This is How we Live...
Notes from Embarcadero, Honduras
On January 4th, 2011, eleven Jewell students and faculty traveled to Embarcadero, Honduras, to continue our ongoing work with our Village Partners Project. We stayed in the village for six days, living, working, and learning alongside our partners. The following are some excerpts from journals and reflections from our trip.
At first light, long after the roosters alerted us to the approaching day, we pulled on our rubber boots and headed out into the fields. Our guide this morning is Maximo, a leader in the community, whose weathered face smiles as he offers us a glass of fresh milk. This is as fresh as it gets. His son,
As we look at Maximo’s small garden, someone asked if they ate the things they grow, or if they sold them. His answer surprised all of us… He pointed to the garden and said, “This is how we eat…” and he turned and waved toward the palm trees and said, “This is how we live.” He was basically telling us that the small gardens help keep food on their tables from day to day, and that the harvest from the palm trees essentially pays their mortgage, or allows them to live on this piece of property. In Honduran terms the members of this small agricultural co-op are referred to as “Campesinos” which translated means “peasants” or “country folk.” As we continue to work with our partners in Embarcadero, we hope to help them achieve their goal of one day owning the land that they live and work on.Rudy, just took a break from milking the cow to fill a cup for us.
Our friends in Embarcadero live together as an agricultural co-op, and Maximo has brought us out
this morning, to show us some of the ways they live in harmony with this fertile land. The cattle, that are milked and used for beef, are just one example of ways our friends find sources of income and sustenance in the village.
As the sun peaks over the mountains, we leave the milking pens and put our rubber boots to good use as we trudge through the water-soaked mud trails, between the 5 year-old palm trees. A five year-old palm tree is really more like a palm “bush,” with the upper palm fronds reaching heights of about 12 to 15 feet. The men of the community also work this 100 acre field of palm trees, and when we asked how they divided up the field, Maximo explained that they don’t divide the field, they all work together to keep the trees healthy and productive. Later we watched as they harvested the palm seed bunches.
During our trips we sleep in a one-room school building, and each individual is “adopted” by one of the families. During the week they share breakfast and dinner with their host family. Maura McDowell, a junior, education major, share
d how valuable this relatio
nship building is for the project. “One evening I watched as my family spent time just worshiping and singing and it was so cool. They were just singing as loud as they could and playing their instruments as loud as they could. It was really cool because my “mom” was kind of humming along to it while she was cooking dinner. Spending time with them in their home and learning from my family helped me see and understand how they actually live, and it really blew my mind.” Junior, Ashely Willard adds, “Being in this small community that was self-governed and seeing how they worked together with a genuine simplicity of life was an amazing concept. Living in a real community without any technology and being able to communicate with our hosts, even not knowing the language, was absolutely life changing.”
The high point of our week in the village was the celebration we held on Sunday, celebrating the completion of all of the composting latrines in the village.
(Note: Sanitario Secos are an above ground, dry composting latrine contribute to the goal of cleaner wells in the village. These are an important alternative to the commonly used “Pit Latrines” that contaminate the high water table in the region.)The celebration was a big event, starting the day before, when the men of the village chose one of their cattle to serve as the main course for the celebration. They constructed a large covered area and brought in a large grill and a huge bag of charcoal. They also invited government officials to be a part of the festivities. Among them were the Mayor of nearby Esparta, and the Director of the Ministry of Health. Professor Rafael Carias also brought two Nursing professors from the University in nearby La Ceiba (UNAH-CURLA), so that t
hey could see the “Sanitario Secos.” The nursing department from UNAH-CURLA plans to help us track health issues in the village in future months to determine if these recent village efforts actually improve their overall health and wellbeing.
We started in the school house where we heard speeches from all of the gathered dignitaries, congratulating the community and emphasizing the value of these new sanitation units. More than once it was noted that this village is truly modeling appropriate waste management that could be used in other villages throughout rural regions in Honduras, keeping ground water cleaner and serving as a source for fertilizer in the fields. Following the speeches we enjoyed entertainment provided by a group of Honduran dancers dressed in traditional garb. The dancers then invited the leader of the village to join them in dancing. It wasn’t long before many in our group of “gringos locos” joined our friend Adriano, dancing to celebrate the village’s accomplishments. As the dancing subsided and they began to pass out plates of “barbacoa” barbecued beef, rice and beans. A great meal, washed down with liters of Coke, Fanta, and Tropical, the latter being an interesting banana flavored soft drink.
Following the meal there was more dancing, including some limbo and a lot of Spanish/English conversation. We truly experienced this village’s excitement and appreciation for the projects we have partnered on thus far. Senior communication major, Paul Moore writes, “It was so rewarding to know that we had a small part in helping with this project, we sponsored and helped build these sanitarios, but we also had a part in teaching them how to build, maintain, and use the sanitarios effectively so that they could teach neighboring villages about the how it could benefit their communities.”
Looking toward future trips we did a number of things that will help us prepare for further improvements in the village. As one new dimension for our project this trip, students from UNAH-CURLA University joined us during our stay in the village. We teamed together to measure and test wells, and talk with families about their stoves, and update our census information. Currently many homes use a wood burning stove inside the house, which fills the home with smoke. We spoke with all of the residents and discovered that they are all interested in buying and building a more efficient stove that vents outside their house. Our partners from the University in La Ceiba, will be organizing a workshop to teach the village women how to install and test a new stove in
one of the family houses. When we return in May, we will join the women in constructing a new stove in each house in the village.
The people of Embarcadero are also in the process of forming a “Health Committee,” that will ensure the proper use of the “sanitario secos” in the village and monitor the health of each family. They will also work with the Nursing Department from the UNAH_CURLA to lead healthy lifestyle seminars dealing with a wide range of issues including, hygiene, newborn care, women’s issues, and dietary information.
It was hard to leave on our last day, Jessicca Baker sums it up this way, “Everything about the trip was an amazing experience, I am still working on putting everything together, but I know that I have changed as a person and that my focus has changed. The trip really opened up my heart and I am so thankful I got the opportunity to go.”
