Hydrating Honduras
Bringing water to rural villages proves a satisfying alternative to the typical college spring break.
This article was published in Abroad View's fall 2009 magazine.
By Grace Weitz
I drew in my breath while a few tremors of turbulence shook the plane. Searching for the one runway strip of tarmac on which to land, the plane threaded its way between a pair of mountains, surrounding a collage of modern and dilapidated tri-colored buildings. After a 3:30 a.m., two-stop flight through the night, I finally landed in Tegucigalpa—the capital city of Honduras.
It was with mild trepidation and an interest in service and the Spanish language that I first signed up for this trip to Honduras. I was going over spring break with Global Water Brigades (GWB), a group launched in 2008 to improve and research use of water worldwide.
“We aim to improve access to clean, sufficient water worldwide and to give students an experience in international development so they are empowered to make change in the world in the future,” says our guide for the week, Ben Erker, the man who greeted us with a smile after we landed.
Erker, a recent graduate from the University of California Davis, was referring to students like me who travel from colleges and universities across the United States to spend their spring breaks trying to make an impact. This particular weekend happened to be especially significant for the GWB organization: It marked the one-year anniversary of its foundation. Although much had been accomplished in a year, we volunteers were here to do more.
“[GWB] is a young organization,” Erker says. “There remains a huge amount of things we can improve.”
I was determined to be a part of this impassioned network and to make this anniversary week a great one for GWB. My work began the next day with a 6 a.m. alarm. Crawling out of bed, I trudged down to the white cafeteria tent for a quick breakfast of eggs, beans, and tortillas. Afterward, my fellow Northwestern University students, a group from Davis College, and I all piled into a red and black van. As we headed to our destination, Buena Vista, the Honduran driver, Juan Carlos, cranked up the techno tunes, and we settled in for the bouncy, three-hour ride.
Buena Vista (which means “beautiful view” in Spanish) was named for the amazing view from atop the mountain on which it sits. Leaving behind the paved roads, our rickety vehicle rocked back and forth like a sailboat on choppy water as we churned our way up the mountain. A paper-thin trail strewn with rocks and dust led us into the tiny village, where we were greeted by a bunch of burros (donkeys) and villagers.
The most satisfying moment of the day came during a town meeting we had with local members of the community. Buena Vista’s water source has been drying up, and people in the community never have enough water. We were there to help them find a solution. After listening to (and, to my surprise, largely understanding) the locals speak in Spanish for about 45 minutes, I decided to open my mouth. Turning toward the leader of the group, I carefully spoke the sentence I had rehearsed in my head. He stared at me with blank eyes and answered “no te entiendo” (I am not understanding you). It may have been a failure on my part, but I was proud of myself for finally having the courage to speak Spanish.
For the next five days the pattern was repeated. We didn’t return to Buena Vista, but we spent the majority of the week at a village named El Corralito. The village had been experiencing problems piping water to various homes. Our task was to divide into several groups and, with the help of a local carpenter, build a pila, a water storage unit made from brick and cement that helps each family store water for long periods of time.
The first day in El Corralito was tedious. Miguel, GWB’s carpenter, didn’t speak English, but he used hand gestures to motion to us and encouraged us with a few words he did know. Eventually, he showed us how to dig a ditch in the dirt and fill the base of our pila with concrete. Yes, homemade concrete: three parts cement, two parts gravel, five parts water, and a whole lot of back-breaking shoveling. Needless to say, at the end of that day my tiny bunk bed seemed king-size.
The next few days took an exorbitant amount of mixing concrete, but brick-by-brick, our pila took shape and was finally complete. The last day of our arduous adventure was a relaxing one. Since we had completed building six pilas, we spent our time visiting local tourist shops and taking pictures next to a 65.5-foot statue of Jesus. It was then that I realized there was no way I could have spent the whole week simply being a tourist. I had been into the backcountry, down dusty roads, up rocky mountains, and into villages that were surely off the beaten path. I had spent the week sweating instead of relaxing.
Perhaps Erker says it best: “The worst moments are always having to watch students head through security at the airport on their way out of Honduras after only having had a week, albeit an incredible one, to spend with them.”
And I agree. For the week, I traded in elevated train tickets for a rickety old bus driven by a techno-loving music fanatic, replaced my college bar’s “dollar burger” night for corn, beans, meat, and tortillas, and swapped my single dorm room for one with 10 bunk beds. The week seemed more like a month. It was still not nearly enough time to integrate into the Honduran culture, learn the Spanish language, or truly provide the help that many of these communities need. But even as I wished I could have accomplished more, as my plane taxied down the one-strip runway toward home, I knew that I had made the most out of my spring break.
Grace Weitz, an Abroad View Magazine editor, is a journalism major and Spanish minor at Northwestern University.