Operation Honduras is underway! Less than 24 hours ago, we left the post-Christmas comforts of the US for Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It is a beautiful country! The mountains make for an amazing landscape. Before we even landed, we were able to appreciate the hilly terrain, and we were exposed to our first glimpse of Honduran homes, which dotted the hillside in a cluttered manner. After our first genuine Honduran meal, we went straight to work, packing dry goods for 120 families in need. We will have the pleasure of delivering those packages later in the week. We also had our first experience with local traffic, which I would describe as unregulated. Kudos to team member Scott Jones, who successfully (and aggressively) guided us through rush hour traffic last night in our rental van. And, by the way, the potholes here make those in Atlanta look like nothing at all.Two things really strike me as I digest my initial images from Honduras. First, this is a country that is still struggling to recover from a hurricane that struck approximately 12 years ago. It is suggested that the hurricane (Mitch was it’s name, I believe) set the country back by 20 years in terms of infrastructure. On top of that, we rode through a hillside area that was particularly hard-struck by that storm, and to see the conditions that people live in there today was an eye-opener for me. What really stuck out though was that people were just going about their daily lives, watching their kids, doing dishes, etc. , even amidst what appeared to be terrible living conditions. It really put some faces on the worldwide poverty epidemic that I hear so much about but have personally struggled to begin to grasp.
Today we’re off to a homeless shelter, and I’ll leave that story to our next reporter. Hasta entonces!
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