’, W 088⁰ 18.205’) in the northeastern part of the department. Breci sent a message that she would take a bus from San Pedro Sula to Santa Barbara after work on Saturday afternoon and meet our group upon our return.<br />
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Friday afternoon yielded an unexpected surprise when we returned from Los Anices. Seven more of Yester’s family were waiting for us in the lobby of our hotel. Yester’s father heard a radio broadcast announcing that a Honduran-born man named Yester was in Santa Barbara with a Rotary International group from the United States . He thought this must be his son. Yester’s dad picks coffee beans in a village that is a two hour drive from Santa Barbara. He loaded as many of his family as possible in a truck and drove to the city in hopes of seeing his son again. With his Honduran father was Yester’s twenty-three year-old full sister Wendy. Wendy was four when her very special little brother was sent away to the USA.<br />
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Yester asked my wife Becky and LARA leader Chris Keenan to help with translation while he and his newly found family visited at a nearby restaurant. In spite of my lack of Spanish, Becky asked me to come and help her be more aware of the group dynamics. Chris asked Yester’s roommate Kade to join us, too, while the rest of our group went off for dinner elsewhere. Yester’s dad and his family had waited all afternoon for his return to Santa Barbara, but they needed to return home in the evening because the winding dirt roads are such a challenge to navigate at night, and everyone had responsibilities back home on Saturday morning.<br />
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Yester’s father clearly was nervous about how Yester would perceive him. Yester’s stepmother is thoughtful and sensitive and helped to assure a positive reunion. But Wendy’s love and joy about finding her special little brother after nineteen years was palpable. She did not need to speak English to show him how happy she was to know that he is well and that he sincerely wanted to find them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yester with his dad (center), Wendy (left), stepmom (right),<br />and nieces.</td></tr>
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Yester and Wendy share the same mother and father, but a birth defect separated them and led them on two very different paths for nineteen years. Yester’s curiosity brought them together again. He did not know about his big sister, but she had never forgotten him. As a child Wendy learned that adoption gave Yester an opportunity for healing that was not available to him in Honduras. She understood that he might embrace his new family in the USA and never want to see his birth family again. But she never stopped caring about her little brother.<br />
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Breci is another amazing sister. She arrived in Santa Barbara on Saturday night and stayed with our group all day Sunday. Pretty, vivacious, and talkative, Breci exudes a confidence and determination that anything is possible if one cares and keeps trying. I introduced myself to her on Sunday morning at the fiesta that the community of Las Brisas del Pinal organized to celebrate the grand opening of their kindergarten. As salsa music blared through the sound system, Breci’s first question of me was, “Do you want to dance?” I replied, “Mas tarde (later).”<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yester and Breci</td></tr>
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Breci kept all the Spanish speakers in our group very busy throughout Saturday night and Sunday because she had so much to tell her big brother about each of his family members and because she wanted to know so much about Yester. On Sunday night Becky was worn out from laughing so much and from non-stop translation in the truck with Yester, Breci, and Kade. If ever Yester needed motivation to learn Spanish, Breci provided it. I won’t be surprised if Breci learns English by next year because she wants so much to be aware of what the Americans around Yester are saying.<br />
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A high point in the reunion took place on Sunday morning at the fiesta in Las Brisas del Pinal. With his mom, little brother, and Breci in the audience, Yester stood at the microphone before the crowd and announced what a pleasure it is to meet his Honduran family and how proud he is to be Honduran. He presented the school with a Honduran flag for its new flag pole. His family and all the community are proud of their homeland, and they welcomed his efforts to reconnect with them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0ea1HjbdDtPN0bDgZNSZYg7_6Z9VHsf1ub3VGpqXJaxrQDDH4jyVWynztbU7Z4xoBzRRIfCyk3tyS7yqpUCXRByFiJs4hA3gVIwz-pesHe5SIPspRQaoJ8BJ97Rk7sQ8QBzSl4S3dEIV/s1600/CleftLipPoster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0ea1HjbdDtPN0bDgZNSZYg7_6Z9VHsf1ub3VGpqXJaxrQDDH4jyVWynztbU7Z4xoBzRRIfCyk3tyS7yqpUCXRByFiJs4hA3gVIwz-pesHe5SIPspRQaoJ8BJ97Rk7sQ8QBzSl4S3dEIV/s1600/CleftLipPoster.jpg" height="320" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Pedro Sula Airport donation<br /> box for helping babies with cleft lip.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As Yester spoke with a newly found confidence before the crowd gathered outside the kindergarten, I wondered about the difference between him and me. Was it just a fluke of genetics? He was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate, just as I was born with hernia. Both required surgery early on that we hardly remember. For Yester the surgery was not accessible to his birth family. Like me Yester received the required surgery from loving parents who raised him in the United States. Yester was overwhelmed by the joyous welcome and loving embraces he received from his Honduran family, people of very limited means who always wanted nothing more for him than the best future possible. Now Yester feels a deep gratitude for a caring presence he did not recognize before his journey with our LARA group. Everyone in our group has been touched by Yester’s reunion.<br />
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Like Yester, all of our LARA team are returning home with a broader understanding of who our “family” is. Simply by inviting Yester to join our LARA team, we shared a life-changing experience with him that brought each of us closer to mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers in Honduras. We, too, feel like part of Yester’s family. We are reminded of the One who said, “Whoever joins together in serving the greater Good is my brother and my sister and my mother.” At the gate at the Houston International Airport as we prepared to journey to our respective homes, Yester hugged each of his LARA family members, and we wished each other well. We all are eager to know how Yester’s reunion will play out, and we are pleased to be part of it.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-92122534955972773632014-02-22T05:44:00.000-08:002014-02-28T12:42:54.733-08:00Hope For The Future<i>Comment About Communication </i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i>It has been difficult for me to find time to write a blog on this trip. Our hotel has wireless Internet access, but the signal does not reach Becky’s and my room. The system is slow in the afternoon and the evening, apparently because so many people are using the system. Last year there were two in the group who had notebook computers. This year everyone has a smartphone or a tablet with wireless capability. When I go the lobby in the morning before breakfast, I now get updates on the weather conditions in Ashland, and the latest news about spouses and children. It used to be that we all were eager to check-in on family as soon as we landed back in the USA. Now there are on-going conversations. There are now multiple ways to follow our group. Not only is there Chris Lindsey’s school blog (</i><a href="http://chrislindseyinhonduras.blogspot.com/"><i>http://ChrisLindseyInHonduras.blogspot.com</i></a><i>), but there also are Mary Hymans’ and Bill Holzhaeuser’s Facebook pages.</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>That also is increasingly the situation in the remote mountain villages. People may not have electrical power and certainly do not have landline telephones, but there appear to be several households in every village with cell phones. When we ask people how we best can check back with them after we return home, they all reply that there is no reliable mail delivery, but we can post a message on their Facebook page. Cell phones with data plans are much more common than running water, and there is nowhere that flowing potable water is available.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Las Brisas del Pinal</b></span><br />
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On Tuesday morning we were greeted at Las Brisas del Pinal (N 14⁰56.749’, W 088⁰14.093’) just north of Santa Barbara by volunteers from the community who already were busy at work putting screen grates in the windows of the new building. One benefit of working in collaboration with the local community and the local Rotary club is that things that seem impossible to us with our way of doing things are readily accomplished by our local partners. For example, the steel grates for the windows needed to be welded to re-bar running through the concrete blocks in the walls. Doing so required electricity. But the electric meter for the school has not yet been installed. The community member with welding skills simply climbed up the nearest power pole, spliced in an electrical connection, and unwound a coil of two strand wire with an outlet box on the end. He grounded the system with a jumper cable clipped to a long piece of re-bar leaning against the building (note to Mike Sherry: I do not think this guy has bought professional insurance yet. Here is a potential client who really could use it).<br />
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Two trucks from our team were tasked with picking up paint and painting supplies for the new building. While we waited from the supplies to arrive, our group of fifteen walked a half block down the street to the apartment building where the kindergarten classes were meeting. Several mothers (one with a baby in her arms) were there helping the teacher with the classes. Several of the moms of the five-year-olds in class appeared to be teenagers. They all were excited that real classrooms would soon be available for their children.<br />
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Right before our eyes was a vision of the change our group was trying to facilitate. Only about sixty percent of the kids in Honduras who start elementary school persist through sixth grade. The average per capita income is less than $1,900 US per year. Fifty percent of the population in rural areas live in extreme poverty. Twenty percent of the girls from ages 15 through 19 years are married or in marriage-like unions. Twenty-six percent of women from ages 20 through 24 years gave birth before they were 18 years old.<br />
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The clearest path out of a cycle of poverty for Hondurans, and for Honduran girls in particular, is education that leads them to seeing a different path for themselves. The young mothers helping with the kindergarten classes clearly could see this for their children. They want their kids to like going to school. They want their kids to like reading and writing and learning science and math skills. If your five-year old has to leave school simply to use a toilet, what are the chances that he or she will want to come back to class?<br />
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The president of the local parents association is a woman in her thirties. She welcomed our group and then pulled Becky aside. “We very much appreciate that you are building a kindergarten with functioning toilets,” Becky translated, “but do you know that, while our elementary school has a toilet building, there are no toilets inside and no connection to the sewer line. Could you possibly help to assure that there are functional toilets in both schools so that our children will stay in school when they have to use a toilet?”<br />
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It’s difficult to imagine that any of my kids would have persisted through kindergarten if they had to run home every time they needed to use the toilet. Having a classrooms, dedicated teachers, functional facilities, and books all are challenges here, but the parents we met are sincerely intent on seeing their kids find a better future.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-40479757126166054782014-02-20T04:30:00.001-08:002014-02-20T04:30:09.868-08:00Across the Rio GrandeAlmost all of our group arrived in Honduras on Sunday as planned. Twenty-three of the twenty-five in our group were present and accounted for in Houston on Saturday night. The only problem was that Larry’s and Phyllis’s flight from Denver was cancelled. They were delayed one day. We tasked our guide Alejandro to go to San Pedro Sula to get them on Monday while the rest of us scoped the schools and communities that the Santa Barbara Rotarians wanted us to consider in addition to completing the kindergarten in Las Brisas del Pinal. René Vazquez, who was re elected president of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club met with our group at dinner on Sunday night to discuss the potential projects and the communities the club recommended for us. We also discussed our preliminary schedule for the week ahead.<br />
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Steve Rith-Najarian, a Bemidji Rotarian and one of our LARA leaders, arranged with Avis to rent five, four-wheel drive, extended cab pick-up trucks from their San Pedro Sula lot upon our arrival on Sunday. and 24 people (our group and René) to visit three remote villages. Without Alejandro and his Land Cruiser on Monday, there was not room for everyone inside the trucks. Some people needed to ride in the backs of the trucks. Kade Platta and Yester Voss hopped in back of one truck, and Dan and Mary Hymans climbed in back of another. The ride did not seem that bad at first, but it did not take long before we were off of the paved road and climbing up and down steep hillsides on deeply-rutted, dusty, dirt roads. After the first stop, most of those in back were ready to switch.<br />
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The only one who stayed in back for the entire day was Kade, the high school senior. He wanted to experience as much of every scene as he possibly could: men carrying loads of firewood on the backs of horses, little 3-wheeled taxis (a driver in front and room for two in back) zipping by us at hair-pin turns, bright yellow flowers on trees without leaves (characteristic of tropical dry-season conditions), young women carrying babies on their hips as youngsters ran ahead, men wearing high rubber boots (as snake protection) and carrying machetes on their way to work in small fields on the steep slopes, skinny cattle foraging on roadside vegetation, chickens dashing from side-to-side across the road, and toothless, elderly women waving “adios” from the doorways of small, brightly-colored one-room houses. This is Kade’s first time outside of the USA. All the reading he has done at home does not compare with the power of each new, first-hand encounter.<br />
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We crossed one of several Honduran rivers called “Rio Grande.” This one was the Rio Grande de Otoro. There was a long narrow bridge across the wide river and a sign warning that no more than one vehicle should be one the bridge at any time. We needed the four-wheel drive capability in several places along the way. Our most distant school is only about thirty kilometers (18 miles) southwest of Santa Barbara, but it was a 90 minute journey.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoSNlBT5Gfa-ty4MkILQyxcyVpzw3uhasNS7_b9gF36jT5HMaEx4Q43tgIHt82W7Rqq9yEsy9bupKbB71c6-u95tX-vn0Y7dE0bC-lhaFiIexZuUCkyh55kulHVWVd6oTbnLlaL2QaoOfC/s1600/IMG_1326.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoSNlBT5Gfa-ty4MkILQyxcyVpzw3uhasNS7_b9gF36jT5HMaEx4Q43tgIHt82W7Rqq9yEsy9bupKbB71c6-u95tX-vn0Y7dE0bC-lhaFiIexZuUCkyh55kulHVWVd6oTbnLlaL2QaoOfC/s1600/IMG_1326.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>The little village of Teocinte (N 14⁰45.705’, W 088⁰17.242’) sat on a steep hillside. Part of a group followed a woman up the road to her bright pink house, where she showed the group her pig and chickens. She lamented the educational challenges that kids face in her village: forty elementary kids and one teacher. How can they learn? Our Santa Barbara Rotarian said that, if we replace the roof, the kids at least will have a functional school house. Without that much, the kids spend more time dodging the water falling on their desks than they do listening to the teacher.<br />
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The largest school we visited has seventy-five students and three teachers in the village of San Jeronimo (N 14⁰59.460’, W 088⁰17.660’), about 15 km northwest of Santa Barbara. The teachers eagerly embraced Chris Lindsey’s proposal to establish communications between their students and Chris’s students at the charter school in Ashland. They did not want just one age-group to participate. All three teachers wanted all of their students involved in the project.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM9BQGbN-zedIHIkNliJmJ7PvGvHp18aHKgawUkou_jPyvKATeAbsuxKcbtyTBIXP5NLPhAL1r5knoupYqLCT4I8yjg-lEgOYMGoHq9pdqzDanja9fhb06N0Olww6OUq3WdIGUhjbWrTPN/s1600/IMG_1314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM9BQGbN-zedIHIkNliJmJ7PvGvHp18aHKgawUkou_jPyvKATeAbsuxKcbtyTBIXP5NLPhAL1r5knoupYqLCT4I8yjg-lEgOYMGoHq9pdqzDanja9fhb06N0Olww6OUq3WdIGUhjbWrTPN/s1600/IMG_1314.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>By the time we returned to Santa Barbara and dropped off Chris Keenan to order materials for the first two projects, it was getting late. Our last potential project is only about 6 km north of Santa Barbara in the village of Los Anices (N 14⁰56.893’, W 088⁰12.591’), near the Santa Barbara Mountain National Forest Reserve. By the time we arrived, the teachers had taken their bus rides home. They asked representatives of the local Parents’ Association to meet us and show us the problem with their school house. Rotarians had replaced the roof at this little two-room school several years ago, but now the wooden trusses are riddled with termite holes. Unless the trusses are replaced, the roof will soon collapse.<br />
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We returned to our base in Santa Barbara without visiting the day care center that the Rotarians want us also to consider. It is in the city. If we have sufficient funds and time by the end of the week, we may be able to assist with it. For now, we needed to debrief about what we had seen and how we wanted to serve. Each community had high hopes for our help.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-3460416769564158602014-02-11T08:14:00.000-08:002014-02-11T08:14:20.039-08:00Kindergarten Construction ProgressBecause we were not able to transfer the project funds to our account in Honduras before our Latin America Rotary Aid (LARA) team departed last February, the Santa Barbara Rotarians led the construction work in our absence. As of November 2013, the concrete block walls and the roof were completed (see the picture). We hope to have a community celebration for the project when we return to Las Brisas del Pinal next week.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw3mNf_uQdOYs2jE1jhDU0OfBYTJNMQDHBh1m54fdl1OvLJ0KN5lVMUG9ebBXlPGAQEa6y1M4jUu8JCFCFfxwpzrBq14Jx5TJxZ3Db5utrzZn_FnNGMc_rYWOi_BffVXZjphfE9JMGVSDd/s1600/LasBrisasKinder2013_11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw3mNf_uQdOYs2jE1jhDU0OfBYTJNMQDHBh1m54fdl1OvLJ0KN5lVMUG9ebBXlPGAQEa6y1M4jUu8JCFCFfxwpzrBq14Jx5TJxZ3Db5utrzZn_FnNGMc_rYWOi_BffVXZjphfE9JMGVSDd/s1600/LasBrisasKinder2013_11.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>Enthusiasm has grown within our Rotary district for the work we are doing. Our team this year includes twice as many participants as we have had on the past two trips. One could ask whether the airlines are the real beneficiaries of our service rather than needy people in Honduras. What is the real benefit of our traveling to Honduras to provide service? If our goal were simply to improve health and educational opportunities, we would be more effective simply by sending money to local aid organizations. Part of the object of Rotary to build an international FELLOWSHIP of people united in service to advance understanding, goodwill, and world peace. The emphasis is on the importance of PERSONAL acquaintance. Our service will have greater impact if we develop on-going relationships within our group, with Santa Barbara Rotarians, and with families in the communities we assist. With a group of 25, it will be a challenge to reach beyond our familiar acquiantances, but I think doing so will enhance the value of the trip for all of us.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Kids' Future Success Grows From Long-Term Partnerships</span></strong><br />
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I am a newcomer to LARA. This year will be Becky's and my third trip. Much of our effectiveness during our brief visits is a result of on-going relationships that started more than twenty years ago, largely through the joint efforts of Delores Williams, a Santa Barbara Rotarian, and Ted Will, a Bemidji Rotarian. Delores was a former Peace Corps volunteer who stayed in Honduras and established an aid center called Casa Rosa, which means "pink house" in Spanish. She operated out of a pink-colored house that was well known in the community. For many years, Delores operated as the commanding general for Rotary aid in Santa Barbara. She passed away before Becky and I joined a LARA team, but her spirit continues in many efforts. I met Ted Will at the Rotary district conference in Bemidji last spring, and his continuing enthusiasm for the mission might explain why our team is twice as large this year. He could not be more excited to see new participants on LARA teams as our service continues.<br />
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For many of us, our knowledge of Honduras is simply that it is a source of illegal immigrants. Many Hondurans do depend on income from abroad. A sixth of Honduras' gross national income is from money sent by family members working largely in North America. It is harder for us to see how our own personal actions contribute to a cycle of poverty in Honduras. Often the last thing we consider when we purchase bananas, T-shirts, coffee, or items containing palm oil is the history, policies, or working conditions that brought these items to our store shelves. One of the most obvious indications of North American influence in Honduras is what we see before we land in San Pedro Sula. The flat, fertile land surrounding the airport is dominated by banana and oil palm plantations for export crops. We will not see local food crops until we drive to the steep, rocky hillsides on our way to Santa Barbara. As we visit with Honduran families, we can ask what conditions promote kids' staying in school and girls' delaying raising families unitl after they develop the knowledge and skills needed for occupations supporting a sustainable lifestyle. Those are the conditions we hope to support through Latin America Rotary Aid.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-92092362291817508482013-02-17T04:34:00.002-08:002013-02-17T22:11:30.191-08:00Down In The Valley<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Friday morning our group split into two teams so that we
can achieve our goals for the week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
team headed up the road to the northwest above San Nicholas to the city of
Tierra Blanca (N 14⁰57.496’ W088⁰19.437’).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their job was to replace a leaky roof over one of the classrooms of the
elementary school there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our local guide
Alejandro took Becky and me down from our hotel to the northern outskirts of
the City of Santa Barbara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here, in the
barrio (neighborhood) of Colonia Las Brisas del Pinal (N14⁰56.749’ W088⁰14.093’),
is the proposed site of a kindergarten for the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our team’s task was to assess the situation
in the community and to evaluate how their needs may have changed subsequent to
the closing of the maquiladora (T-shirt factory) last year.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our hearts sank when we arrived at the elementary school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The doors were locked, and no children were
present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alejandro said that, on one
Friday each month, the teachers from schools around the area gather in Santa
Barbara for a meeting with the district administration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This must be the teacher meeting day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When our LARA group drove by this school a year ago, we met
briefly with Ulices Bonegos, president of the neighborhood parents association.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of a disability with his eyesight,
Ulices is a local community leader who appears to be well known around Santa
Barbara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked Alejandro if we might
find Ulices and ask him to help us with our task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alejandro called to a child who was watching
us on the street and asked him to find Ulices. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a few minutes the child returned with
Ulices, a kind hearted, middle-aged man who was carrying his three year-old
daughter in one arm.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I heard that you would be here on February 15,” Ulices
said as Becky translated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am very
pleased to see you again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Becky and I wondered how HE knew we would be coming today
because we did not even discuss our visit until after we learned that the
project funds had successfully transferred to the bank in Santa Barbara two
days ago. It’s clear that Ulices has a very effective, informal network for
gathering news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe he knows the one
person who is reading our blog this week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We told him that we hoped to meet the kindergarten teacher, but we did
not realize that today is the teacher meeting day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Yo4PPzlWxhuhX1cd4JFZz0WzlHrXnjSxoL3vkm5mqN6bbSlIMogzb9qOFnQZthjzKdfO9U8PAS73PsueQ7G0TaPt3yqgIpn-dShteFhDslS3yPrVi80jcbEkhopD7qqjUDQoMEtxvCE7/s1600/IMG_0892.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Yo4PPzlWxhuhX1cd4JFZz0WzlHrXnjSxoL3vkm5mqN6bbSlIMogzb9qOFnQZthjzKdfO9U8PAS73PsueQ7G0TaPt3yqgIpn-dShteFhDslS3yPrVi80jcbEkhopD7qqjUDQoMEtxvCE7/s320/IMG_0892.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ulices (right), teacher (center) with moms & kids</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It’s no problem,” he said. “Only the elementary teachers
are meeting today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kindergarten is still
in session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll take you down the
street to see the classes and to meet the teacher.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Clean Water and Sanitation<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As we walked down the dirt street to the two rented rooms
used for the kindergarten, Ulices pointed to the ditch that runs between the
road and the building and to the plastic 4-inch pipe that opens into the ditch
next to the entrance to the kindergarten. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“This is the discharge (“agua negro”) from the toilet,” he
said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is unsanitary.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjboWvgfKwBHozWHLU6ck5B96Y_4oRZjknrYTi7eW3ytRHasQWCH1F5EW4-0-7DGWr9OE3984povulnk4a84pini9yDqYnRd-V9LLfEsc6_p05Iu7oE3il6vCqqyljBJRCEyWzGF1fRYqdK/s1600/IMG_0881.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjboWvgfKwBHozWHLU6ck5B96Y_4oRZjknrYTi7eW3ytRHasQWCH1F5EW4-0-7DGWr9OE3984povulnk4a84pini9yDqYnRd-V9LLfEsc6_p05Iu7oE3il6vCqqyljBJRCEyWzGF1fRYqdK/s320/IMG_0881.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Toilet discharge to ditch by the kindergarten</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">UNICEF reports that 80 percent of urban dwellers in Honduras
and 62 percent of rural residents have access to improved sanitation
facilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These kindergarteners are
clearly in the minority. Less than half of the county’s children under five
years-old with diarrhea receive rehydration and continued feeding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honduras’ schools provide children a free,
mid-morning meal, but this kindergarten has no food preparation area and one
toilet for 60 four and five year-olds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some neighborhood mothers prepare the children’s food at home and bring
it to the rented rooms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ulices introduced us to Lily May Oliver Urbina the
kindergarten teacher as several neighborhood mothers took the children outside
to play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lily May has been a teacher in
Santa Barbara for twenty-five years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
said that there are 395 families in this neighborhood, and most of them have
children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most have experienced great
hardship since the factory closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Typically, the men of the household leave during the day to find work
picking coffee beans, and the women stay home to care for their children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lily does her best to make the dark apartment
rooms inviting for her students, but there is little ventilation and crowded
conditions for so many people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because there
are too few desks and chairs, she has the older students sit on a board
supported by two concrete blocks along one wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was clear to us that the need for
classrooms and safe, sanitary facilities was as great as ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnleP4iMvvsTzHCjq_c9HZuAGs6xnLYVNn9V-vFBVY6A9pYFDJF6POB-qG52ABtR-1l-TAs9FA2BksKMC3ClcLKmCQW0_DTiAF3ecaphmGLZRJi0ZkPlEu-xWQW0o8QxCndRJ5sCmEGxD/s1600/IMG_0886.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnleP4iMvvsTzHCjq_c9HZuAGs6xnLYVNn9V-vFBVY6A9pYFDJF6POB-qG52ABtR-1l-TAs9FA2BksKMC3ClcLKmCQW0_DTiAF3ecaphmGLZRJi0ZkPlEu-xWQW0o8QxCndRJ5sCmEGxD/s320/IMG_0886.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kindergarten teacher Lily May (left) with several of her students<br />
and a mother helper.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our team headed off to join the others at Tierra
Blanca.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>René, president-elect of the
Santa Barbara Rotary Club, Chris Keenan, one of the leaders of the Latin
American Rotary Aid program, Becky, and I sat around a first grade desk in the elementary school where the group was working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went
line-by-line through the construction plans and materials needed to construct a
two-classroom kindergarten with toilets connected to the city sanitary sewer
and with a food preparation area connected to the city water line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>René said that he would serve as the local
leader for the project and that club members would supply all the unskilled
labor as well as the construction engineering needed to complete the project by
August of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our group and our
USA/Canada Rotary District will purchase the materials.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Celebrating the Start of Construction</strong></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Friday evening the Santa Barbara Rotarians invited Lily May,
Ulices, and the new president of the Colonia Brisas del Pinal Parents
Association to the Rotary meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
evening was a celebration of the projects we had completed this week, and a
commitment to a big construction project about to be launched in support of the
community’s next generation of leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlE1Tbr9AH9KaP25gatG1z2BoZVrW8ChjsugWxyVZ3WtG10ACGgGN2DPt-TtxglhKh4xVytCvh80qaGv7zEV1zV4kMT1XrCp2ZmmN0leL4-AGrLjToYiEMqsUmbEUeWuXZmXMHFHx-XM8_/s1600/IMG_0918.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlE1Tbr9AH9KaP25gatG1z2BoZVrW8ChjsugWxyVZ3WtG10ACGgGN2DPt-TtxglhKh4xVytCvh80qaGv7zEV1zV4kMT1XrCp2ZmmN0leL4-AGrLjToYiEMqsUmbEUeWuXZmXMHFHx-XM8_/s640/IMG_0918.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Santa Barbara Roatary Club's celebration to start building a kindergarten for Colonia Las Brisas del Pinal.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-14493881732440801932013-02-16T14:29:00.001-08:002013-02-17T22:13:01.992-08:00Mountaintop Experiences<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Solving Local Problems<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Wednesday and Thursday, February 13‑14, we worked
side-by-side with parents and teachers in the mountain villages of Pueblo Nuevo
and Las Quebradas to make their local schools more rain resistant and
inviting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Pueblo Nuevo we replaced a
leaky metal roof and painted the one-room school inside and out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The school district in Las Quebradas had
purchased a house adjacent to its existing elementary school for a
kindergarten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The community had knocked
out an interior wall of the concrete block house to create a decent area for
teaching, but the interior walls were grey unpainted blocks; the old metal roof
leaked, and the rafters were rotted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPt2y5jiCGfhBZL7lMy7iYe9bxEf6SfxLlEMWGPOLZnaiV1cj_cfFcfAo-fC6gBkV0foM76En738pD-ET25QAWCurHrvQDKVFF23e0i0UdXCntL_Lm9Xp_5F70IP8Th3tCd1Sr0yd0rjr/s1600/IMG_0750.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPt2y5jiCGfhBZL7lMy7iYe9bxEf6SfxLlEMWGPOLZnaiV1cj_cfFcfAo-fC6gBkV0foM76En738pD-ET25QAWCurHrvQDKVFF23e0i0UdXCntL_Lm9Xp_5F70IP8Th3tCd1Sr0yd0rjr/s320/IMG_0750.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Installing new rafters for the new roof</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is the real value of replacing a roof and painting a
school?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is helping these villages with
these projects creating a cycle of dependency?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do villagers simply say, “It’s too expensive; let the gringos do it for
us” instead of solving their own problems and providing for their own needs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Steve Rith‑Najarian, a member of our
team who has been coming here for more than twenty years, told us of past
experiences where team members came to solve a community’s problems and only
created more unintended problems. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
told about a community garbage dump that also served as a treasure trove for
little kids who picked through the rat-infested debris to find things that
wealthier families had discarded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
dump was an obvious source of disease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The group decided that the solution was to build a high fence around the
dump and to set hours when the dump would be open and supervised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result was that people started leaving
their garbage at the gate when the dump was closed. Soon there were two dumps:
one inside the fence and one outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The poor children still combed through a filthy mess in hopes of finding
treasures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Steve’s point was that “solving” problems for other people
is doomed to failure if the community members themselves have not participated
in developing the solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes a
lot of time and local leadership development for a community to sift through
the mountain of challenges it faces and to set priorities for the needs that most
villagers believe will make the greatest difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is where our partnership with the Santa
Barbara Rotary Club is critical to the success of the few projects we support
each year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The local Rotarians take much
personal time throughout the year meeting with communities spread throughout
the department, assessing their needs, and identifying the communities who are
committed to implementing changes that our group simply facilitates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Providing materials and a little extra labor
is valuable to a community in extreme poverty, but, more than that, it is an
affirmation from outside of long, tireless effort inside the community to make
lives of everyone a little better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHRM-FqfnqGijDe-E8xx4H4aLMPene9Y8LoaGsYg3tIwRbl52r-bZDxVuff7i0tQACDoqvBPVGBGXW1-wF96qdC5bRxD-oWqLGDn0sNk2z0zwNq8Vbd27PH0am6Om_sJ7hvHqqHHVXopG/s1600/IMG_0769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHRM-FqfnqGijDe-E8xx4H4aLMPene9Y8LoaGsYg3tIwRbl52r-bZDxVuff7i0tQACDoqvBPVGBGXW1-wF96qdC5bRxD-oWqLGDn0sNk2z0zwNq8Vbd27PH0am6Om_sJ7hvHqqHHVXopG/s320/IMG_0769.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Students paint their school for class tomorrow</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In many ways, the men and women we meet as we lift a sheet
of steel roofing or paint a wall are models for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we fret about the gridlock we face in
dealing with problems in our own communities, we can look to these local
leaders who struggle daily to find food for their families or to get healthcare
for a sick child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What they give out of
so little for their village makes us almost feel ashamed of the things we complain
about in our home towns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>We Are Connected to Each Other<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is hard for us to see the impact of our own decisions at
home on the lives of the people in Honduras:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>when we buy Central American fruit or coffee in the grocery store, when
we buy a T-shirt, or buy a car or truck “made in America.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is very easy for us to complain that
illegal Honduran immigrants are simply trying to take resources from us in the
USA when we do not see the harsh consequences of our own purchasing decisions
on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we compare products in a
store, we usually limit our choices to quality, price, and brand
recognition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How often do we look at
what it took to get that price and to make that product?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">By visiting Honduras we see the effects of the economic
power we wield on families outside our borders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Would people in our country tolerate having people in another country do
to us what we do to them with our economic and military power?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The OPEC nations give us a small taste of our
own medicine when they manipulate the world supply of oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hondurans are in no position to strike back
when the US intervenes in their country to protect the control of US fruit
companies over the best agricultural land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do we ever hear about sending US Marines to Honduras to favor the
control of private US interests over the interests of Honduran citizens?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is news we choose not to hear and history
we choose not to learn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Education Is a Key to Improvement<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The villagers in Pueblo Nuevo and Las Quebradas know that
they cannot break their cycle of poverty without educated children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 75% of Honduran children get through
sixth grade. Less than a third of high school age kids go to high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even fewer rural youth go to high
school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not simply because a
family needs teenagers to contribute to its survival, but also because there
are no high schools in rural areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
teenager has to leave home and live in a city where there is a high school.
Sometimes this happens when a family has relatives in the city who are able to
take in the teenager while they attend school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The teenager may have to combine work and school in order to provide
room and board, school uniforms, and school supplies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One teacher we met planned to leave his job
near the City of Santa Barbara so that his daughter could attend collegio
(grades 10‑12) in the City of Tegucigalpa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The parents did not want their teenage daughter to fend for herself in
the big city, but they were committed to her educational achievement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZL8mxepBBwH3Raptb_FYFFnaVJEuRBo7unKrGxMUCOjTmaNQXm61zBPGg4DEkRw5vns8pxpEENGgqyuc-SnKoJ4er9jbtNrG-h6kdbYFOcIfZxIVgvcRmf0P6SpbaiH4bi9BhH8mK7JJp/s1600/IMG_0762.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZL8mxepBBwH3Raptb_FYFFnaVJEuRBo7unKrGxMUCOjTmaNQXm61zBPGg4DEkRw5vns8pxpEENGgqyuc-SnKoJ4er9jbtNrG-h6kdbYFOcIfZxIVgvcRmf0P6SpbaiH4bi9BhH8mK7JJp/s320/IMG_0762.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pueblo Nuevo teacher with his students</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our work down here is largely aimed at the other end of the
educational spectrum: kids entering school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The kindergarten teachers we met are trying to make their classrooms
inviting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want children to love
learning and to be excited about going to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a five-year-old prefers helping her parents
to pick coffee beans to attending school, it’s difficult for them to assure
that she will stay in school while they are working on a mountainside far from
their village during the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
obvious that the kindergarteners we met adored their teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not know how the teachers do it when
they have so little materials in their classrooms, but the teachers were the
Pied Pipers of their communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Striving Toward Sustainability<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbog9YODWjttL0l2kOAdAtXZPxiJ2p7yZZCyje9j76AkPyi4goF9ROHm9xvsLUy23chLIiPbCjq4e1jb9ssIdc_4NttQnM8E-XZscP5iLdjtX6mEu0YrPAvUO7Bo-4SQ96KzchCu-2j_Y/s1600/IMG_0810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbog9YODWjttL0l2kOAdAtXZPxiJ2p7yZZCyje9j76AkPyi4goF9ROHm9xvsLUy23chLIiPbCjq4e1jb9ssIdc_4NttQnM8E-XZscP5iLdjtX6mEu0YrPAvUO7Bo-4SQ96KzchCu-2j_Y/s320/IMG_0810.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A worker earns 15 lempira (75 cents) per<br />
3-gallon basket of berries picked.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What are solutions to the economic hardships Hondurans
face?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The country created economic
incentives for foreign companies to establish maquiladoras here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maquiladoras are factories operated by
foreign companies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The maquiladora near
Santa Barbara was owned by a South Korean company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The firm imported cotton cloth and hired
Honduran workers (mostly women) to make T-shirts and shipped the finished
product for sale in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Laborers who faced high levels of unemployment in the rural villages
were pleased to find employment at the factory, but there were stories of
worker abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Workers complained that
they were forced to work overtime rather than be allowed to go home to prepare
meals for their children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were
reports of company officials giving women free “vitamin supplements” that
actually were morning-after pills that employers used to prevent women workers
from becoming pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The neighborhood
Colonia Las Brisas del Pinal is now reeling in economic hardship because the
nearby maquiladora closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the
families that moved here for jobs are now returning to coffee fincas during the
daytime to pick coffee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Brayan, the Santa Barbara Rotarian who worked with us at
Pueblo Nuevo, owns three parcels of land nearby totaling about sixty acres where
he was growing coffee. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has a vision
for how to achieve sustainable development, and he was eager to show us efforts.
He and his wife Miriam are in their late twenties and have a six year-old
daughter Sharon. They own a building supply store in Santa Barbara. After we
finished repairing the school, Brayan took a group of us for a walk farther up
the mountain to his coffee finca.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
showed us a row of small ceiba trees he planted among his coffee plants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Everyone here says I’m crazy to put so much effort into
planting these trees,” he said as Becky translated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It will be twenty years before they are
ready for harvest, but, in twenty years, each tree will yield 200 board feet of
lumber at $2 per board foot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it
will be too late to provide for my wife and me, but it will be valuable for our
children.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwRy2gQgQCV-p59g1Uirme-i1A32kDW0VZGoTg1FG1cmUFPetlXILVVPv-5aoGV8ZOD504_fkrBqxkeCBGmq2c_LpExDup2VwVNVDaWpNvxnKXHVXh4FnKmI2Lrd0G-hXHdjMzl8o3TFhW/s1600/IMG_0795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwRy2gQgQCV-p59g1Uirme-i1A32kDW0VZGoTg1FG1cmUFPetlXILVVPv-5aoGV8ZOD504_fkrBqxkeCBGmq2c_LpExDup2VwVNVDaWpNvxnKXHVXh4FnKmI2Lrd0G-hXHdjMzl8o3TFhW/s320/IMG_0795.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Separating the beans from the fruit</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Brayan said that the finca workers did not realize that he
did not want the tall shade trees cut when they planted the coffee plants in
this area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tradition in the area was
to thin the forest before planting the new coffee plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brayan wants to manage his land for both the overstory
trees and the understory coffee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
showed us how the fleshy fruit of the coffee berry is separated from the beans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiAMLlFj54Y_4m-oTk6Qorx8J4AHrdwfJPr9-APA5lIqJ2avuc9pBpMg9Kic0ZQY_p3OnslhJEG-bSf6_lTDgCcAoE1hNAA-SbkMDwl6mroSA3OFAVYmFVL0UVxC_y7AXxzfOS1LsTUrS/s1600/IMG_0788.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiAMLlFj54Y_4m-oTk6Qorx8J4AHrdwfJPr9-APA5lIqJ2avuc9pBpMg9Kic0ZQY_p3OnslhJEG-bSf6_lTDgCcAoE1hNAA-SbkMDwl6mroSA3OFAVYmFVL0UVxC_y7AXxzfOS1LsTUrS/s320/IMG_0788.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making corn tortillas from scratch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Most people here let the fruit of the berries wash down the
hillside,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I save the organic
matter and compost it to enhance the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a valuable resource.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjKmFHKSPZ2mWLpKwjIGC0k_e0kNiF9PfPKLRlutMG_8scssIcBhnIa1VMhO4xg7Iq4HRHAoz_hFSfaYGlUn4ujz5W3qNG2qLKZU_yYP29GCYNYw-gk_GUGK-Ydi_54HhV4O0-xP6k4-9/s1600/IMG_0786.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjKmFHKSPZ2mWLpKwjIGC0k_e0kNiF9PfPKLRlutMG_8scssIcBhnIa1VMhO4xg7Iq4HRHAoz_hFSfaYGlUn4ujz5W3qNG2qLKZU_yYP29GCYNYw-gk_GUGK-Ydi_54HhV4O0-xP6k4-9/s320/IMG_0786.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cooking on a wood burning stove</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He went on to explain that he is making changes to the
traditional ways coffee is produced and harvested in order to have his
operation certified by the Rainforest Alliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He said he currently is in the early stage of certification, but he is
upgrading living quarters for coffee pickers, improving forest cover over the
plants, and reducing his use of industrial chemicals in order to be fully
certified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He expects certification to
improve the quality of the coffee he produces, to increase the price he can get
for his product, and to increase the income of the families who work on the
finca.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Brayan took us to the century-old building where his coffee
pickers live during the harvest and to the kitchen where their meals are
prepared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A woman in the kitchen showed
how she makes sixty tortillas per meal twice a day from dried kernels of corn on a
wood-fired stove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old building had
rows of triple decker bunk beds for twenty-four workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that, even though this is a long-time
tradition in this area, he will be building smaller, more family-friendly
quarters with better sanitation for the workers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMft7pH-xtpDzyLwo9n_4z85TaJZjxJYr5-CeyZArS9EXbEBNpJo44tZFIFj4yUjTBxn8IwC32vZ7X7iItTQmHW93Vh1x_veNoKWQsw2eEjPNxuAbqmewPvjIL_X7gb63rXCdP7NEZv8PR/s1600/IMG_0804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMft7pH-xtpDzyLwo9n_4z85TaJZjxJYr5-CeyZArS9EXbEBNpJo44tZFIFj4yUjTBxn8IwC32vZ7X7iItTQmHW93Vh1x_veNoKWQsw2eEjPNxuAbqmewPvjIL_X7gb63rXCdP7NEZv8PR/s320/IMG_0804.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Workers' bunk beds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At the dinner meeting of the Santa Barbara Rotarians last
night, Brayan and Miriam gave each of us two pounds of coffee from their finca
as a sign of thanks for the help we provided during our stay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each bag had a label expressing thanks for
the partnership we maintain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think
coffee also expresses a hope for the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When an agricultural product is produced by local people on relatively
small plots in ways that maintain or enhance the productivity of the land,
there is hope for the future of these little villages on the mountaintop.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-29871191784710203252013-02-15T05:01:00.000-08:002013-02-15T05:01:35.311-08:00Dia De Amor: February 14
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Valentine’s Day is a big deal in Honduras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The town square is busier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The daily newspaper is heavy with additional
ads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People, especially young men and
women, are more dressed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This morning,
as Becky, Darrel, and I were walking across the square with Dana and Jenna, a mother
and daughter from Bemidji, we passed a stand where two women were selling red
roses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“If my wife were here with me this morning,” Darrel
announced loudly enough for everyone on the entire square to hear, “I would
definitely buy her a rose.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That was good!” Dana and Jenna both commented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It took me a moment to get the message, but I eventually
turned around and bought Becky a Valentine rose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7mxvLHaHPTf1_gLDZeYlVOqf80WNuWeIgNA7EFp-UEY7fv0ap3LDeOO35_nuBT5V570wNCqP97CMa_A-Pyn81X_3crfW510tLCe0PQqptGXnuawSoyEmmaMdZ49xVYUqmy9Coi0q0VtR7/s1600/IMG_0830.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7mxvLHaHPTf1_gLDZeYlVOqf80WNuWeIgNA7EFp-UEY7fv0ap3LDeOO35_nuBT5V570wNCqP97CMa_A-Pyn81X_3crfW510tLCe0PQqptGXnuawSoyEmmaMdZ49xVYUqmy9Coi0q0VtR7/s320/IMG_0830.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Valentine Rose for Becky</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You see,” Darrel boasted to the two women, “I’m a pro at
making people feel guilty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Darrel is a pro, and the Ashland Rotary Club looks forward
to the results of his practiced skills when we have our annual Rotary Rose Sale
next fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He probably could “persuade”
thirty husbands or wives each to buy a dozen roses in one morning’s walk down
Main Street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the evening the town square was packed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A DJ had a sound system and LCD projector and
screen set up in the center of the square, and about sixty residents sitting in
rows of plastic lawn chairs were watching a Hispanic version of Barry Manilow
on the screen singing a love song before a huge audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As our group started to cross the square on
our way from dinner to our hotel, two men jumped up and brought back additional
chairs for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a very gracious
gesture for a group of obvious strangers in town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope we would be as welcoming if eleven
Hondurans happened to walk by a concert at the Band Shell next summer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We soon discovered that the music was simply a prelude to
the main event: a showing of a Honduran-made movie about the rich Mayan culture
that preceded the European conquest of this area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The movie took place among the nearby Mayan
ruins at Copán.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The event was not simply
for Valentine’s Day but also was to commemorate the grand opening of the
recently completed space for the “Farmer’s Market” on Friday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>The Kindergarten Construction Funds Arrived!<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We learned on Wednesday afternoon that the wire transfer of
funds from our LARA account in the USA to the LARA account in Santa Barbara had
come through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This process reflects an
interesting clash of technologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
took nearly a week to transfer funds between banks successfully, and we learned
of the transfer by a cell phone call to us while we were working in a remote
mountain village with no electricity and no running water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With two, day-long projects now in the works
and three days left in our time here, we are working with the Santa Barbara
Rotarians to get the construction project lined up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We decided that we will divide our group on
Friday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some will go to the
Colonia Las Brisas del Pinal to meet with community members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others will head up to start replacing a roof
on a little school near San Nicholas northwest of Santa Barbara. We hope to
have a plan in place by the time we join the Santa Barbara Rotarians for their
weekly dinner meeting on Friday evening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Santa Barbara Rotarians<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimU_MqbYy-vUhFk7t9aLIIe9mUWtgYX8C0u1KZV2Nxb0mIHcSkuaDmBWE37gFPYRIk1487vGWS9UfoLGdtg2yq9n6Nhkx3eprLOHv-EHRc-853XDBM611meUv4nS2_zR3nqslX_ypBCMw3/s1600/IMG_0772.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimU_MqbYy-vUhFk7t9aLIIe9mUWtgYX8C0u1KZV2Nxb0mIHcSkuaDmBWE37gFPYRIk1487vGWS9UfoLGdtg2yq9n6Nhkx3eprLOHv-EHRc-853XDBM611meUv4nS2_zR3nqslX_ypBCMw3/s320/IMG_0772.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brayan, a Santa Barbara Rotarian, assists with<br />repairing the school at Pueblo Nuevo.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Santa Barbara Rotary Club has about the same number of
members as the Ashland Rotary Club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
the Ashland club each of the members brings his or her expertise to serve the
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their level of commitment is
admirable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day of our time here at
least one club member has taken a day from their normal work to guide us and
assist us on the projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course,
they also had already taken the time to scope out the needs of the Departmento
de Santa Barbara in identifying projects where our assistance would do the most
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their club will provide the bulk
of the labor for the kindergarten construction project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had hoped that our group would at least be
able to start construction alongside their members, but the time remaining in
our time here is too short relative to ordering the necessary materials and
getting them to the project site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
without our labor in construction, the local Rotarians are thrilled that this
ambitious project can get underway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-11129492239402086962013-02-14T03:38:00.000-08:002013-02-18T19:05:29.795-08:00The Other Side of the Mountain<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On our second full day we drove to the other side of the
mountain from Santa Barbara to the little village of Las Quebradas (N 14⁰56.209’,
W 088⁰04.780’).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mountain is
another national park: Parque Nacional Santa Barbara, which protects Mt. Santa
Barbara.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Each day since Monday we have been checking with our bank in
Santa Barbara to see if the funds we wired from our bank in the USA last week
have been deposited to the Latin American Rotary Aid (LARA) account here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As of Wednesday they had not yet arrived, and
we have been trying to track down the source of the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our LARA directors Chris and Steve,
anticipating the inevitable challenges of banking in Honduras, held some Honduran
lempiras from last year’s contributions so that we could buy some materials for
projects as soon as we arrived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hope
that this year’s funds will arrive soon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The financial problems we experience in getting funds from
the USA to the western mountains of Honduras are miniscule in comparison to
the financial challenges of the families with whom we work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of Honduras’ 8 million people, half live
in rural areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Approximately
2.7 million of the rural population live in poverty, and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 million of these are “extremely poor.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most rural families are subsistence farmers who grow corn
and coffee on small plots of highly erodible soil on steep hillsides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They feed their families the corn and use the
income from selling coffee to buy <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>such other
basic necessities as rice and beans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Usually the family plot is not sufficient to support an entire family,
and farmers are forced to seek employment elsewhere to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That lack of income-producing work in rural
Honduras is a driving force behind the country’s high level of emigration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsSy1OqQTsdFVKwBexNjUm7LVdWkkJh0LaG4L_vGS14Z6Dli2rEX50Jcy_vUiVFnmejpJvYJKyiAd7XfkHEnu7Dt9kO-O1QH2n0pOrrQZiXTAUlQGDAj5BQX6jeRvEyGEt_Gd-ioKgwQIM/s1600/IMG_0673.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsSy1OqQTsdFVKwBexNjUm7LVdWkkJh0LaG4L_vGS14Z6Dli2rEX50Jcy_vUiVFnmejpJvYJKyiAd7XfkHEnu7Dt9kO-O1QH2n0pOrrQZiXTAUlQGDAj5BQX6jeRvEyGEt_Gd-ioKgwQIM/s320/IMG_0673.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lake Yojoa seen from the road to Las Quebradas </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In order to get to Las Quebradas, we drove south from Santa
Barbara to the southern tip of Lake Yojoa a large (32 square miles) lake
on the east side of Mt. Santa Barbara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then we drove north along the eastern shore to the city of Peña
Blanca.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From there we drove up the
eastern face of Mt. Santa Barbara on winding dirt roads to the village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The relatively short drive from Peña Blanca to Las Quebradas
provided a stark contrast between mountain and lowland farms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Farmers in the lowlands grew dense crops of
sugar, yuca, bananas, and other fruits, while the highland farms produced mostly
corn and coffee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Thursday we will
return to Las Quebradas to assist is families in repairing their kindergarten. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFszalp47N3bE-gGMF6Tn6q4QeNc9EMYS_B-yQobXVfX7LT2_msNDOJ7HzYlVa4KOuO-6CRfliMlWzId9Q-EgEB-PzgSc9CEJogCLy7hcjJ6HzSO5VCvi9voHnz7LWZUS0lj9XKF8lAWqV/s1600/IMG_0676.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFszalp47N3bE-gGMF6Tn6q4QeNc9EMYS_B-yQobXVfX7LT2_msNDOJ7HzYlVa4KOuO-6CRfliMlWzId9Q-EgEB-PzgSc9CEJogCLy7hcjJ6HzSO5VCvi9voHnz7LWZUS0lj9XKF8lAWqV/s200/IMG_0676.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Students visit with us during recess</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parents show us needed school repairs</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leaks in the rusty corrugated steel roof are a big problem</td></tr>
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AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-72364026623062962902013-02-12T20:12:00.004-08:002013-02-18T19:22:09.294-08:00Today was our third full day in Honduras. After visiting two more schools yesterday that are in serious need of repair, we came up with a plan --- to replace the roofs on four schools by the end of the week, as well as paint each of these schools inside and out. With eleven in our Rotary group, plus the help of the teachers, community members, and Santa Barbara Rotary Club members, we are very optimistic that we can reach this goal. This morning we drove two hours up a narrow, winding dirt road into the mountains south of Santa Barbara, to the village of San Antonio de Malera (N14<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">⁰</span>40.570' W088<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">⁰</span>15 591'). When we arrived, the aging, leaky tile roof on the two-room kindergarten building had already been removed by the village residents, and materials for the new metal roof had been delivered. The two kindergarten teachers, Lesly Sabillon and Nohemy Guardado, greeted us with smiles and freshly brewed Honduran coffee. Out came the ladders, the power drills, work gloves, paint brushes, water bottles, and sunscreen. Five hours later, the little school had a new roof and a new paint job. It was a great team effort. When we visited this school on Sunday, we saw that the teachers had almost no books or teaching materials. The teachers told us that the government does not supply them with any teaching materials, and they use their own personal money to purchase supplies. Sadly, there were only three items on the shelf designated for hands-on learning about natural resources: a rubber ducky, a bowl of sea shells, and some egg shells. There were only coloring books on the library shelf. Because of all your generous donations to this project, we were able to give them a suitcase packed full of school supplies, books, and other materials. Thanks to all of you for your donations. I can assure you that the teachers were very, very appreciative. <br />
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AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-13111922414477489722013-02-11T19:41:00.000-08:002013-02-18T19:09:03.908-08:00Sunday: Our First Day<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sunday was our first full day in Honduras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We arrived from the USA yesterday afternoon
and drove from San Pedro Sula, a city of 710,000 people to Santa Barbara (N14<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">⁰</span>55.094' W088<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">⁰</span>14.209'). Santa
Barbara with 15,000 people is the capital of the Department of Santa
Barbara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A department is equivalent to a
state in the USA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we passed a T-shirt
factory along the highway, our local driver Alejandro told us that this
factory, as well as the factory near the City of Santa Barbara had closed and moved
to Nicaragua, where labor is cheaper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
am eager to find how the loss of factory employment has affected the Colonia
Brisas del Pinal where our kindergarten project is located.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our first step for that project is to see if
the funds we collected from the project in the USA were successfully
transferred to our bank account in Honduras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We will not be able to check until the bank is open tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pueblo Nuevo<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Meanwhile, our Santa Barbara Rotary Club partners wanted our
group of eleven Americans to see the needs of some more remote mountain
villages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We took a day to visit a
kindergarten and an elementary school in the southern-most area of the
department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one-room elementary
school of about 25 students was in the little village of Pueblo Nuevo
(N 14<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">⁰</span> 40.226’
W 088<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">⁰</span> 17.522’).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg_xH_EeOeuwzP3vIGHdW_p9YUJgk6jfW7xeNfq6p1RNCeMkzjAN5-gguQDyVQZCoJv2pkPAI8su9DEeydyJlOlfetmP4G872Wwveidc5IXJ-yqva_G4y-btwEbRK6cpiL2LrmbDLzJYZA/s1600/Honduras+2013_1+038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg_xH_EeOeuwzP3vIGHdW_p9YUJgk6jfW7xeNfq6p1RNCeMkzjAN5-gguQDyVQZCoJv2pkPAI8su9DEeydyJlOlfetmP4G872Wwveidc5IXJ-yqva_G4y-btwEbRK6cpiL2LrmbDLzJYZA/s320/Honduras+2013_1+038.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The finca owner's home looks toward the national park.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like the village of Cornucopia, Wisconsin, Pueblo Nuevo is
adjacent to a national Park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike
Cornucopia, the Parque Nacional Monta<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ñ</span>a Verde (Green Mountain National Park)
is almost inaccessible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in a high
coffee-growing region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We saw a toucan
(related to the Fruit Loops bird) flying among the trees under the tall pines
on a mountain ridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no
electricity in this remote village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></b> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finca: A Coffee
Plantation<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZU0eZLN7_DfjQdtsGwCTHHybx4xIH2zYH615t63mGJ0ghAv_HP4ws9hv4iov_-lPRT8IcHozpy0mhDw5hAQqE8_72RIfJYUrnzqT5un31Kum6hh_VANgBWHzNea4euzpwLXEbyCpCrJwq/s1600/Honduras+2013_1+049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZU0eZLN7_DfjQdtsGwCTHHybx4xIH2zYH615t63mGJ0ghAv_HP4ws9hv4iov_-lPRT8IcHozpy0mhDw5hAQqE8_72RIfJYUrnzqT5un31Kum6hh_VANgBWHzNea4euzpwLXEbyCpCrJwq/s320/Honduras+2013_1+049.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coffee shrubs grown on the hillside by the road.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is coffee harvesting time here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We saw pick-up trucks with 10-15 men and
women standing in back driving up the narrow, rocky dirt road that winds up the
mountainside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were being
transported to the fincas (coffee plantations) to pick coffee beans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coming down the road were pick-up piled high
with large bags of coffee beans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting
on top of these bags were four to six men whose job it is to assure that none
of the heavy bags fall off as the pick-up bounces around the narrow, hairpin
curves and crosses fast flowing streams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only the larger rivers have bridges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In most places, trucks drive through a stream to get across it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Workers pick the red berries.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Workers earn 15 lempiras (75<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">₵</span>) for each 3-gallon basket of
coffee berries they pick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An experienced
worker picks 15 to 20 baskets per day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The berries are the size of choke cherries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the finca the workers fill a 100-gallon
trough with berries. Using a wooden paddle, a worker pushes the berries to a hole in the bottom of the trough to a machine that separates the fleshy fruit from the beans. They then rinse the beans in a large tub with water that they carry from a nearby stream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They stir the mixture with a board that looks
like a canoe paddle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they spread the wet beans on
plastic tarps in the sun to dry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The dry beans are the size and color of navy beans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The workers use their hands to scoop the dry
beans into large bags that appear to weigh about 100 pounds each.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These bags are piled in the back of pick-up
trucks and carried to a coffee buyer in a city in the valley below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The buyer pays the owner of the finca
according to the grade, i.e., quality, of the coffee in each bag. A typical
price is 20 lempiras ($1) per pound, but green (unroasted) coffee beans of high
quality sell for quality as much as 80 lempiras per pound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjuuI8CMsXE_Jt-Z-t9p0IFLVCIV8qoZQA5bK0jBFtX0Chs-LPwRmM_0IBFV8QCS6I5mqbabR9JOC_yNo7yGNOyn1knLOlofNmbP2mGo0Jrx41UYAHeFzYrKNjjA_Z-ueiZXHFR06qjq-n/s1600/Honduras+2013_1+007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjuuI8CMsXE_Jt-Z-t9p0IFLVCIV8qoZQA5bK0jBFtX0Chs-LPwRmM_0IBFV8QCS6I5mqbabR9JOC_yNo7yGNOyn1knLOlofNmbP2mGo0Jrx41UYAHeFzYrKNjjA_Z-ueiZXHFR06qjq-n/s320/Honduras+2013_1+007.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coffee beans dray in the sun.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Coffee is an important export crop in Honduras even though
it does not compete very well for quality with other Central American
countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coffee yields in Honduras are
not as high as those in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica because Honduras
does not have the rich volcanic soils that are in those countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The majority of the good agricultural lands
in Honduras were appropriated, often by force, from local Hondurans by US fruit
companies (now Dole and Chiquita brands).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Local Hondurans have to rely on marginal lands for their own crops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coffee, grown on steep mountainsides, is an
export crop on which Hondurans often rely for added family income.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We visited a family who are caretakers of a finca in Pueblo
Nuevo: a father, and mother, and ten children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their house is made of adobe clay brick walls and a corrugated steel
roof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were two bedrooms of about 8’
x 10’ each and a 4’ x 15’ kitchen with a clay cook stove heated by burning
wooden sticks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The indoor stove was for
cooking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was another clay
stove/oven outdoors for roasting coffee beans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A One-Room School<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The village elementary school is one room with a roof of
rusty corrugated steel attached to wooden trusses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From inside we could see daylight through
many small holes where the steel rusted all the way through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Approximately 25 students go to this school,
but we met only a few who happened to be nearby on a Sunday afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The community asked us if we would purchase
them new metal for a roof and help them to replace the old rusty one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We decided that we could come back on
Wednesday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The local Rotarian with us
said he would arrange to get the materials from a building supply store in a
city in the valley below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The local
families said they would remove the old roof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We will return in a few days with tools to help them put on a new roof.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was getting dark as we headed back to Santa Barbara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point, we spotted a pick-up truck
pulled half way across the road in front of us with a man signaling us to pull
over to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than stopping,
Alejandro swung around their truck and sped ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that there recently have been people
who are stopping and robbing coffee pickers who drive down the mountain with
the money they just earned from the fincas. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alejandro<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>said the men in the pick-up looked like they had been drinking and were
up to no good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all we learned a lot
on our first day, and we appreciated having the local Rotarians and Alejandro
to guide us to an area where they felt we could be most helpful.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164683391282788166.post-67163477312199092752013-02-07T07:06:00.005-08:002013-02-07T08:52:30.322-08:00The Kindergarten ProjectWe are getting ready to leave for Honduras. This is as description of the primary purpose of our work there.<br />
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ROTARY IN THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS OF HONDURAS<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GVWpKcQf-rdzFdefOyLos9sGJp7SuCdypz2v65n7XhrS2nhyrfQOY2hnkjk0Z16iGb4GjpB_MW6LPmg37PeirwNH4CfR6dKQLMBDhT7RxUdApAAoFq56mZuISae7WLv4552sVejKvOG2/s1600/LARA_Title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GVWpKcQf-rdzFdefOyLos9sGJp7SuCdypz2v65n7XhrS2nhyrfQOY2hnkjk0Z16iGb4GjpB_MW6LPmg37PeirwNH4CfR6dKQLMBDhT7RxUdApAAoFq56mZuISae7WLv4552sVejKvOG2/s320/LARA_Title.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The Latin America Rotary Aid (LARA) project has collaborated with the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara, Honduras for twenty years on a wide range of projects addressing the health, social, and educational needs of communities in the Department of Santa Barbara, a 5,000 square kilometer area in the rural northwestern mountains of Honduras. The City of Santa Barbara, with a population of only 15,000, is the largest municipality in the department and is the primary service center for the department of 400,000 people, most of whom live in small mountain villages. The Rotary Club of Santa Barbara is a full partner with LARA, and the club members provide a key role in identifying critical needs, working side-by-side in LARA projects, and assuring the success of each project. The Rotary Clubs of Ashland, Wisconsin and Santa Barbara, Honduras have much in common, in spite of differences in climate and social wellbeing, because both clubs consist of professionals committed to the quality of life in a largely rural region.<br />
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A NEIGHBORHOOD GROWS ON THE OUTSKIRTS<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Xg7MyQDkBUM/URPWxm8cJHI/AAAAAAAAABE/DC_tuRuhc68/s1600/StaBarbaraMap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Xg7MyQDkBUM/URPWxm8cJHI/AAAAAAAAABE/DC_tuRuhc68/s320/StaBarbaraMap.jpg" width="320" /></a>To address the massive unemployment of 24% of its working age population, Honduras has promoted the establishment of maquiladoras, mostly foreign-owned garment factories, as a path out of poverty. The factories are attracting unemployed workers from villages to areas surrounding the maquilas. This has been the case with a T-shirt factory on the outskirts of the City of Santa Barbara. Families with young children are moving into the Colonia Brisas del Pinal, a neighborhood near the factory. The local elementary school has become overwhelmed with the influx of children. A key to the long-term success of the young families in this neighborhood is a positive, healthy introduction to primary school for children and a reliable, stimulating, and safe environment for children of parents who are eager to hold a steady job in the local factory.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hgXfE_qeJfs/URPZz89kFdI/AAAAAAAAABM/y9-inuGI4cs/s1600/Honduras+0212+Becky+277.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hgXfE_qeJfs/URPZz89kFdI/AAAAAAAAABM/y9-inuGI4cs/s320/Honduras+0212+Becky+277.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
WHY BUILD A KINDERGARTEN?<br />
The national education system in Honduras does not provide adequate support for its schools. Rather, since 2008, the City of Santa Barbara has rented two small rooms in a private home where two teachers attempt to educate sixty children in kindergarten and pre-kindergarten. The school provides lunches for the children but lacks a kitchen for food preparation. Bathroom space in the rented house is so limited that children have to go home when they need to use the bathroom.<br />
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Neighborhood parents requested assistance from the City of Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Rotary Club to construct a two-room kindergarten adjacent to the existing elementary school (pictured here). City staff prepared detailed construction drawings and cost estimates for the materials. The proposed kindergarten is not extravagant. Each room is 6 x 8 meters, with a masonry foundation, concrete block walls, brick floors, and a metal roof. Each room has built-in bookshelves and a blackboard. Included in the project is a kitchen to assure that children receive safe, nutritious meals and bathrooms connected to the city’s sanitation system.AshlandWiRotaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09115925292032859860noreply@blogger.com0