Week 3

June 16th, 2009 by John Caccavale

Hey there,

Apologies for the slow postings I will have to step up my blogging. The last week or so has been very active. We witnessed two Honduras world cup qualifying matches, the first a loss to the US and the second a victory against rival El Salvador. For the El Salvador match all the volunteers went to the local pub and watched the match on a projector they had set up. We were all decked out in Honduran fan gear due to the convenient exchange rate around here. (At the big Sunday market I purchased three Honduras jerseys and a full sized flag for a grand total 420 Lempira, or about $21 US!) It was a rush to be a part of the passion that this place has for its soccer.

Work has been productive lately. We have built high enough that we are spacing the windows now which is good. You can really see the kids getting excited about the building knowing that their house is rapidly coming together. The dog of the family had her puppies this week as well. The litter has four in it and we all enjoy playing with the little rollie-pollies. The dog, like most around the area, is extremely malnourished. One of the other volunteers here is a veterinarian though so at least the dog has trained eyes looking after her.

Last Thursday the volunteers from the building project and I along with two of the boys from the family, Wilson and Nelson, their neighbor and brick layer for the house Usabien, and the truck driver Palo, decided to go for a hike to a local waterfall. After everyone piled into the truck we took off for the 20 minute drive farther into the country towards the cascades. Once there, two local boys also joined the herd, making 15 of us in total. The Hondurans, as expected, made us gringos look absolutely foolish as they hopped gracefully from boulder to boulder along rapids while we crawled behind in a panic. After about 45 minutes of light rockclimbing/hiking we were at the base of the 200 ft cascade. The view was beautiful and the feast hardy as we all laid back and enjoyed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a delicacy little known but now loved by the locals.

On Friday we took off for the Copan Ruins, a big tourist destination and archeological site of the Mayan empire. The first night we stayed in Gracias, where we visited the local hot springs, basically pool-sized hot tubs powered solely from geothermal heat. On Saturday we arrived in Copan, which was definitely the most developed place we have been so far as it caters to the heavy American and European tourist population. Saturday evening, after admitting that I have never been on a horse before, our tour guide arranged for a trail ride with a local cowboy. 8 of us decided we were up for the adventure and embarked on a gorgeous 3 hour trail ride. We went up and down the side of a mountain overlooking the town, crossed a river several times, and witnessed the Honduran sunset from a cliff, all for a grand total of 12 US dollars! Sunday morning we visited the Ruins and were amazed by the size and detail of the ancient society. Unfortunately most of our group did end up coming down with a stomach bug, but everyone agreed that the weekend was a success.

This coming week is very exciting for us builders. The town is receiving 17 new volunteers, about 10 of which are building. We will be breaking ground on a second house in the same area of the one we are working on currently. So with this surge of volunteers we will be giving this neighborhood not one new house but two! Oh, and on weather related note, it has been raining furiously from 11am on this week which makes for very wet/muddy/sick volunteers. Haha hopefully the weather will allow better fortune next week.

Until next time (which should be sometime early next week) …

Adios muchachos!