Compassionfruit's travel blogs:
|
|
  | |  |
La Ceiba, Honduras
Entry 33 of 38 | show all | print this entry |
|
We arrived in La Ceiba, a coastal city of over a hundred thousand residents. We found a great place to stay, Hotel Italia for $15.00 a night, with a pool and all the comforts of a real hotel. We are not sure why it was so much cheaper but we didn't complain. Unfortunately the beach was not attractive nor swimable, as the coliform count would probably would be very high. As we found in most places in Honduras, eating anything except meat poses a problem, and although I do eat chicken and fish, enough is more than enough. We did find the Pizza Hut salad bar with the personal veggie pan pizza a good last resort. There is also a gringo restaurant, but prices were high, but the salads and veggie burritos were great.
Our first project visit was to S.O.S. (www.soschildrensvillages.org) a children's village located 30 minutes from La Ceiba. Every 10 kids live in a separate house with their foster mother. A parallel model to RTU of Brother James in India. It began 20 years ago and has 123 kids. We met with a volunteer coordinator, David Ashby, and had a very informative and inspiring tour. Many teams of volunteers visit them and the SOS villages are located in 131 other countries. They also incorporate extracurricular education, as their children do attend the local public school. They also have a medical clinic, pottery workshop and volunteers teaching English. The design of the village is beautiful, with large grassy open spaces and gardens, and a soccer field.
Adelante, (www.adelantefoundation.org) is a micro-lending organization established five years ago to assist very poor women start businesses. They offer small "character" based loans, as these women have no collateral. We were very impressed by their core philosophy, field application and the committed staff. We spent a full day in the field with their credit officers and a health worker, visiting three women's assemblies. We had the chance to talk extensively with the credit officers and health educator back at the office and found ourselves among very like-minded people. The organization has 4000 women in their lending groups. They also have health education that is an important facet of some micro-credit organizations. They agree that education goes hand in hand with social and economic change for the poor. They also opened a door for our possible cooperation for health education in their program and have invited Heather to give a talk on Homeopathy next year at a big conference they are holding. It should be noted that this organization also had the most individuals that we truly felt a kinship with. We have a strong and continuing rapport with Edna, health coordinator, and her friend Patsy, who you will see in the photos.
We visited, Casa de los Ninos, (House of Children) home to 40 street kids under the auspice of Feed the Children. Some have continually lived there for years, others only for weeks. Many go to public school, some to vocational training and others to a special school. A volunteer, Coni, teaches them handicrafts, which is a great therapy and produces beautifully woven bracelets. She also works in sex and health education for this project, Adelante and in women's prisons. The need in this country is deep and wide. We were fortunate to have had Edna's guided tour of a river called Congrejal. It borders a national park, Pico Bonita and is a destination for eco tourism. We visited a project there as well; Fotokids. It teaches kids photography and ecology. We have some photos of their headquarters. They offer guided tours to tourists on trails they have constructed and have just completed two guest houses and restaurant..
One of the highlights of La Ceiba was being invited to a dinner party by our new friends Patsy and Edna. We had a great time and that led to us inviting ourselves back to their home to cook them an Indian meal. It was such a pleasure for Alicia and I to prepare a meal and it turned out well considering our cooking supply challenges. Our friends loved it. We said goodbye to La Ceiba to travel back to Tegucigalpa to revisit some projects and explore new ones. We have completed 7 weeks here with nine more to go. We will keep you posted. GK More thumbnails ...
Where I stayed:
Hotel Italia
Latest Comments (0)
No comments This entry is not accepting new comments. |
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by compassionfruit, from Honduras or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
6 votes 
