More Honduran Experiences

Living in the United States, we take so many things for granted. I don't just mean hot water. Everyday is an adventure here and, as you know, we often have to smile and say "welcome to Honduras." The last couple of weeks have been full of those experiences.

The day after Easter the bank had no money. We were not trying to get a million dollars or anything, just a couple of thousand. At 10:00, they told us they might have money by 3:00. At 3:00 they told us try tomorrow.

This is a cash society. We have to get cash from the bank and buy groceries or pay bills. The electricity company comes to the property, reads the meter and gives a printout. I then have to go to any bank to pay the electricity. After we received the printout, I went to the bank the next day and was told I had to wait three days for it to be in the system. I went back a few days later and was told the same thing. I tried several times to pay this bill and it never was in the system. Trust me on this one. The next time it is read, both months will show up in the system.

Last week I went to the bank and paid my internet bill. I have a receipt. Now the internet company is saying we have to scan the receipt and email it to someone else so the provider will know it has been paid. We will have to do this every month.

Last month, when we fed people at the dump, the people were grateful were food, but the one thing every single person asked for was water. We decided it would be no problem to buy bags of water and give each person water as well as a sandwich and a banana. There is group from Atlanta here this week. Today, they are doing a dump feeding. My job yesterday was to buy bread and water. I knew there was no way any one store would have 250 bags of water. I stopped at the pulperia nearest Casa de Esperanza. I bought every bag of water they had. Twenty bags. I am thinking this might take all day. I drove a little further and stopped at the next pulperia and hit pay dirt. I bought 100 from that store. By the time I left Santa Ana, I had 216 bags of water. I was really happy I was not going to have to stop at every little pulperia all the way down the mountain. I went to Dispensa and was also happy that they had 25 loaves of bread and that I was not going to have to go all the way to Tegucigalpa.

I know it is hard to imagine not just sitting down, writing checks to pay your bills, and then mailing them. Or having to go to several stores to get a quantity of water. Or going to the bank several times to pay a bill or having to scan your receipt to the internet company. We can laugh about it and say welcome to Honduras. This is a way of live for people and perhaps they do not know any differently. But some of these people have to either walk a long distance to get to the bank or pay bus fare from their hard earned wages. If they get to the bank and cannot accomplish what they came to accomplish, then they have to pay that bus fare again. Some of these crazy things only hurt the poor people, those you can least afford it.

Terri