Traveling with MCC

Hey All!

So we have been incredibly busy traveling with MCC. Here it goes...

On Monday morning we learned about the border towns in San Pedro. The border towns are along the river. People aren't suppose to live there but they do. There is no tax on the land and they don't need to pay an electricity bill. The borders are the poorest part of the town. It was hard to walk through. There are multiple places along the border. We visited two homes. An organization call CASM works to relocate families from the border. The border towns have created their own economic system. They grow some of their own goods, or sell fish. They are a neighborhood. The two houses we visited were somewhat different. Both were families who had created a home for themselves. The borders are dangerous because the river floods and can wipe homes out. The woman from the second home had built a wall to help prevent the river from washing her house away. She's been there for 11 years I believe. We got to talk with some kids who were there as well. That was a lot of fun.

On Monday afternoon we went to a Banana Co-op. This is varied from the main Banana company in Honduras. Multiple people own the land for the co-op. It's a bigger plantation than I expected it to be. We saw the process from beginning to end. Next time you buy banana's from Dole look at the sticker and see if it says from Honduras :-)

On Tuesday we delivered school supplies to two schools. It was a lot of fun to see the smiles on the kids faces when they opened up their bag and saw notebooks and pencils. It was pretty awesome. Mennonite churches around the country make these draw string bags for the school kits. One of the girls on the trip said that she had helped with them at some point so it was cool for her to make them and then turn around and hand them out.

In the afternoon on Tuesday we went to an after school program for children with learning disabilities. It was interesting but kind of a bummer that we didn't get to interact with the kids. It was still an interesting program though.

On Wednesday morning we went to a Maquilla. This specific Maquilla is a WalMart distributor. Going into it I was expecting the working conditions to be poor but from what I observed it wasn't. There was air conditioning, they work from 7:30-4:30 I believe, Monday through Friday. They are paid for overtime. It was really interesting. I have now seen WalMart's halloween kids t-shirts :-) So, once again, if you are buying clothes at Walmart, check the tag for made in Honduras. It made me feel like I was contributing something. When we walked through I had two shirts from Walmart on. I was able to make a connection.

Wednesday afternoon was free. We did some shopping at the market. We left San Pedro on Thursday and traveled to PANACAM national park. Look it up online if you can. It's pretty cool. I basically feel like I'm at summer camp. They have a few projects underway to help the environment and the people living here. Today they brought us around and told us about all of it. Too much to explain now.

Tomorrow we leave for Tegucigalpa. We will be there until next Friday I believe. We will be doing some traveling. I think Thursday is reserved for shopping. We'll be staying at a retreat center tomorrow night and Sunday night. Host families on Monday night and Tuesday night then I think we're in a hotel. On Friday or Saturday we will be heading to MAMA project.

That's basically it for now. I know this was kind of a lot but we have been busy.

Until next time,
Kelley