Phased Withdrawal Plans

You know you are in Honduras, Rodrigo says, when the ladies of the night come out at 8pm. And when they are in fact men, it is irresistible even for a CNN hero to send El Boludo their way.

Yesterday we finished our Brisas surveys with military precision. This is the end of that routine of calling "Hola, Buenas", plastic chairs being brought out, and fumbling through questions. We spoke with the director of the village school, where we plan to implement our computing project. So baseball lessons for the youngsters (in exchange for fresh mangoes) will continue long-term. The boys of Las Brisas looked convincingly crushed that Arkansas beat Virginia.

Also convincingly crushed were our clothes, which were washed by a kindly matron from Villa and dried by beating them repeatedly against the rocks. It was high time.

Our next task will be to compile and analyze the survey data and prepare our report, which will also be used by Students Helping Honduras to pursue a grant to build a learning center in the new community being built behind Las Brisas. Rodrigo and I will take our work on the road, a withdrawal from the war-zone for a few days which will include a visit to our friend Valeria in Nicaragua via the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. So it's off to the southern half of Central America, which looks like the very heights of civilization from here.

This morning we went to visit a nutrition center where malnourished children aged one to five years are brought from orphanages and poor homes. The volunteers play with the children, they eat periodically like machines, and go to scoot around on plastic pots until they have discharged their last meal. Then it's siesta-time.

The good news for this week is we found a site which allows us to draw up a tangible plan for implementing a service project and launch a social business with a lot of growth potential. And after spending some long days compiling our data, it's time for a little vacation (from our vacation).