14. May 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I had an appointment with my orthopedist in Seattle a few days ago.  He wants me to consider an elbow replacement; my arm is not progressing as well as it should.  I told him I had to think about it, that I would be returning to Seattle next January 2013 and would decide by then. That is the last thing in the world I want, another surgery.   I will be returning to Honduras on the 23rd of May.   I have been busy while here collecting the documents required for my permanent residency Honduran ID card.  But I’m ready to go back to my apartment in La Paz.  I had it painted the month before I left.  It had been painted all pink. Every room pink.  Now the living room is a forest green, the two bathrooms pale blue, the kitchen sunny yellow and the two bedrooms dark blue and pale brown.  I left two Belgian foreign exchange students teaching my Saturday morning English class to my 5 students at the Hogar San Jose.  Europeans are so versatile, they each speak 4 or 5 languages.  I haven’t heard from Peace Corps when they will be reopening the office for new volunteers but it won’t do me any good when they do in fact open the mission again.  My disabled arm will prevent my reinstatement into the Peace Corps, however Honduras is a nice affordable place in which to retire.

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22. April 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

When you get on a bus in Honduras one is often in for a unique experience.  I have ridden buses all over Honduras and parts of Guatemala.  In Honduras the local buses are mostly ´chicken´buses, big used orange school buses from the U.S. in various stages of repair and disrepair, often with the name of the school still stenciled on it.  The long distance buses vary per price of ticket, service and route.  Luxury buses like Hedman Alas are air conditioned and offer a meager food service and make few stops.  But that´s rare for most poor folks like me and the rest of humanity who travel cheek by jowl with loud rap music blasting from a mounted TV screen or speakers that make the air resonate with skull-rattling sound.  When I say cheek by jowl I mean literally cheek by jowl, every seat filled with two often three persons and the aisles standing room only as one could imagine a sardine-can filled Japanese commuter train.  When the driver stops to pick up more passengers I wonder how in hell are they going to squeeze aboard.  But they do.  And he always stops to pick up passengers, even if he´s traveled only a block.  I have even seen them back up to pick up a waving, running passenger.  This morning I decided to go to Comayagua, the old colonial capital, 40 minutes away to buy gifts for my family.  As usual on a Sunday morning the bus was packed leaving La Paz.  It proceeded making stop after stop but even on the staightaway it just crawled along about 2 mph.  After several lo-ong miles I understood why.  The bus was almost out of gas and pulled into the nearest gas station.  We finally made it and I made my purchases.  The return bus was a different story.  This driver must have thought he was driving the Indianapolis 500.  A young guy, he raced along at top speed even in town skidding to stops when he decided to pick up a passenger.  Weaving back and forth through highway traffic he almost collided with a semi-trailer.  He passed cars on a curve and almost lost control of the bus.  What´s the rush, I thought, wondering if I was going to live long enough to fly back to  Seattle May 1st.  Relieved to reach La Paz in one piece I thought back to another bus trip in the mountains when the driver almost lost control of his speeding, smoking bus on a high peak and I could see the valley way down below as the tires touched the gravel edge of the narrow roadway and I saw the driver yank hard and we lurched back to pavement … but that´s another story.

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8. April 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

The carpetas or alfombras are constructed the night before Good Friday by skilled crafstmen.  Similar to the Hopi sand paintings or Tibetan mandalas in their religious significance, these beautiful creations are made of colored sawdust and laid on a damp street surface ready for Friday morning´s procession around the city.  I´ve put just one example of the stations of the cross but there are thirteen of them situated in a large square route around the central community core.  Still, it takes three hours in the heat with a prayer stop at every station to finally finish the circuit again in front of the church.  Afterward I put up the swimming pool I bought the kids to join a second one an absent parent had provided.  This was our version of a holiday at the beach.  Nonetheless the kids loved splashing in the water.

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1. April 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

 Well, here we are, the new governing body for the Fundación Señor San José.  In office for a term of two years, we will oversee the construction of the new building and the subsequent establishment and expansion of the new home for at-risk children.  Our benefactor from Virginia Hospital Center Medical Brigade is expected to attend our second meeting the last week of the month when he travels from the States for his quarterly inspection visit of the projects they currently support in Honduras.  This weekend is the beginning of Semana Santa in Honduras.  The country revels in a week-long holiday for the Easter celebration that culminates next weekend with the creation of the beautiful carpetas that will adorn the streets of the city as a large part of the population participates in a parade that celebrates the Stations of the Cross; you have to be Catholic to understand it.  I´ll post photos of the event.

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23. March 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

When I began working with Doctora Lily at the newly established CAI (Centro de Atencion Integral) Clinic back in September 2010 she had 12 patients registered to receive anti-retroviral medications to combat the growing scourge of HIV-AIDS.  Honduras has the highest HIV positive population in Central America and it´s the second poorest country in the western hemisphere after Haiti.  Not good statistics.  When I returned to HN to help the over-burdened doctor manage the caseload she had 22 patients registered (we know there are many more).  She provides the medications and I provide the counseling.  We both work only mornings (she´s a pediatrician in addition to her CAI duties), Monday through Friday.  An example of the types of patients to whom we provide medical care is one case that presented before my desk last week.  A 40-year-old mother sat before me with her 14-year-old daughter, each with a child.  The HIV positive patient with a 5-year-old son; her 14-year-old daughter with a 9-month-old son.  The father of these children is the same household husband violating his 14-year-old daughter.  This is a case I must morally and clinically deal with in a country that has lax enforcement and non-existent investigative services.  It is definitely a challenge.

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7. March 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Sometime soon construction will begin on the new home for the children of the Hogar San José.  A new well is being dug so that water will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; something rare for most Honduran homes.  Contractors are being selected for imminent ground-breaking.  At our Asamblea General several days ago new officers were selected for the management of the new building.  I was elected Vice-President of the Fundación Señor San José.  Despite so many delays and jumping through bureaucratic hoops for such a long period of time we continue moving forward.  There remains much work to be done, but we have the wind at our back and a star to sail by, her name is Sister Edith.

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20. February 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Life is not always peaches and cream, after all.  Two of the children at the orphanage lost their dad in the terrible Comayagua Prison fire Valentine´s Day night where 358 trapped prisoners suffered unimaginably horrible deaths.  Yet life does inevitably go on.  The nefarious bacteria and opportunistic viruses awaiting my Honduras arrival prove the point.  First it was the gripa (pronounced ´greepah´), a combined bronchitis, sinusitis, flu that lingered for days.  When I survived that onslaught, after self-medicating myself with 500 milligrams of TID Amoxicillin for a week, a particularly malignant intestinal strain of critter pounced for the kill: a fat gringo meal properly tenderized.  Following 4 days of stomach cramps, vomiting, muscle aches and diarrhea I think I may survive.  On a brighter note, two of the children will be reunited with their dad who was released from our local prison after a two-year sentence last week.  The 3-year-old sitting on my lap and his 5-year-old brother will be released to the 20-year-old father and 17-year-old mother to face an uncertain future.  The orphanage continues to move forward.  The pictures show an area being prepared for the sale of fast food.  Sister Edith is a genius at squeezing every last value out of a lempira and since the construction of our new building won´t be finished until the end of the year she intends to profit by the delay.  Friday we have an Asamblea General scheduled at which time a governing board will be elected for the management of the new Fundacion Senor San Jose and the subsequent new building that will have capacity for 32 children.  Saturday I leave for a brief 5-day vacation at La Ceiba on the Caribbean Coast.  I pray my gut will be sufficiently recuperated to enjoy the magnificent seafood.

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9. February 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

In the early morning hours a year ago today I sat on my front stoop in La Paz, my right arm dripping blood, waiting for an ambulance, to begin an 11-month odyssey that would take me from Comayagua to Tegucigalpa to Panama City and ultimately to Seattle.  I would be gone from Honduras for 11 months while that right arm sustained 7 surgeries to render me whole again.  Having fractured the ulna, radius and the humerus where they join at the elbow, the joint had to be reconstructed using a radial head prosthesis.  On January 23rd I left a Seattle snowstorm to arrive in tropical Honduras´ 75 degree weather and step seamlessly back into my previously interrupted life.  What a difference a year makes.

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31. January 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I have been home for 8 days now.  It has been a whirlwind of fast-moving activity; and I’m only half-way started.  One mostly concrete date, however, has been set in motion.  At a meeting with the alcalde this past Saturday our benefactor from Virginia Hospital Center brought the final design plans for the new orphanage and construction is due to begin in March.  We are at the stage of lining up work contractors and using the alcaldia’s administrative infrastructure for the purchase of materials, thereby reducing cost.  It appears I made it just in time for ground breaking.  I have been so busy I keep forgetting to carry my camera to take pictures.  This last day of January is a dynamic jump-start for the rest of the year.  Stay tuned.

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15. January 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

A week from today my flight leaves for Honduras.  Some of you are probably aware that the Peace Corps mission has been temporarily closed because of narco-traficante related violence in the country.  I nonetheless will be returning to La Paz, a region which is one of the safest in the country.  That’s not to say that there isn’t crime there, there is, but it is not something that is so overt that folks feel in danger.  One must use common sense anywhere one travels.  There are, after all, areas of Seattle or any other large and small city in the US where one does not go, especially after dark.  So far, knock on wood, I have always felt safe in La Paz.  But even La Paz has had it’s dark moments, as has anywhere in the world.  My opinion is that the temporary suspension is Peace Corps’ determination to implement modifications in order to make the Peace Corps experience a safer one in Honduras.  Therefore I shall be on site once the proper adjustments have been made.  Meanwhile I will continue my work at the orphanage, at the hospital, and with the various projects with which I am involved in league with Honduran friends and colleagues.  My next posting will be from my home in La Paz, La Paz, Honduras.  The URL link below is a video of the historical chronology of the orphanage where I work in La Paz. Please feel free to offer comments and suggestions.  Gracias.

http://www.andreavelasquez.com/foggypark/hogar2012/ 

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