Isolation Factor in Honduras

Nathalie Fiset is a family doctor who went on medical missions to Honduras. The needs for better roads and schools were obvious during her medical missions.

Education Needs

Many of the folks who live in the remote rural areas of Honduras live on very little money and most do not ever get any sort of real education. Some of this is now changing due to the help of missionaries and volunteer organizations visiting the beautiful country each year. Still so much more needs to be done. Statistics indicate that the literacy rates are rising drastically and each year this becomes less and less of an issue.

Children often go to elementary school and then stop to work in the fields. The ones in the city will go to high school or college. They need transportation to get to a school as they often have to walk miles to get to school. More schools must be built and they need to teach the basics of how to build things and help themselves, as well as job skills and hygiene. Reading and writing will continue to help provide a better standard of living and quality of life in rural Honduras.

Since Hondurans are hard-working, loving people and tough enough to live in the hills with hardly any assistance, a little education will certainly go a long way. More and more volunteers are going to teach and help train new teachers too. Of course more teachers are needed to train the locals in rural Honduras so they can in-turn teach their villages to read and write.

Building new schools and supplying them with desks, books and teaching tools is a job that many large non-profit organizations are now doing. Each year more and more is done and the progress is well documented thanks to all the volunteers.

Road Conditions

Only some of the roads in the larger cities of Honduras are paved, others are cobblestone and most are dirt. In the rural areas they are mostly all dirt and due to the average rainfall there are often landslides making the roads impassible or causing vehicles to get stuck due to heavy mud.

The mountain peaks are from 3,000 to 9,000 feet and the temperature at higher elevations can be very cold and it should be noted that 2 degrees per thousand feet you go up in elevation is the norm and when you add in some wind-chill factor, they temperatures can change along the route. The treacherous roads cause many accidents and the statistics are not pretty, better roads are needed, along with bridges, landslide barriers and runoff ditches and pipes to divert water flows.

If you are interested in the some actual video footage of travels and poor road conditions in Honduras you can find them in the "References and Works Cited" section at the back of this eBook under the Media, NGOs and Internet Articles or Pictures Worth 1000 Words Sections. These videos are a must see for anyone going on a volunteer mission to Honduras, they were brought back by Dr. Nathalie Fiset a Doctor from one of her successful medical mission trips. One volunteer told us about her first encounter and the foreshadowing signs of the muddy road ahead in a little story of her journey thru the treacherous muddy roads;

"I admit I was a little judgmental at first when I saw little girls with pretty dresses but that were very dirty. After riding in the back of the trucks for hours through muddy roads and small rivers, I was the dirtiest person. Lesson learned!"

Indeed, we had so many similar reports from volunteers during their adventures to Honduras. Stories of bouncing around in the back of a Toyota Truck and not being able to put their elbows out or they would get them mudded. Then were heard comments about leaning to one side to get traction, getting out of the truck completely to help dig out tires while stuck in a rut and of course the rain, cold, wind, small landslides along the way too.

"We had the occasion to “sample” the roads more on our mission in 2006 as we went through the mountains. They are dangerous as steep and when it comes rainy season, the rate of fatal accidents is astounding."

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For more information now go to: www.mymedicalmissions.com or www.drnathaliefiset.com

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