We Have Water!!!

By Matt

Yes that's right, the water project in our barrio is finally done and running water comes to our house!
On my birthday (Sunday, Oct 18th) we had a big inauguration party for the water project which included cake, lots of pop, and Tapado Olanchano which is an amazing stew-like dish that Olancho is famous for. To make the tapado someone in the barrio killed a cow, cut it up and put big hunks of it in a huge kettle, then added yucca (cassava), green bananas, sweet ripe plantains, spicy sausage, and a bunch of coconut juice and let it cook slowly over a fire with pepper and spices. Let me tell you that it was just about the best birthday meal I could have asked for. I had to go sleep for a while afterword because it was so heavy!





Here are some pics of the water tower which includes the project title "gift of God" and Psalm 120:1, "I call on the Lord in my distress, and He answers me".

Because the tank is not huge the water is distributed on a schedule (this is very common in Honduras). Water should arrive every other day for a couple hours in the moring.
Diaconia helped out with a little bit of the funding for the project too.
It is really cool to see this neighborhood rally together and raise funds, and then complete such a big project on their own initiative. It was a great birthday.

Early vacation and free passes for everyone!

By Katie

The latest drama in the Honduran education system is that the school year will be cut short by about three weeks, as decided by the current government. This rule applies to the private school where I work as well as the public schools. Now our last day will be Friday, and we only learned this less than two weeks ago.

Understanding that this would make it difficult for teachers to have time to properly test their students, the current government said that each student in all grades will pass; there will be no one in the country repeating a grade this year! Kids on the edge love the idea while the studious ones are disappointed.

Why end the year early? Answer: The teachers are taking a hard line against the current government (hence the strikes I mentioned in an earlier blog). The elections for a new president will be at the end of November, a few days after school was originally supposed to end. Public schools are used to house the polls. The current government feared that the teachers would take over the schools if let allowed to stay there for too long. Now as soon as school is done, it is said that the military will occupy the schools.

For me this is a lesson in not taking myself or my work too seriously. I admit, I'm upset about this; it's not fair for the students and I had some cool lessons planned for the end of the year. But I also need to work on not letting my ideology or would-be plans stress me out. I need to tackle what I can, let go what I can't.

Grant Proposal

By Katie

Matt's been busy lately (so busy he can't write his own blog post, so I'm doing it for him). He's working on a proposal to an agency in Canada to help fund Diaconia's Agriculture and Environment program where he works. The proposal is quite long and intricate and there's been plenty of bumps along the road in writing it. But he's getting much-appreciated input from CRWRC staffers from all over. Please pray with us that the writing goes well, and that this grant could be approved to help fund the agriculture program.

World Cup update

By Katie

I wasn't paying any attention to the playoff soccer games last night until I went outside to do the dishes. All of a sudden, shouts arose from every single house in the neighborhood and I judged that Honduras had won. I ran over to the neighbor's house and there learned that not only had Honduras won the game, but the US had tied Costa Rica in a nail-bitter. With those two outcomes (that happened within moments of each other), both Honduras and the US will advance to the World Cup in South Africa. Today I had two people tell me how grateful they were that "my" team had helped their team beat Costa Rica in points, thus allowing Honduras to advance. It was sweet because they really meant it.

After the game last night I went and sat outside on the front porch for a bit, just listening to the noise around the neighborhood. You could hear many loud excited voices coming from many of the neighbor's houses, lots of fireworks, whooping and hollaring, and car horns honking. One lone teenager whizzed by on his bike and, for no audience in particular, threw back his head and yelled, "¡Viva Honduras!", "Honduras lives!".

I love what sports and a little bit of good news can do to humans.

Radio broadcast

By Katie

Calvin College professor and Association for a More Just Society co-founder Kurt Ver Beek was on Chicago Public Radio recently to talk about the current situation in Honduras. It's a very interesting summary and analysis. Have a listen by clicking here.

Honduras vs. United States of America

By Katie

This Saturday night we get ninety minutes to forget about Honduras vs. the United States in the political world and watch what the two countries can do on the soccer field. The two teams are playing in the playoffs for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. There's only a few games left, so the stakes are quite high and it's supposed to be a close one.

When asked who I'm cheering for, I can't deny it, I go for Honduras. Futbol fever grips Honduras on game days like people in the US can't begin to understand. Blue and white jerseys are everywhere. Many banks and grocery stores encourage their employees to wear their jerseys during work. Vendors selling jerseys line the streets of every town for a week or more ahead of big games. It's serious business. Go Honduras!!

In the South

By Matt and Katie

Recently we traveled to the south of Honduras to help out Gloribel and Lisa in the health program by giving trainings on how to grow and use Moringa trees. This had been in the planning stages for a while, and Lisa had already grown a nursery of Moringa trees from seeds that we got from Olancho. The south is a very distinct part of Honduras, it is known for its very hot temperatures, wind, watermelons, and shrimp farms. It is also known for malnutrition and deep poverty. Our first stop was Amapala, a volcanic island very near the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Matt and Lisa led a meeting of women who meet regularly as part of Diaconia’s health program. Meanwhile, Katie cooked moringa soup (in a Honduran lady’s kitchen, over the open flames for the first time… by herself… for twenty people… successfully!). We also brought some powder made from dried and ground moringa leaves. A woman added it to her tortillas. They tasted good, as long as you don’t mind green tortillas. We added 2 tablespoons (which contains about 100% of the vitamin A needed for a child) to make about 9 tortillas (most children eat around that many per day).

In the video below, you can see the women taking turns reading from the pamphlets Matt brought. Matt goes on to explain a few things and the women pipe in with their own ideas.

To wrap up the meeting, Lisa distributed the moringa trees that she had grown from seed. Each woman got two or three seedlings and several more women took bags of seeds to plant nurseries. When the seeds grow into seedlings, they’ll distribute the seedlings to other women in their community and train them on the uses and benefits. We spent the night on the island too, in the house of one of the women in the group named Juanita. She has a little guest house and serves up quite the meals, this one containing a whole fish, a whole crab, green beans, and boiled bananas.
But, how on earth do you eat a meal like this? Juanita got out her grinding stone to smash the crabs so they could be eaten. She’s also a big fan of the eyeballs of the fish. I gave her mine.



Sunday we were able to take some time to enjoy the water and go around the island a bit. Amapala is an interesting place in the fact that it located in an absolutely beautiful place, but the poverty is immense. More people live in houses made of plastic sheeting on the island than any other place we’ve been to in Honduras. On the flip side, there is a lovely brick road that goes all around the island and little quaint mototaxis as a common mode of transportation, which of course promotes tourism.

Monday the four of us went to anther community on the mainland and did the same training on moringa in one of the churches in the area. It was so incredibly hot this day that we just hope all the little seedlings survived!