Trojes, Honduras Trip Report
Pure Water board members, Bob Mohr, Barry Poppel and Doug Hinkle just returned from their January, 2010 trip to Honduras with 4 Rotarians from Florida. The following is a report written by Barry Poppel.
We flew into Tegucigalpa, the capital city, and proceeded to Danli for the first nite. The next morning we visited the filter factory in Danli and then spent 3 hours on dirt roads up and down mountains to get to Trojes, a border/frontier town in the El Paraiso region. The trip lasted longer than usual because the rental van broke down and we had to wait for Pure Water to send 2 trucks from Trojes to take us the rest of the way.
We spent that afternoon visiting 2 schools. School was out that week, but at one school all the residents of the village had gathered to receive storage buckets for their clean water. At the second school, deworming medicine was given to all residents of another village who had received their water filters about 2 months prior. We had to dodge cattle and their byproducts and cross streams with thin wooden planks laid across them to get to the schools.
The next day we split into 2 crews. One crew worked on building latrines and the second crew installed water filters. The work assignments were switched on the second day. The villages were located quite high in the hills around Trojes and the paths to get from 1 house to the next were quite steep. The “roads,” where they existed, were in very bad shape and the 4 wheel drive trucks struggled at times to get us to the villages.
We visited villages where water filters had been installed in prior years and talked to the residents about the benefits they had received from the filters. Our trip also included some limited sightseeing and a tour of a cigar factory.
We had lunch with 4 members of the Danli Rotary Club, the president, president-elect, treasurer and foundation chair. It was very pleasant, but they have not received any funds from R.I yet and were not prepared to discuss how and when the Trinity Rotary/Danli matching grant project would begin or what role PWW would have in this grant..
The Hondurans are very friendly and appreciative of the effort to help them. The kids are adorable and love to see pictures of themselves. The trip was very gratifying and we encourage anyone who is interested to consider going on this trip in the future.
