Day Three: Work Day

30cm wide, 50cm deep, 1/2 km long. Pick-axing and shoveling through hard, dry dirt, rocks, roots, and prickly burrs. A day of pure manual labor, today has been incredibly exhausting and rewarding. Staring up a mountain, legs cut-up and a nice dirt-tan covering my body, just knowing that 25 of us had worked together to make this happen was incredibly satisfying. Throughout the remainder of our work week it will be a group of IU and NYU kids, eventually joined by a team from USC that will bring water to 4 families whom have never had water in their homes before. The fact that this can happen in one week, done by a group of less-than amateurs makes one believe that almost anything is possible.

(part of the trench we dug before lunch the first work day)

So many forms of inspiration here allow me to push my body to limits I am not normally physically able to accomplish. Just one hour

Day Two: The Hike

Today was the longest and craziest hike I have ever been on. Though only about 4 miles in length, the humidity, dust, and terrain made it incredibly difficult. The dust in the air towards the base of the mountain made breathing-in clean air very difficult. The first portion of the hike was to the water source, a small stream up the mountain that has been damned off with a small retaining pond. The walk up this mountain was full of incredibly steep dips & inclines, and lots of loose rock and cliffs to slide off of. At one point on a steep decline, rounding a turn, on a thin makeshift path I lost my footing; for a split second I thought for sure I was going over the edge and tumbling to my death. I'm fairly positive that whomever insures Global Brigades has no concept of the places they are going with inexperienced college students. The second part of the hike was to the large concrete cylinder that is the holding tank. Here the water is stored and cleaned with a simple chlorine filter before continuing down the mountain. This entire system uses gravity to keep the water moving so the source is higher than the holding tank, is higher than the homes of the community. Though the hike was incredibly beautiful I'm not sure I would go for that much danger again any time soon.

(two other brigadiers climbing up the mountain)

(video of the damn area of the water source, this was a very small creek which is why not much appears to be coming in our out, but over 150 gallons per minute go through here)

(water holding tank)

After the hike to the damn and then the holding tank ( the most beautiful point I've seen in Honduras so far) we headed down the mountain to a community meeting. There were over 100 people packed into a 20x20 school building to discuss the current water project as well as the future of Public Health Brigades within the community. The meeting in this hot, humid, dusty room lasted over an hour in rapidly spoken Spanish. Though I didn't understand the majority of what was being said it was obvious that there was some frustration and animosity between Joel, Orlando, and the other GB leaders and the community. Though not understanding

Day One: First Day in a 3rd World Country

Today was a whirlwind of a day waking up at 10:00PM (pre-spring forward) yesterday to shower and pack, meeting the bus at 12:45AM. Currently it's 11:22PM (EST). Travel here was an adventure beginning before the sun was up and with flights delayed in Dallas at least 3 times. Landing in Tegucigalpa was both breathtaking and horrifying as it is one of the world's shortest and most dangerous runways. The plane literally drops out of the mountains onto a runway that is sunk into a valley lower than a good 2/3 of its surroundings. Even more scary, there are homes about 100 yards from the runway, less distance than from a freeway in the States.

(sunrise over Indianapolis, plane engine in corner)

(very close to the mountains in Honduras)

(houses even closer to the airplane)

The sights on the way to the Global Brigades compound were equally as breathtaking and horrifying. It took minutes to get outside the nicer area of Tegucigalpa and the infrastructure just ended. Homes were makeshift...

The Plan

I made this blog many, many moons ago and have never done anything with it. Just back from a week in Honduras though, this seems like the best place to share my thoughts and some pictures from the trip. I tried to journal my thoughts for the week but there was definitely a lot going on and that didn't always happen. Nonetheless I'm going to divide my entries about Honduras into daily reflections and add to those things I do have scribbled down in my journal. And maybe I'll even keep this going afterwards.

What I Was Doing In Honduras

I know it really was not clear before I left what I would be doing in Honduras, it really wasn't even clear to me. This is because Global Water Brigades

is a long-term developmental organization that works year-round on building water projects for communities without clean water. This means that what one group is going to be doing is determined by how much work is done by groups, as well as Honduran community member, prior to the group's arrival in Honduras. When we got to Honduras the project was already 4 months in and the task we were handed was digging trenches, laying pipe, and recovering those trenches. In addition to this we were able to connect the community's first 4 (highest elevation) homes to the water line. These 4 families have never before had clean water inside their homes so this was a very exciting thing to be a part of! There are an estimated 4 months left of the project as all the rest of the community's houses must be connected to the line as the piping makes its way down the mountain.

(here I am wielding a machete to break up roots in the trenches)