Today Molly and I met with Mari, a lady who has heart problems which limit her mobility and require constant medical care. That is a problem because many times Mari is not able to leave her house for reasons of her own safety.
Last week we met with Mari right after a doctor's appointment where she had been diagnosed as anemic. (I swear most of Honduras is anemic and half of Honduras is diabetic.) Molly happened to have multivitamins with her, which was the best we could offer with no notice. Mari has been taking the vitamins regularly.
Mari's daughter is the one who just got into Catholic College two weeks ago. She is studying her brains out. She leaves for school every morning at 5:15 a.m. She gets home at about 12:30 or 1, and studies straight through until 9 p.m. Next week are exams, so she asked Molly if she can go to Molly's house a few times next week for extra tutoring. She is a young lady who is striving to be successful!
Her little brother, Daniel is in second grade. He is struggling with math - adding and subtracting double digits. He is a super sweet kid. With about 20 minutes of Molly's super tutoring skills, he was back on track. She left him some extra homework to practice on so that he would be sure of himself for class tomorrow.
The walk in and out of Los Pinos was, thankfully, uneventful. They are still doing a lot of construction. What I see is mostly digging ditches so the water has a place to go when it rains, instead of flooding the dirt "roads". They are supposed to build steps too.
I talked with a few people about the fact that what was contracted to be one month's work, is now supposedly four month's work. They all said that yes, there is more work than originally planned. I wondered is there more work? Or is it that they didn't expect the slow progress which is a result of workers who only work when the bosses are watching?
And where will the money come from to pay the workers for four months of work if one month was the plan? The government certainly cannot afford to pay for this, I said. No problem, I was told. Other countries are subsidizing the work. These "other countries" will pay until the work is completed. In fact they may even see how bad things are, and pay for more work to be done! At least that's the thought of the locals in Los Pinos.
PS: The US is not one of the countries who are supposedly subsidizing this construction.
PPS: The clouds got darker and darker, the thunder louder and louder, until it finally rained today. It has been a nice, steady rain all evening. Not strong enough to knock Erika's house off the side of the mountain. But enough rain that I am sure Osiris's bed is soaking wet tonight. I am thankful for the rain, for my strong house, and for my dry bed.
