Hi everyone, this is Zach Evans. I'm having a great time here in Santa Lucia. The camaraderie we have developed with each other and the La Ceiba students is unbelievable. It is good to see so many people devoted to helping others simply to make the world a better place.
Home Visits
Today the group of students I am working with: Jimmy Willis, Olivia Paige-Pollard, MacKenzie Murphy, and three La Ceiba Bilingual school students, went to visit three homes of students who attend the local colegio in Santa Lucia. Colegio is basically the spanish word for high school. There are kids who range from ages 12-20 at the school that we have gotten to work with on this trip. We have found that although the colegio isn't the most needy, it could use some work to make it a better learning environment. Three students from the colegio were selected to show us their homes this morning. One of the teachers at the Colegio took us around and showed us the homes. It was a very good experience to see these houses because not only did we get to meet the kids on this trip; we got to see how they live as well. The first house was up a hill and was the home of two students at the colegio. One kid was twelve and one was nineteen. This house was very small, but the mother of the household devoted her time to keeping it in shape. The second house we visited was toward the outskirts of Santa Lucia. It made us all very sad to visit because the mother of the house told us a sad story. She has had ten children over the course of her life, but five of them have died. The son she has that attends the colegio is sixteen years old. His sister works in La Esperanza to help pay for him to go to school and help him succeed. They were very poor. The third house we saw was on the edge of Santa Lucia in a barrio called Cincinnati. The mother of the house had seven kids and two of them lived at home. One child attended the colegio. This was the nicest of the three houses we visited. Each of the families of the three houses said they had nothing to change about the colegio, but one requested more discipline. I was kind of upset that one of the heads of school came with us on the house visits, because it seemed that the families kept their thoughts reserved in fear of criticizing the colegio in front of the teacher. The home visits were a great experience and I hope the other groups got as much out of it as we did.
"The 10,000 Year Secret Waterfall"
Last night, our group of CDS and CBS students had a meeting with Professor Rene. We talked about what we have seen on our trip and what we are planning to change. At the end of the meeting, he invited us on a hike to a waterfall that he claimed to have been kept secret to the public for 10,000 years. A group of us jumped on this opportunity to see something so incredible. The hike was relatively tough; it included climbing through barbwire fences, walking through fields of cow poop, hiking through heavy brush, and scaling small rock faces up and down the mountains. Once we got to the main part of the falls, we were all amazed. It was very pretty, but it was shocking to see all of the garbage and sewage that had floated down the river and to the pools of the waterfall. The trip back was much better because it is easier to climb up rocks than down rocks. It was definitely worth the hike.
We will leave for La Ceiba on Friday morning at 4:00 AM. I am excited to see a new part of Honduras and I think we all are looking forward to being in a big city again.
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