Thursday Jan. 18, 2007
After returning from Utila where the Internet was down for the entire week, I looked forward to getting back to the mainland where I could hear what was happening with my replacement front wheel. I found out that Costa Rica said they couldn't get a replacement in time, but they had another new one (for $77 US) that would work, but required a slightly different tire size. Colombia said they had talked to Costa Rica and were told not to bother shipping one. Now, I could have also ordered one from the US for $278 + $70 for 10 day shipping, but after straightening the wheel it now only had a small vibration between 50-80 kmph, and since I was heading towards Costa Rica anyway, I decided to check out their replacement. I knew that if it didn't work out, that I could always get one in Colombia. So southeast towards Nicaragua I went with my slightly bent front wheel. Along the way I very nearly hit a dog that ran out in front of me.
I pulled into a small, unwelcoming looking hotel in El Paraiso for the night, less than a dozen kms from the border so that I could get an early start into Nicaragua and make it to Granada before nightfall. My selection of hotels in this part of the country was pretty limited, and it was one of the few hotels listed in my Lonely Planet book. After pulling into the gated yard (which doubled as a small parking lot), I started unpacking the bike and was greeted by a few Americans who had seen my Canadian plates in the last town - about an hour earlier. They were quite eager to learn about my journey, however, after talking with them only a short time, I knew that our meeting was not by chance.
Their group consisted of 16 non-denominational Christian men and women from the Minnesota area who were part of the Honduras Outreach Team and they were here "serving God by providing humanitarian care to those in need". More specifically, they were building a six-family housing project in a small town named Cuyali. They had paid their own way to be here for two-weeks, brought their own food and tools, and had raised enough funds through their individual churches for all the building materials and extra labour. The Honduras Outreach Team was started by Jim and Patti Davey during their first trip here in 1994, and has returned with their guidance and participation every year since.
I was invited to join them for group prayer at 5:30 AM and/or breakfast at 6, and if I wanted I could follow them to Cuyali and see what they were doing. I decided to take them up on their offer and the next morning before they started work we took a quick tour of the nearby El Paraiso cigar company.
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Even though I don't smoke cigars, seeing the process of making a cigar by hand was very interesting. This company was a large producer of made-to-order cigars for other cigar companies using tobacco from the world over. They don't sell their own cigars directly, and we couldn't even try or buy one because each batch of cigars was produced specifically to their client's requirements (different size, shape, color, tobacco, age, box, etc...). They even draw-tested every cigar to make sure it wasn't too loose (burn too fast) or too tight (difficult to smoke). We were told they employed 700 people who worked 11 hours, earned an average of about 105 Lempira (about $5 US), and produced some 60,000 cigars - PER DAY. Interestingly, I only saw three people smoking; two workers sharing a hand-rolled cigarette and the general manager smoking a cigar.
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Next it was off the highway on a small dirt road to visit the job site in the little village of Cuyali. It was only a few kms in, but the road split many times and ran in front of small houses and little farms continuously (it even went diagonally through a makeshift dirt soccer field created in an opening between some houses).
After a tour of the job site while being told more about the remaining work, meeting Pastor Yony and some of the people in the area including a few of the many children who were helping out - it obvious that I would stay. I worked with them for the remaining four-days they had left. And although they had committed two-weeks here, they were already behind schedule because the airline misplaced their luggage (with most of their tools) and it only just arrived the same day I had. They've done this before though (last year they built the church across the road), and they managed to stay productive even without tools.
The way these projects work is that they hire a few locals through Pastor Yony, and if it doesn't get completed by the time they leave, then Pastor Yony simply hires a few more people to complete the project. That way the locals have a sense of personal commitment in the project as well as helping out with some much needed income in the area. This project was different though. It was bigger than the single family dwellings and churches they'd built before. It was a six-unit building with six separate sink/shower units (pilas) and two, three-stall outhouses (banos). Each unit would provide temporary housing for families who basically had nothing. Once they were back on their feet, the house would be given to someone else in need.
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The children were amazing. Some where orphans and one was deaf, but they all wanted to help (and have their picture taken). Some walked through mud and gravel without shoes, some shovelled gravel through screens to make sand for mortar, some carried buckets of mortar to people on scaffolds, some helped fill walls with mortar, some brought coffee and drinks to workers, but they all worked without being asked to, without question and without complaint. Their only desire was to be part of the action. The adults were equally hard-working and friendly.
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I worked along side these American men and women in the Honduran heat and rain and gained a new perspective on God's love. They all had families and jobs and responsibilities back home, most of them were not youngsters, most of them had been stricken with some form of food-related illness at least once since they arrived, most were doing jobs that nobody could have paid them to do back home - all for free. Several of the guys worked on the backbreaking job of digging two large outhouse pits in the hard ground for days. But in between the sweating and grunting in the pit, they would take breaks and play or work with the many local kids who simply basked in the attention. Everyone wore a smile.
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Even though he didn't speak English, it was easy to see that Pastor Yony was a good man who's strength and direction came from God. He worked tirelessly and selflessly to help make things better for the people in his community (even though he himself didn't have much). There are simply too many memories for me to possibly share with you through words and pictures of how it feels to be part of something like this. As most people who've been here will tell you, "I left a piece of my heart in Honduras with those people". Thank you to everyone in the Honduras Outreach Team for feeding me, praying for me and allowing me to be part of this unforgettable event.
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