Looking For Incubators

Our friends at Bread For A Hungry World give chickens to poor families.  The chickens lay eggs and the families have eggs to eat.  I don't know all the logistics, but chickens are purchased and shipped to Honduras.  Bread For A Hungry World thinks it will cheaper to buy some incubators, hatch eggs, raise chickens and then give the chickens to the poor families.  It will also employee a few Hondurans, always a good thing.  It sounds simple.

Welcome to Honduras.  Finding incubators in this country is not as simple as that.

I was making the airport run yesterday.  Marc said there was a farm store in Mateo.  I told Darrell he could go to the airport with me and then we would go to Mateo and get the incubators.  I had never been to Mateo, but I knew where the signs were pointing to Mateo.

After leaving the airport, we started toward Mateo.  And we drove and drove and drove.  Occasionally, I would see a sign that said Mateo.  That was refreshing.  At least I was driving in the right direction.  I stopped and asked a couple of people where Mateo was.  And the answer was always "mas arriba."  Higher.  So up the mountain we continued.  We got to Mateo and it was not much more than a wide spot in the road.  I thought the farm store would be easy to find in such a small place.  Before I knew it, we were out of Mateo and on a dirt road continuing to climb high into the mountains.  At least the drive was beautiful.

I had to turn around, which proved to be a challenge in itself.  With that task accomplished, we headed back to Mateo.  I began to ask where the farm store was and got several different answers.  We had seen a chicken farm before we got to Mateo and thought surely they would know where to buy incubators.  Silly us.

We drove back to the chicken farm and drove right through the gate as if we knew what we were doing.  I asked someone cutting the grass where to buy incubators.  I had the right word, but was accenting the wrong syllable.  He said he knew nothing.  We drove further and asked a truck driver.  He said maybe the farm store and we asked where it was.  He didn't know.  The truck driver asked another person and he said Comayguela.   I told Darrell I could not go to Comayguela and that I did not know my way around there at all.  Like I knew my way to and around  Mateo.

I stopped at the feed store where we buy chicken food and bought chicken food.  I asked them where to buy incubators.  Again, clueless.  We tried the farm store in Ojojona.  Accenting the wrong syllable, no one knew what I was talking about.  But I described it.  A box with warmth and light to hatch eggs.  The lady in the farm store said no they didn't have those and she did not know where we could buy them.  Once I finally was saying it right, I asked several people in Santa Ana.  Everyone thought I was talking about an incubator for babies.  And when I said for chickens or eggs, no one knew where to buy one.  One person said maybe Tegucigalpa, but didn't know where in Tegucigalpa.  I really wanted to help find these incubators, but I  wasn't going back to town.  At least yesterday.

Perhaps, chicken farmers here don't use incubators.  Perhaps, they hatch eggs the old-fashioned way.  I don't know. It was an interesting hunt.

While I didn't expect anything in return for my efforts, I got treated to lunch at Caso Y Campo, one of my favorite restaurants.

Today, Darrell is considering building incubators.  I think we can find the supplies to build an incubator much easier than we can find one to buy.

Terri