I left my appartment at 8am in the morning and arrived in Tegucigalpa around 5.30pm. The journey started with a ride to El Progreso, a city 30 min south of San Pedro, where I had to meet up with my dairy-project-colleague Pedro. With a 45 min delay in El Progreso (you get used to this after 3 months in Latin-America), we headed out to the south. After 30 min, when we're arriving at the bridge crossing río Cuyamapa, there are 2 large piles of earth blocking the entrance to the bridge. 
"No worries," says Pedro "this bridge was destroyed during an earthquake 4 months ago, but they constructed a temporary one a few hundred meters downstream." So we drove down to the riverside, took a left and continued for a few hundred meters on a small dirt road. The temporary bridge appeared around the corner - with giant concrete parts of the bridge's deck laying in the riverbed. Not a very reassuring sight...No bridges left on this piece of road, so we had to head back to San Pedro to take another route crossing the river. We found out afterwards that a truck full of oranges crossed the temporary bridge 3 days before, causing it to partly collapse under the weight. The truck is the one you can still see parked on the bridge. Honduran officials were shouting that the temporary bridge wasn't officialy inaugurated, so they weren't responsible for this roadblock (and economic distaster for the region). What they didn't tell of course is that the temporary bridge had already become the new default option of crossing the river for everything from horse carts to passenger buses.
The rest of the road to Tegucigalpa (or Tegus as the locals call it) was a large string of road works, each limiting the bidirectional traffic to only 1 lane. Take on average 5 min of waiting time per section, multiply that with at least 20, and you kind of get the idea.
Notwithstanding it was quite a pain to get into Tegus, it turned out to be a very useful week. Pedro and I met with Zamorano (probably the best bioengineering university in Latin-America) professors, NGO-people and state officials working in the dairy sector. The last person to interview was a ganadero (dairy farmer), Manuel, whose optimism was striking. After hurricane Mitch passed by in 1998, he was involved in a project that united farmers to set up milk collection centers. In the following years, a cheese processing plant was added to the center and now the business is running well and expanding. In the years to come he'll be working on bringing down the production costs and stabilizing the milk production throughout the year. His story should be an example for a lot of dairy farmers that are struggeling with the current market conditions in Honduras. Speaking with people like Manuel motivates me to continue my quest to write out the strategic plan, as they will be the ones pulling the sector forward in the long term.
On a completely different note, I've discovered another example of developmental aid - the way it should be done (read the November 2nd part of this post if you have no clue what I'm talking about). The Acumen Fund, a US organization, is building local businesses with the funds it acquires - a solution to poverty that lasts. One that helps build business that serve the poor by providing choice, not charity, and dignity, not dependence. The fund has made a very catchy movie about its philosophy. Check it out below to understand a bit better how developmental aid probably won't work, probably could work and probably will work.
Tuesday December 15th. I'm returning to Belgium for the Christmas/NY break. It has been an truly impressive experience until now and I'll be looking forward to writing you more on my (work)life in Honduras in 2010!
Enjoy your holidays!
It is great to see so many who've done positive work in Honduras. Our Think Tank wrote this eBook to help others who'd like to do the same. Perhaps of interest to you and your readers? http://www.worldthinktank.net/pdfs/Honduras.pdf
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