Archive for October 2010
Power, Roads, & Rain Oh My
The last two weeks were pretty interesting although not in the most ideal way. The hurricane missed us, but still managed to include us in on some rain and high winds. Normally that wouldn’t have been much of an issue, but this year Honduras has had over 300% of its normal rainfall. The usual rainfall around here is enough to wash out roads. The above average rainfall has pretty much guaranteed it. It has rained nearly every day since I arrived here up until this weekend.
One of the other teachers and I took a group a boys down the road this past Wednesday to help out. It was a big soupy mess. We managed to scrap away a significant portion of the mud and start a shallow channel for the water to run beside the road instead of over it. The channel will probably get washed out with the next big rainfall, but at least it was a start. Towards the end of the day, a load of gravel was delivered. After we managed to spread that out, the road was finally passable at that section again.
The power generator was out of action for awhile. Fortunately it was working when a tree was blown over onto the power lines last week. It was about a week before it was fixed. The generator is only run for a few hours each day while the power is out. You have to reschedule some of the day to make sure you get the things you need taken care of during that time. My computer class was forced to listen to me lecture on and on endlessly. I am sure they were praying for the power to come back after the first day.
It has been dry the last few days so the roads and fields are starting to look better now. As much as there was going on, it really wasn’t a bad two weeks. It was thankfully uneventful. There were some worries about supplies and fuel, but nothing seriously dangerous happened which is thankful since it would have been hard if not impossible to get up and down the road in a hurry.
