We had heard about the nail-biting landing at Tegucigalpa, Honduras, but is was an anti-climax for many of our group. Some of us had been delayed twenty-four hours and then diverted around Texas by Hurricane Ike. One of us almost reached the notorious airport approach and then was diverted to the Caribbean coast of Honduras for a short visit before continuing to Tegucigalpa.
The approach is certainly hair-raising however, because the city occupies a valley high (1,000 m) in the mountains of Honduras. The old city fills the valley bottom with the poor barrio districts spreading up the mountain sides. They had their own hurricane, Mitch, ten years ago. That flooded the lower town and devastated the entire community. Today it is difficult to imagine the effect of such a natural disaster on the capital of the poorest country in Central America.
We were met by Guillermo E. Valle, Presidente, Club Rotario de Tegucigalpa and Rotarian Carlos Medrano and his wife Brenda. The help of these people and their colleagues is vital for SCAW's mission here.
We are to deliver 5,000 bedkits and we spent the first day checking the bedkits and our photographic and other equipment. We will begin our distributions here in the inner city tomorrow.
Later distributions are split between rural and urban communities.
Peter Adams
for the SCAW Honduras team
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