Arriving in Honduras early December, we were very anxious to travel to the village and greet our people there. It had been eight months since we departed Honduras last April 2014. During our absence, we had several substantial donations made to our cause, one which was anonymous from Osoyoos and others which came through caring, concerned residents in Richmond B.C. (namely Colin Foo, a long time friend of Roger’s) and local people of our valley. We were so fortunate to have secured over $2,000 at our fundraiser at Rustic Roots Winery in Cawston, Dec. 29, 2014. Many thanks and “muchas gracias” to all that helped.
December and January are the rainy months here, so unfortunately due to the terrible road conditions, we were unable to get to the village. Most of the five-kilometre road was washed out.
However, in late January, after the locals of the village manually repaired large wash out areas of the road, we travelled to the village. At this time, we had our guest Colin Foo with us and he was thrilled to give out gifts of soccer balls and school supplies to the children. At the same time, pictures were taken of the existing new kindergarten that was completed in late 2014 and final plans were made with the villagers to begin the second school as soon as could be arranged.
The site was ready, but we needed some dry, hot weather to get a large delivery truck up the rugged, steep hills to village.
During the next month, Roger met with the mayor of Santa Fe to consult on the desperate need to repair the road. Subject to this, fuel expenses were funded by Roger Clinton and another local charity (U.S.) Corazon y Corazon, to assist the municipality with the road repairs. Finally after much anticipation, on Feb 27th, we received a call that the road was passable.
Since this time we have made numerous trips to the village with food, household and medical supplies. Sick children and ailing adults have either been transported to hospital or given medical attention in the village. Also at this time, we were informed by the Mayor that a team of medics from Canada and the U.S. would be visiting all the villages along the coast and doing surgical clinics in most of the larger cities. This indeed was a huge help for us. Prescriptions were delivered and parasite medication was administered to hundreds of villagers. Things were finally starting to happen.
As of this date, we are pleased and proud to announce that Roger Clinton has recently purchased over $10,000 (U.S. Funds) of building supplies, which have all been transported in three trucks to the village.
This is an all day procedure, given that, when the first truck load arrived, they were unable to make the steep trek up the mountain, due to a recent rainfall. On that day, many villagers came the five-km on foot or horseback to assist with the unloading of the truck, until further help could be found. The large delivery truck returned to the township of Tocoa.