Falls Brook Dispatches from Abroad: Brittany MacGillivray - Community Development Facilitator in Honduras

After a long day of traveling, I arrived late in the day Sunday to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on October 14th. I was promptly greeted by a smiling and helpful compañero, who much like myself was eager to get out of the busy, loud, and smelly city, and head to the coast. Jumping right into things the next morning, most of my first week was spent being oriented to the office and all of the people involved with the project. Much to my devastation however, when you drive into the Barras communities along the beach, you are shown a reality that exist here that is a major problem: the garbage! Due to the ocean currents and the geography of the coast, garbage is constantly being washed up onto the, what would otherwise be beautiful beaches. As is indicated in the picture, one of the many problems that exist with this is the sanitary nature of the things (i.e., the discarded medical jar) that sit on the shores where people are living, where food is caught, and where children are playing. Roger assures me that in January we will attempt to clean some of this garbage up, and hopefully start a trend where beach clean-up becomes a regular occurrence.

Garbage that collects on the beach in the Barras.

Week two and three for me were spent in Copan Ruinas at a Spanish language school, which was a helpful and necessary venture. Following my language training, the first work day back in Cuyamel, another reality sets in: we are faced with a lot of hardships here before the restoration work can even begin. Specifically, due to the rain the night before, the office had been flooded, and soon after discovering this, the electricity went out for the remainder of the day due to a tree falling onto a power line several kilometers up the road. This will continue to be a constant battle for us throughout the next couple of months while rainy season is upon us.

Throughout the weeks to follow, many of the same problems were faced again, with issues regarding electricity, but more so with the rain. The road to the Barras gets washed out, which prevents us from getting into the communities and conducting our restoration work. Finally, toward the end of week five we were able to get into the communities. Thursday and Friday we had visitors from other projects in Honduras with us to help conduct a workshop with some of the women from Barra Motagua, and to begin an initiative regarding the exchanging of knowledge between projects. A local artist showed everyone how to make jewelry and other useful things, such as long-lasting candles and purses out of the garbage that they have on the beach. Teaching these skills to the members of the community is useful because it gives them the opportunity to participate in their own economic venture, making and selling the things that they are able to produce from the trash that cost them nothing to acquire and use.

The following week, I spent a day being introduced to the nursery that is being constructed in Cuyamel. It will be largely beneficial to the project to have the nursery in town, close to the office to help increase the protection and care of the juvenile plants, along with the already established nurseries at the schools in the two communities. The next day was a long day spent making our way into Cuero y Salado on a knowledge-exchange venture with the project in Barra Salado. The sharing of knowledge is a beneficial opportunity for our project, as it is not as well established as the project in Cuero y Salado. Specifically, it will aid us in our initiatives by allowing us to observe the progress and successes made in a similar project. These methods can then be implemented here, allowing us to further help those who live in these vulnerable Barra communities, and to further protect and restore the environment that exists there as well. On our drive back to Cuyamel we also stopped to visit the mangrove restoration project in Cacao, spending some time there being shown some of their ideas and efforts, as well as getting to see their very large, very diverse nursery.

Hopefully over the next couple of weeks the rain will allow us to get back into the communities so we can spend time applying our new knowledge, getting some trees into the ground, and doing some monitoring of the restoration sites.

Por ahora, eso es todo de Cuyamel.

Hasta pronto,

Brittany