So I have had many people here tell me that my month on the Island will go by very fast. This is so true. I have finished my third week in Roatan and beginning my last week. Thursday I accompanied a church mission team to the city dump. Many people (including families with young children) subsist on the items they find and sell at the dump (plastics, aluminum, and other items). 2 week earlier there was a huge fire at the dump that burned for days. This greatly impacted those who depend on the dump for their livelihood. They asked that I go to do some brief assessment in case they had some respiratory issue from all the smoke. We dispensed cold water, a lunch (the church team brings lunch every Thursday), and a bag of flour, bar of soap and a bag of salt. It was a sobering, humbling time.
One photo shows a woman walking over the smoldering part (still burning). I cant imagine the heat….as it was a very warm Honduran day. Then yesterday I was richly blessed to go to Punta Gordo, the east part of the Island to visit Garifuna people. Debi, my new missionary friend, has wonderful relationships with many families. We visited house to house and heard amazing “front porch storytelling”. Then they gifted us with a 45 minute concert of African drumming and girls danced the Punta (you can youtube Garifuna dances). We were so richly blessed. Adios Para Ahora, Cheryl