Preparations in El Junco

The first project on our calendar came in early February. Members of the Franklin Association would be coming to El Junco, Honduras to help in the rebuilding of a kitchen and to work on doing some renovations on the school.

The school, which has about 35 students, has a feeding program funded by the government. The mothers of the community take turns cooking lunches for the students as it is often the only adequate meal that they recieve during the day. However, the kitchen that they have to work with (above) was very basic and a challenge to use on rainy days.

The inside of the school was very dark as the window casings had begun to rot out and be eaten by termites. Therefore, the windows had been boarded up. As there is no electricity in this community, there was not adequate light in the classroom. Franklin Association would be helping to repair the window frames to open up the windows and would also add a new coat of paint to brighten up the inside of the classroom.

As soon as we got to Honduras, our first order of business was to make contact with the people of El Junco to form a relationship with them. The people in Maine had no way of communicating with them and, in turn, the people of El Junco did not have the resources to organize all of the materials, tools, and logisitics that would be necessary to make the project possible. Therefore, our first step was to go to El Junco and create a "confianza" or trust with the people there. We met with the town council to discuss the project and would go up to the community weekly to meet with the wider community to start the work of getting to know them, learning their ideas, and preparing them for the two weeks that a large group of gringos would be working with them in their community. On both sides, for the people of Franklin Association and the people of El Junco it was important to work on this project together as all recognized that it would benefit the wider community.
While the Mainers were planning activities that they could do with the students, a sewing project to share in relationship with the women of the community, gathering supplies for the school, and planning clinic days to meet the medical needs of the people in El Junco, the people of El Junco prepared themselves to host the gringos in the community center for the clinic days, make space for the students that would be displaced from the classroom while the painting was happening, and deconstructing the old kitchen to make space for the new one that they would build together.

We, the interns, started the work of gathering materials and tools together. Unfortunately, it came during a time when the truck that we were meant to borrow broke down and we were left without transportation. This became a challenge as we had to get large amounts of materials up to El Junco as well as making a number of trips to San Pedro Sula to buy tools and groceries. We were able to borrow and bargian transportation for a number of weeks with a whole lot of negotiation. We were able to get everything ready in time and learned a great deal of patience as, in this country, that is of utmost importance as there are always circumstances (broken trucks, power outages that prevent internet communication, people who are late, and steep, dirt mountain roads that are hard to climb) that prevent obstacles beyond our control.

By February 8th, we were ready to meet the first 5 participants from Franklin Association that would arrive for the full two weeks at the airport.