Sunday, June 26, 2005
To fill a gap, start digging.
Next door to Our Little Roses is a piece of land with 6 or 7 small homes on it. From the second floor stairwell where our apartment sits we can look over the wall to observe the homes and the land of the compound. I was to find out tonight that the compound houses the blind.
So on one side of us sits this home site for the blind. On the other is a home for the mentally ill which is run by the Sisters of Charity (Mother Teresa). Behind us is the levy which is essentially a squatter town. Our Little Roses is a mission amongst the poorest of the poor. Being from the West one imagines what living amongst the poorest of poor feels like. To be honest, it is not all that different from Alexandria VA, Washington DC, or Plantation Fl. It is simply not that pretty. Aesthetically it bombards the senses. Walls with Barb wire; trash; gates; broken stone; backed up water; potholes; and to our immense enjoyment over the last couple of days two dead dogs baking in the sun. Someone had thankfully put lime on it so what we got was infinitely better than what it could have been. Definitely, this area is not pretty.
Yet the reason that one does not feel all that different is that it is still inhabited by people. People are people. You see mother's with their children. There are homes with cars and people who work. Down the way I'm able to buy a coke or milk at the local Pulperia. (Think 7-11 in someone's house with out any slurpee's.) Up the way we can pick up a local cab. There are soccer games at the local football field. There was a marriage at the home this weekend. Regardless of where you go there we are. We all have the all the basic needs. We want our children to grow up healthy. We want to eat good food. We want our houses to be secure. So here we are amongst the poorest of the poor and the reality is that it is not all that different.
The reason I began by describing the compound next door is that from our viewpoint on the second floor we can see the houses but also the pool of slimy green water which has yet to be filled in. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to take your Malaria pill. Doug, the missioner from SE Florida, informed me that when he first started coming down here the compound next door was only about half the size it is now and that they had filled in an incredible portion to make it habitable. So what we have been looking at had been a lot less habitable. While I was thinking that what I was looking at a half empty cup it actually was half full. People had come before me to make order out of chaos. In fact, I was to find that a lot of the area had been swampy like the back corner of the lot. The grounds Our Little Roses is on was once a lot like the compound next door. Quite literally they have set a foundation that others are building off of.
In light of all that I began to think of what has been created here. I remembered what a visiting doctor mentioned to me on our second day. His group had come to consider a mission. He was a medical doctor and told me that Honduras has a high rate of cervical cancer and deaths that result from cervical cancer. What frustrates him and many others is that dying from cervical cancer is preventable by Pap Smear. The difficulty he recounted was not in getting medical treatment to Honduras. The difficulty is in having the infrastructure to reach the women. He brought up a good point. Why would any impoverished local woman trust an American doctor in Honduras if he or she showed up? What is so lacking is infrastructure and trust.
The doctor then brought to light the incredible feat that had been accomplished with Our Little Roses. It is not just what they are doing with the girls but it is the buildings, transportation, secure area, local connections that could make it a site where local people could be treated. Doctors, if they came to treat would be able to utilize the public trust in reaching a lot more people than they could on their own. In a country that suffers from lack of infrastructure, Our Little Roses can provide that wider support..
The miracle of this place is more than the care and development of the girls. It is the establishment of needed structure that is not afraid to share itself with those who do not have the means to pay. Like the filled in pool next door, this place has, stone by stone, brick by brick, child by child created a structure that is in fact changing the world.
So on one side of us sits this home site for the blind. On the other is a home for the mentally ill which is run by the Sisters of Charity (Mother Teresa). Behind us is the levy which is essentially a squatter town. Our Little Roses is a mission amongst the poorest of the poor. Being from the West one imagines what living amongst the poorest of poor feels like. To be honest, it is not all that different from Alexandria VA, Washington DC, or Plantation Fl. It is simply not that pretty. Aesthetically it bombards the senses. Walls with Barb wire; trash; gates; broken stone; backed up water; potholes; and to our immense enjoyment over the last couple of days two dead dogs baking in the sun. Someone had thankfully put lime on it so what we got was infinitely better than what it could have been. Definitely, this area is not pretty.
Yet the reason that one does not feel all that different is that it is still inhabited by people. People are people. You see mother's with their children. There are homes with cars and people who work. Down the way I'm able to buy a coke or milk at the local Pulperia. (Think 7-11 in someone's house with out any slurpee's.) Up the way we can pick up a local cab. There are soccer games at the local football field. There was a marriage at the home this weekend. Regardless of where you go there we are. We all have the all the basic needs. We want our children to grow up healthy. We want to eat good food. We want our houses to be secure. So here we are amongst the poorest of the poor and the reality is that it is not all that different.
The reason I began by describing the compound next door is that from our viewpoint on the second floor we can see the houses but also the pool of slimy green water which has yet to be filled in. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to take your Malaria pill. Doug, the missioner from SE Florida, informed me that when he first started coming down here the compound next door was only about half the size it is now and that they had filled in an incredible portion to make it habitable. So what we have been looking at had been a lot less habitable. While I was thinking that what I was looking at a half empty cup it actually was half full. People had come before me to make order out of chaos. In fact, I was to find that a lot of the area had been swampy like the back corner of the lot. The grounds Our Little Roses is on was once a lot like the compound next door. Quite literally they have set a foundation that others are building off of.
In light of all that I began to think of what has been created here. I remembered what a visiting doctor mentioned to me on our second day. His group had come to consider a mission. He was a medical doctor and told me that Honduras has a high rate of cervical cancer and deaths that result from cervical cancer. What frustrates him and many others is that dying from cervical cancer is preventable by Pap Smear. The difficulty he recounted was not in getting medical treatment to Honduras. The difficulty is in having the infrastructure to reach the women. He brought up a good point. Why would any impoverished local woman trust an American doctor in Honduras if he or she showed up? What is so lacking is infrastructure and trust.
The doctor then brought to light the incredible feat that had been accomplished with Our Little Roses. It is not just what they are doing with the girls but it is the buildings, transportation, secure area, local connections that could make it a site where local people could be treated. Doctors, if they came to treat would be able to utilize the public trust in reaching a lot more people than they could on their own. In a country that suffers from lack of infrastructure, Our Little Roses can provide that wider support..
The miracle of this place is more than the care and development of the girls. It is the establishment of needed structure that is not afraid to share itself with those who do not have the means to pay. Like the filled in pool next door, this place has, stone by stone, brick by brick, child by child created a structure that is in fact changing the world.
