Campaña de Limpieza

Hello all, I can´t believe 3 months have already passed here in Yoro. I am still getting to know people and making friends. At times the language barrier can be difficult. I speak Spanish well although it is difficult for some Hondurans to understand me. I think part of it is that they are suprised that I speak Spanish well and weren´t really paying attention in the first place or they just are unwilling to try and understand especially the elderly. I haven´t traveled much of Honduras yet because I wanted to make a good integration into my community. People here recognize me and treat me very well.

As for work, it has been slow however I am finally working with the city council member that is involed in the envirionment. I am very happy to be working with her. She is a frank and outspoken person which is quite difficult to find in Latin culture. She has presented a 4 year plan with the municipality and I plan on working with her and her ideas since that is really what I want ot focus on.

This past month we worked with the Minestry of Health and their promoters to plan a city wide clean up. Of course the first time is always full of faults but according to the promoters this year was much better than last year. We coordinated with the students at the high school to help us go to all the homes in every barrio and put abate ( an insecticde that kills mosquitos) in their pilas. Mosquitos here carry dengue and malaria so it is very important that every pèrson takes responsibility for the standing water they have around their homes. Garbage is a huge problem here. People throw garabage wherever a part of this is that there is a lack of garbage cans through out the city. The city has tried to but garbage cans through out the city but people abuse them and rob them. In public garbage cans people dispose of their dead chickens or dogs instead of burying them. The attitude of many people is that someone else will take care of it. My counterpart and I talked to many of the businesses on the main street and many of them respond with a positve answer that they would but a garbage can in front of their business to help eliminate the garbage in the streets. This is a huge project and a long term goal for the city because people don´t change overnight.

I will be working with the students at the high school who will in return teach thier classmates what to do with garbage. A large part of the campaign is motivating people to change and become aware of the fact that garbage and poor sanitary habits keep people cause sickness throughout the city. I have been on the radio and television promoting good habits and have had many direct questions but they have all gone well. I am happy to be working but it is frustrating with cultural differences and the lack of enthusiaism people have to make a difference in thier city. I hope to continue working with my counterpart but due to politics I am not sure how much longer she will be at the municipality. I think that even if she is not at the muncipality I will continue to woirk with her in other projects. We hope to continue this campaign every 3 months. I hope that before I leave I see a cleaner city and more environmental consciensous community.