Rotary Club of Madison Alabama

Honduras 2009 - Final preparation

2009-02-15T08:29:00.003-06:00

This year the team is Steve Baum, Dennis Sanders and first-timer Sandy Patel.

2008-03-22T23:13:00.013-05:00

It's our last work day in San Juan Arriba and our last full day in country. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant where we said adios to a group of the Tennessee folks who are going home today.

We made that bone jarring trip to San Juan Arriba for the final time. When we bounced in we learned that some of the Choluteca Rotarians would be joining in to help us today. They did a great job, and it was fun to work out the language differences.

Our assignment is to finish houses 17 and 18, and then do the punch list items on houses 21 through 25. We had a couple of meter bases and breaker boxes to install, and several outlet boxes had to be inspected and cover plates installed.

We finished that work about lunch time, so what better thing to do that just "happen" to drop by the house where Jerry assisted in his first EcoStove construction in Arriba. Our luck was bad, though. There was nothing ready for us to sample. But, the owner is very happy with her stove. She told us that she had prepared the appetizers for yesterday's celebration on her new and much larger cooktop. She was able to prepare everything in record time. That's another EcoStove benefit we hadn't thought about - more parties!

During lunch we hung out with the Choluteca folks and got to know them a little better.

After lunch we went to two more houses to install meter bases and breaker boxes, and then we were done! We said our final goodbyes to our wonderful hosts and hostesses. Then, we went down the hill a short distance to San Juan Cito, the villiage where we worked last year. We gave the village leader, "el hefe", an overview of the EcoStoves, and he was very interested. We committed to installing ten stoves over the next several weeks.

We headed back to Choluteca, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and paid one last visit to our favorite steak place, El Torrito. We were happy we did.

After dinner we made our plan for Sunday travel. We will meet for one last cup of Boyd's delicious homemade coffee and depart for Tegucigalpa at 7:00 AM local time (that's 8:00 Madison time). That should give us plenty of time to get our much-worse-for-the-wear rental truck turned in and to check in for our 12:55 flight to Houston.

This will be our last entry for the trip. Buenos noches from the Madison Parrots. We'll see you mañana.

2008-03-22T00:05:00.016-05:00

It's Good Friday in Honduras. Since we weren't able to work on our projects today, we got a chance to go out and see the country. We went to San Francisco to spend most of the day hosted by Carolina, her family and friends. We learned that each community observes the stages of the cross in their own unique way. Here is a pretty elaborate production along the main highway.

There were angels,

and there were some pretty scary creatures along the way. The guys in the masks were pretty frightening, too.

We went to Jayacayenne where Jerry the dog got to meet his namesake.

We were treated to a great lunch with live entertainment.

You might recognize Neptalie, the full time stove maker and part time band leader.

We revisited the houses where we built stoves on Wednesday. What an impressive sight! The adobe is not even dry on this stove and the lady has already put it into service. She can't get over how clean the air stays, how much she is able to cook at one time, and how little fuel she has to use. Note the single stick of wood under a boiling pot and several other items on the stovetop.

Carolina gave tooth brushing supplies and instruction to some families in the community,

and gave vitamins to the kids.

We finished up at about 2:30 and then went to San Juan Arriba to attend a combined Easter and "Thank you!" celebration put on by the community. We heard a couple of speeches and got warm hugs from a large number of the residents. We took this opportunity to present Roger, from the Choluteca Rotary Club, with our banner.

It was a full day with a lot of touching moments that are hard to capture in either words or pictures. Suffice it to say that there is much work to be done in this country, and there are a lot of concerned local citizens who are doing everything in their power to raise Honduras up. It makes us proud to be able to assist them.

2008-03-20T23:11:00.008-05:00

OK, sometimes you take pictures, and sometimes you work hard. Today we worked hard! This was the first day we had our tools (and our cooler). We loaded up early to head to San Juan Arriba to do some serious wiring.

Our assignment is a stretch of nine houses, numbers 10 through 18 in the plan, in some of the most challenging terrain you could imagine. Earlier, we had only been able to wire number 10 completely due to the short supply of materials. Today things really fell into place. We had ample supplies, and we hit it hard. By the end of the day, we had 11 through 16 done with a few minor exceptions. We left an almost complete set of supplies in 17 and 18, so we are on track to finish up on Saturday.

"But what about Friday?", you ask. We had no idea how this country shuts down for the Easter season. Good Friday is a real event, and it looks like we're going to be forced to throttle ourselves and take in the festivities. We've been invited to celebrations in both San Juan Arriba and Jayacayenne. Life is tough! We plan to take lots of pictures, so we'll let you know how that turns out.

Another thing we didn't realize was that commerce shuts down almost completely. Not only have we not been able to purchase wiring supplies, but it's been a challenge to figure out where your next meal is coming from. Tonight, we were happy to find that Maxi Bodega, the big super market in Choluteca, was open when we got home from the mountain. We bought a couple of rotisserie chickens and a few side items and had a feast in Jerry's room.

Don't worry about us, though. We will be well fed by the locals tomorrow, and Saturday everything will be open again.

2008-03-19T22:28:00.011-05:00

Today was a dual mission day back up in San Juan Arriba. We went back to continue wiring houses, and we took supplies up to build a pilot EcoStove. After a bout with vehicle problems, we finally got up the mountain. We unloaded the stove supplies, and the proud future owner pointed out where we need to haul our set of 50 pound bags, 40 pound adobe bricks, stacks of more conventional bricks and various other stuff. "It's just over there..."

The trek turned out to be a half mile down the hill, over the river and through the woods.

We finally got everything there with a lot of help from the locals. Jerry was the designated student, and he really rose to the occasion. Here are Jerry, Neptalie Jesus Diaz and Geraldo. You'll remember Neptalie from Jayacayenne as our stove building expert. Geraldo is the designated expert-to-be for Arriba. Great job Jerry!

And our other hero of the day is Boyd. He "took one for the team" by taking a very stressful eight hour round trip to Tegucigalpa to pick up our luggage!!! Way to go Boyd. You are definitely the man.

2008-03-18T23:59:00.011-05:00

Luggage. We don't need no stinking luggage. We're even learning how to do without deodorant. That stuff is highly overrated. What have we learned from this? Carry on, Carry on, Carry on!

Next trip we're each bringing a small knapsack with a couple of changes of clothes, buying disposable tools and finding a mountain stream to do our laundry.

But, let's get back to our mission. We had a great day in the EcoStove arena. After a nice home cooked Honduran breakfast that Roger treated us to, we headed up to Jayacayenne (Remember? Hot pepper!) for our first day of stove building. Our first order of business was to meet our supplier and pick up materials for three stoves.

Then, we were off to the site of house numero uno to see how it is done. We watched and documented the whole process as our soon-to-be teacher and his helper built a stove.

Then we moved on to numero dos where we got our hands a little bit dirty.

We were surprised and gratified by a gift we recieved from the Jayacayenne community. We'll give you an up-close view of this beautiful carving when we get back home. We're going to make sure we don't pack it in checked luggage.

We decided during the course of the day to save one stove kit for construction at San Juan Arriba, so we stopped at two in Jayacayenne. We head back to Arriba tomorrow where we plan to do some wiring and to do our first Parrots-only stove construction.

2008-03-18T00:04:00.007-05:00

First, let's get the luggage thing out of the way. No, we don't have any yet. The latest word is that we get it Wednesday. We dropped laundry at the desk this morning, so we're going to be OK.

We returned to San Juan Arriba today to help out with the wiring project. Craig, our crew chief, got us off to a good start. We are working on a series of about seven houses that are pretty far off the beaten path. Our hike in and out is a pretty good workout.

We've had challenges in having the right equipment for the job. We had to stop by the hardware store on the way to the site to pick up tools to make up for everything that is still sitting in Houston. As you can see below, we didn't let a little thing like a shortage of ladders hold us back.

We had a pretty productive day once we got rolling. The locals were pretty impressed with the blistering pace we set.

We pretty much finished off four houses before we ran out of supplies. Then we headed back into Choluteca to enjoy our favorite steak house, El Torito. The loin steak was just like Craig remembered it, and it looks like it impressed Boyd.

We finished off the evening with a toast and a piece of birthday cheesecake for Steve. Happy Birthday, Steve, from the Honduras team!

Tomorrow is stove day. We plan to head back to Jayacayenne, and our goal is to build three stoves.

2008-03-16T22:47:00.001-05:00

Still no luggage, but we're cool with that. We can figure out things to do with no clothes, no meds, no tools, and no practically anything else you can think of. We had our breakfast meeting with Sergio and Roger. Out of that came the plan for the day. We headed up to Jayacayan (we think that means hot pepper) to see the first stove installations and to make a plan for continued construction. The little lady here showed us her pride and joy. It really lifted our spirits to hear what a difference this stove had made in her life. She said her old stove would actually make her face black from the soot. Her new stove burns clean and efficiently. She doesn't even have to buy wood to burn anymore. She uses so little that she can just gather scraps in the area.

The stove below is part of a planned new kitchen. This area will be closed in soon. The lady, obviously a Marlins fan, didn't wait to start using her stove, though.

And lest we forget, here is the real reason we're building EcoStoves.

We made our plan and met the man who will build the next stove and train us in the process. Then it was time for a little Sunday down time.

Roger invited us to his farm high in the hills at San Juan Arriba, near San Juan Cito where we did the electrical project last year. Juan Carlos cooked up his secret recipe of Honduran paella.

We met with Neal and cooked up a plan to do some wiring starting early Monday morning. We'll let you know how that goes.

Departure Day

2008-03-16T08:21:00.001-05:00

We have good news, and we have bad news.

The good news is that our travel went off without a hitch. We left Huntsville at 6 AM on Saturday, had a way too long layover in Houston

(where we met up with a bunch of the Tennessee Rotarians), and arrived in Tegucigalpa on schedule.

The bad news... Our luggage did not make it. Not one piece. Nada. Zilch. About half the passengers on the plane were in the same position as we were. From what we could determine, Continental loaded luggage until they hit the weight limit and just stopped.

We rented our truck and headed off on the three hour drive to Choluteca. We checked into our hotel and met up with the rest of the Tennessee Rotarians along with Sergio and Roger from the local club.

We made a quick trip to a local department store to buy some clothes and toiletries.

Then we came back to the hotel for a late dinner. We had a good meeting over dinner with Sergio, Roger and Carolina. I will get with Steve to summarize that meeting.

It is now Sunday morning. We plan to meet Sergio for breakfast and then head to San Francisco to see the EcoStoves and talk to a few families. We will report soon on that and update our luggage status.

Gearing up to go

2008-03-12T21:36:00.000-05:00

This will be the official blog spot for the Rotary Club of Madison Alabama's second annual trip to Honduras. This year's crew will be led again by Steve Baum. Our returning members are Jerry Vickers, Craig Brennan and Dennis Sanders (your humble blog master). We proudly announce our new traveler this year - Boyd Edmiston. So far, none of our horror stories have scared Boyd off, so it looks like he's ready to travel.

Our primary mission this year will be to kick off the "EcoStove" project. As you can see, our local contacts have hit the ground running with a pilot project.

All of our planning sessions are behind us now, and it's time to pack. We've made our lists and checked them (at least) twice. We are taking a large supply of donated vitamin and dental supplies, a big box of tools for electrical, water and stove projects, and, of course, our personal luggage.

Watch this space for daily reports on our projects.