Dear Friends,

We are now in Tocoa/Ceibita. We spent last Friday in Teguz finishing up legal details, moving to a hotel close to the bus station, and book shopping. There are a lot of book stores in Tegucigalpa. Too many interesting things to choose from. It is a bit disturbing that most books either come from the US or Spain. Why is this disturbing? One reason is that folks in Honduras who like to read are providing financial aid to the richer countries. Another is that the thought processes of thinking Hondurans is being influenced more from outsiders than from their own countryfolk. We bought a few books and will review them at leisure when we get home.

Saturday, we caught the bus at 7 a.m. to get to Tocoa at 4 p.m. As we were coming down the mountains, we could hear the brakes squealing. Then we could smell the brakes--that was more exciting than I cared for. At the lunch break, a fresh bus arrived and we all changed over (but by then, we were out of the mountains, the biggest risk was past).

Rain. Cold front after cold front. When we got off the bus, another lady got off, too. Her husband was waiting for her with his pickup truck. She told us to just climb in. We rode with the kids in back until we were actually into the neighborhood. We walked the rest of the way. We had managed to fit our book purchases into our backpacks. The streets were flowing water. I took off my shoes and socks and put on flipflops. Prairie already was wearing flipflops. We walked to the church and the parsonage.

Our friends in Ceibita are all well. It was good to see them. Soon, the visiting medical team from Texas showed up. Many are repeaters from last year. So nice to see them, too.

More rain. Not as many patients as expected showed up because of the rain. Yellow Alert. The public health clinic and public schools were closed.

We decided to go to Tocoa to do errands Monday afternoon. But the water was going over the bridge. We might not get back to Ceibita the same day. So we cancelled. There is still some rain today, but less.

Yesterday (Monday), Prairie worked as a translator and intake person. The church sanctuary is a big echo chamber and one shouts. She lost her voice. Today, she participated with the teams going out to interview neighbors. She listened and took notes. When her voice gets better, I'll get to hear about all she learned. I saw patients. We were pretty busy. There is a dentist, so a lot of teeth are being pulled. The neurologist is helping the dentist, while the family doctor and I saw the medical patients. But he came to help me when I had a complicated patient.

These are delightful people and hard workers. It is hard to leave. But we are really pretty tired and need to get home. I suppose you can tell that I'm tired.

This afternoon, the river is lower and there isn't active rain, although the sky is pretty grey.

be well,

beth