Relocation Begins Tomorrow

This is a portion that has slid somewhere else in previous rains.

The front of the house

The boulder in the back part of the house

One of the children. I hate it when little children don't smile.

Where the mom washes clothes.

The higher up house that Marc visited.

A house below the one we visited. Something has already gone through the roof here, too.

After we fed hot food at the dump today, we had another meeting with some of the mayor's people. The city has secured thirty lots and are ready to go. Our friend Gayle Davidson has a group here and they will build the first two houses tomorrow.

After a brief meeting, they were ready to show us the first community from which people will be relocated. And we were ready to go. We all got in a car and I was shocked beyond words as we started up El Hatillo. El Hatillo is one of the rich parts of town. It is also where the mission house is so we drive by this village every time the buses come and go.

We saw some really well built houses and some that looked pretty upscale. But appearances are so deceiving, especially here in Honduras. We soon learned that this village called Reparto had at one time been a village where some of the wealthy lived. As they moved on, extremely poor people moved into these nice houses. Most of them don't know how they will feed their kids today. There are 496 homes in this village and all the people will be eventually relocated.

We stopped so we could have a good look at the density of the houses. Packed so tightly on this mountain prone to landslides when the heavy rains began. It appeared to me if one went, they would all go.

We then visited some of the families that will be among the first to move. The people from the city explained what they were doing. Building houses and relocating people to a better, safer place. When asked, everyone said yes to moving.

The first house in which we entered had a dirt floor. A mom and six kids live there. One bed. Little or no food. And a boulder sitting in the back of the house. During recent rains, the boulder fell from someplace higher. It is too big for the lady to move, so it just sits there. The roof and the back wall have separated because of this boulder.

My thought: surely this is the most urgent case and they will be moved first. I was wrong. As desperate as this case is, it is not the most urgent. This mom and her kids will be among the first six families, though. The mother was almost weeping when she was told.

I walk around outside and saw she had no pila to wash clothes. She had a barrel with a piece of plywood on top and one small jug of water. I can't even begin to imagine washing clothes for six kids like that. But I can't even imagine using the pila either. I am sure those kids do not have the same amount of clothes my kids had.

Marc walked higher to another house and found 11 people living in a little house in similar deplorable conditions.

As the city helps to relocate these families, they plan to tear down the old houses. It would not do much good to leave them standing. Another poor family would move in.

I am still a big cry baby. Every time I see these things, I leave crying. But at least many of these have a hope for better living conditions.

Please pray for this project and for the TORCH groups that will be building these new houses.

Terri