Noehmi's Surgery, Take 2

This is Noehmi. She is six and tiny and very cute. She has a double hernia and we are trying to help her get it fixed. Many of you have offered to contribute to this endeavor, and her mother and father appreciate it very much, as do I. Yesterday we went to pick her up with her parents and take her to the hospital.

We drove to the center of town and picked them up. Her father, in addition to being a subsistence farmer, is the pastor of this little church in the village. It is the only other church besides the one we normally work with, the Baptist church that Santos pastors. This one is prettier.

This is Noehmi outside her house yesterday. Hers is one of the poorer families in Pueblo Nuevo, I think. She had on her fanciest clothes for the trip, as did her parents.

Unfortunately, when we got in the car, we noticed it had a flat tire. This delayed our departure BY NEARLY THREE HOURS! The reasons for this delay are too boring to write, but suffice it to say that it was both fun and stressful.

Here is Jonathan and Noehmi's father trying to read the car's instruction manual in Spanish. The book used the words "mango" and "gato" but not in their normal sense. Apparently these words also mean some car part that none of us could identify, and yet is crucial for changing a flat tire in less than three hours. Everybody, including the villagers, found "mango" amusing, and the little boy on the right pointed up in the mango tree we were standing under.

We put the warning triangle out while we changed the tire in case some high speed trafic might come up on us... on a horse or something.

After we let the car down off the jack, we saw that our spare tire was also flat, although not as flat as the original. I decided we were going to try and drive out on it anyway, but the family stayed behind in case we weren't able to make it out, which we did, gratefully. I was a little concerned that crossing the river with a flat tire might be difficult, but it wasn't any more difficult than normal.

So this morning, The M dropped the work crew at Danta Uno and then picked up the family at the suspension bridge. The mother gave her a big hug when she saw her, which was a surprisingly demonstrative display of affection. They all went to the hospital and got her examined and scheduled for tomorrow at 11 a.m.. The hospital is contributing 10,000 Lempiras (about $500) which will leave the bill at around $750 plus some expenses for food, and a hotel for a couple of nights. We have this covered now, thanks to you generous donors.

We shared a scripture with the family, Galatians 6:10 which says:

"So then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith."

I told him that even though we work with a different church than the one he pastors, that we share the same father, and are therefore family. His face brightened at this, but then he mumbled something about mangos that I couldn't follow.

Saturday's Progress

We have been going all-out for the last six days, trying to get the project complete in time. Today was pay day for the employees, and this made me feel more like we were a real company somehow. Sorry, no benefits guys.

The canal team (Ryan and Jonathan) finished their concrete work and began the installation of the big honkin' tubes. It looks like a double-barrel shotgun to me. Take aim at poverty. OK, that was corny.

Casita de Poder - the powerhouse. I worked in there for several hours today. It was really hot and humid and I was sweating like only a middle aged fat guy can. But it was worth it because by the end of the day, the inverter was making 120 Volts just like it was supposed to. We got the master breakers installed and were able to successfully charge batteries using the diesel generator. Next step, hydrogenerator.

AJ and Elizabeth worked with the village guys (Santiago, Walter, and Adolfo) to install power poles and string wire. They have now run about 2000 feet of it.

Friday Night Update

I know that most of you read the blog because of the interesting technical details I give. You know, how many volts here, or how many inches in diameter there, but sometimes you techies need to stop and smell the roses. Here are some pictures from the last couple of days in the village of Danta Uno.

Isn't she adorable?

This is Adolfo and Jonathan bending rebar for the concrete columns. I saw them with their matching gloves and contrasting hats and was struck by the image. In ways, they are alike, but in others, they are worlds apart. Heavy.

The flat area in the middle of the picture is a soccer field where, presumably, the children of Danta Uno play soccer, and the soccer moms of Danta Uno park their minivans and chitchat.

This is a snake, I forget the name, con-bla-bla or something, that was in a tree hanging over the road near Walter's house where we had lunch. It was about 6 feet long. I was told it was non-poisonous.

I drove to the hardware store in a nearby town called Jutiapa. Nearby was a butcher shop with meat hanging on hooks over the sidewalk! Inside there was a dude cutting steaks with - get this - a band saw. It was just like seventh grade wood shop but with meat.

"What's your semester project?"

"I'm making fajitas."
"Cool, I'm making a rack of ribs."

"Cool."

At Walter's house where we had lunch, the chickens and dogs wander in and out of the doors. I have no idea how they know which chickens are theirs and which are their neighbors.

This is AJ wearing his high tech shirt that breathes and dries quickly. I think I might have to get one. It has lots of pockets. This picture was taken at the power house after he used the drill to make mounting holes for the inverter. This baby cut through the cinder blocks like butter. They are easy compared to granite boulders.

I put this picture on the blog because it has a lot of little details. You can see the big spool of cable - a bobina in Spanish (think bobbin). You can see our first tree/power pole behind AJ. And you can see the power house a little bit.

Here we are starting to run the power lines.

Santiago has no fear of heights. He leans his ladder up against the pole and up he goes. Walter and I are pulling the wires tight while AJ and Elizabeth begin their May pole dance.

Elizabeth has been INCREDIBLY helpful and has many talents. We all think she is something special.

Here Jonathan is sitting on the first concrete column. It will support the big honkin' pipes that will come from the dam behind him. We are not building a dam, but rather reusing an old one built for drinking water collection several decades ago.

Noemi's Surgery

It looks like Noemi, the six-year-old girl from Pueblo Nuevo with a double hernia, will be well enough for surgery next Monday. We are planning to bring her family into the city on that day. She was too sick for surgery last time. Her mother told us it was a virus, but it turns out that it was a pretty severe virus: Dengue Fever.


But she is passed that now, and smiles much more frequently, as you might imagine. I taught her how to give me five and I think she likes me. This is the best picture I have of her; sorry you can't see better.


The surgery is going to cost about $750, and putting the family in a hotel and helping them with other miscellaneous costs might be another $50. I have had several folks tell me they want to contribute, and the total of these "email donations" is about $370. That leaves us about $430 short. Send me an email if you want to contribute. This is the final call... probably.

Out Ridin' Fences

After looking at the difference in cost and performance of buried wire and overhead wire, I have realized that overhead is much more practical. I had hoped to not have to use it since the sight of power lines is somewhat despoiling of the natural beauty of the place. However, I was told by one influential Honduran, who shall remain nameless, that the people don't care about seeing power lines anyway, and that they don't think like me in that way. I can believe this because they are in "survival culture" not a "comfort culture" like our own. Still, I found it hard to use overhead lines, and wanted to bury them. But when I saw how much cheaper they would be, I had to give in.

We calculated that we needed about 150 poles which would be made from trees. At first I was concerned that all the trees in the area would be cut down for this purpose, but when we tasked two of our employees, Adolfo and Santiago, to get us a dozen poles to start with, they came up with a great solution. It was a great case of appropriate technology.

Their solution came from the Madreado tree, which grows like crazy here. The people use their straight branches as fence poles for their barbed wire fences. When you cut off a branch of this tree and stick it in the ground, it does not die. Instead, it sprouts leaves and, presumably, roots. So almost all the barbed wire fences in this part of rural Honduras are constructed with these trees. New fences look like bare posts, but old fences look like rows of trees. I shot the following video of some cows walking by a fence like this. They look like uniformly sized trees in a straight line.

Anyway, Adolfo and Santiago used these madreado trees as power poles. So in a few years, instead of having fewer trees, they will actually have more trees - albeit connected by wires.

After they put in the first dozen poles, Adolfo and Walter began running the first spool of wire! Walter has a bad arm that resulted from a childhood injury, but he can lift more with his left arm than I can with both of mine.