La Hicaca

On September 25^th, the director of the medical brigade from Virginia that travels to Honduras yearly, arrived to Teguc, and the following day at 5am we hit the roads of Honduras, en route to Olanchito, Yoro, to meet up with the priests we all love so dearly, to work on plans for the 2009 Medical Brigade. Saturday we headed to the mountain village of La Hicaca to follow up on the water project we began in June.

On previous visits, we had discovered that the main health concern in these communities we work in annually is the presence of intestinal infections, caused by the lack of clean drinking water. The water these people drink comes straight from the river. The same river they wash clothes in, bathe in, and that the animals roam through, drink from, and do their duty in. As you can imagine, diarrheal infections in this area is the number one cause of death for children under five years old. So naturally, we wanted to come up with a way to deal with that problem.

In June, we delivered about 25 water filters to the community. The majority of them were placed in homes with small children, one was left in the school, and another left in the health center. Our mission for this trip was to check the filters to make sure they were still clean and functioning properly. Much to our surprise, all filters were still working wonderfully, except for the one that had been broken. All families reported that their children had been free of diarrhea since the installation of the filters. Good work, team.

The plan is to deliver more filters next year, to provide clean water to the entire community, as the brigade team devises a plan to provide a permanent solution to the drinking water problem.

Aaaand, I finally got my visit to the beach that I've been waiting for now for about three months. Although it was sadly only for one day, I guess it will have to do until my next stint down here. Ahh, hot tub on the roof of our hotel on the beach, and all for a mere $50. Doesn't get much better.