2/15/05: I boarded the plane in Rapid City at 6:30 this morning. First I flew to Minneapolis, then to Miami, Florida. From there I flew to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. I arrived at 9:30 pm Eagle Butte time. It took over an hour and half to get through customs in Honduras! After I got through customs I was contacted by 2 representatives from Habitat for Humanity Honduras. They were there to meet my flight and another flight from El Salvador. There were 8 of us that came in from those 2 flights from El Salvador, Guatamala, Mexico, Costa Rica, the U.S.A., and Canada. They put us in a van and took us to the compound where we were staying. It was then that I realized I was not in South Dakota any longer! The compound was very nice but it resembled a prison facility, with concertina wire and armed guards holding automatic rifles. They smiled at me but I made an effort not to make any sudden moves near them! I finally got to bed around 12:30 that night.

Copan

2/16/05: Got out of bed and went to breakfast at 7:30. One of the first things I realized about Honduras is that most restaurants are buffet style. I was pleasantly surprised that the food was very good. After breakfast, we had meetings all morning outlining what was before us, including learning how to be ambassadors for Habitat for Humanity and volunteering to assist in building seven new homes in San Pedro Sula. At noon we were excused for the day. Eleven of us decided to rent a van and drive 90 miles to the ancient site of Copan. The trip was very enjoyable, we got to see the countryside and how people lived and worked. I was very surprised at the amount of people who traveled by horseback and wagons. Almost every home we passed had a hitching post with one or two saddled horses tied to it. I was also pleasantly surprised to see large herds of cattle. We arrived at Copan in the mid-afternoon and spent two hours touring the site. It encompasses approximately forty acres and was a spiritual seat for the Aztecs from about 500 BC to 600 AD. At one time, 25,000 people lived in the valley. The entire site was erected without the use of metal tools. I was told the demise of the site was not from warfare. The population deforested the surrounding area over hundreds of years. The land became too poor to sustain them.

Flag Presentation

We returned to San Pedro Sula and had a reception hosted by the Honduran Habitat for Humanity. At that time, I was given the honor of presenting the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal flag to the President of Honduras, who was also affiliated with the Honduran Habitat for Humanity. I explained that I came as a representative from my tribe, which was located in the northern part of the U.S. When I told him we were the people in Dances With Wolves, he smiled in recognition. I explained the meaning of the flag and extended it in friendship from my people to his. I explained to him that on my reservation, many of my people also lived in abject poverty. He asked me if we still dressed like they did in Dances with Wolves and lived in tipis. I told him no, we dressed like Westerners and lived in houses, but that we were recognized as nation within a nation in my country.

2/17/05: Early this morning, our group traveled to the housing site. Upon our arrival, I once again realized that I was not in South Dakota anymore. All the work there is done by hand. I did not see a single power tool, instead, there were pickaxes, tamping bars, shovels, and wheelbarrows. The suburbs of the cities looked like an advertisement on TV about a 3rd world country. The streets were made of dirt, and the sewers ran in open ditches. The water source was a community spigot of raw water. However, there is an available source of potable water, it is delivered by truck each day. I was very impressed by that because in our country we spend so much money treating water to flush down the toilet and use very little for drinking purposes. I also noticed that even though we were in a very poor area, there was no trash lying around. The slums of the city were very clean.

Honduran Children

Shortly after we arrived on the site, small children, from toddlers to teenagers, started to materialize like ants from an ant pile. I really enjoyed them, they were very open to newcomers. Late in the afternoon, an ice cream vendor came by on a bicycle. Ten little boys and a girl had helped me haul dirt in a wheelbarrow all day. I asked the vendor how much for an ice cream cone and he said it was just under five cents in American money. I told the children I would buy them a cone. Before I was done buying cones, I had thirty five small children waiting their turn!

2/18/05: Today was very much like yesterday. We continued working on the homes for the seven new homeowners. The children started calling me Senor Heraldo. They met me with smiles as I stepped out of the van. The family of the house I was working on was very open and friendly. Although they could not speak English and I do not speak Spanish, we were able to communicate reasonably well.

Jerry and Honduran Homeowner

2/19/05: We once again returned to the job site to have a closing ceremony with the families. I was very impressed, as they and their children all showed up in their Sunday best and all had shoes on. I asked one of the representatives from Habitat Honduras about it and she said that it was an honor for the homeowners and they expressed it by wearing their best set of clothes and the only shoes they had.

Honduran Homeowners

After the ceremony we boarded charter buses and headed to Tela, a small town on the coast. There, we were again dropped off at a guarded compound near the beach. It was very pretty and we stayed in an old United Foods compound where executives lived when they worked on the banana plantations. All of the houses were on pylons approximately eight feet off the ground. I was told this was because the area floods during hurricanes. For the rest of the afternoon, and all day Sunday and Monday morning, we had meetings and presentations by the representatives from the many different countries who had traveled to Honduras. I was told that there were representatives from approximately 50 countries. Canada had representatives from every province. The United States had representatives from each of their six Habitat regions. I was one of the representatives of the Midwest Region, which includes seven states. I was the only representative from the twenty two Native American Habitat for Humanity affiliates in the United States. There were representatives from all the Central American countries except Belize and all the South American countries except for Peru, Uruguay, and Paraguay. There were also representative from all the Caribbean islands except Cuba. Eastern Europe also sent representatives from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Kurghistan. There was also one person from the Central African Republic, formerly the Congo.

Throughout the course of those three days, we had meetings, trainings, and presentations by all the countries, including the CRST reservation, concerning the housing needs of our areas. I learned that it could cost from $2,200 to $150,000 to build a home around the world. On Monday afternoon, the conference was officially closed, and we were allowed to do a little sightseeing on our own. I joined fifteen other individuals in hiring a guide to take a kayak trip in the mangrove swamps near the ocean. We spent the afternoon there. It was an interesting excursion as there were many animals I'd never seen before, including parrots, monkeys, crocodiles, snakes, and very big bugs. When we left, we took an open boat across the bay about ten miles out on the ocean back to where we staying. The waves were 6-8 feet high! That evening, we had a farewell banquet, where I was able to take a picture of the president and the first lady. He was wearing an Okiciyapi Tipi t-shirt I had given him earlier in the week. He kept pointing at it and smiling at me, which made me very happy.

2/22/05: Although I had planned on spending an extra day in Honduras, the Habitat representatives explained to me that it would not be safe for me to travel alone, as there is no American embassy in Honduras. I decided to leave with the group, because it is not uncommon for the police in that country to detain Americans traveling alone and rob them. I really enjoyed my time in Honduras, but it made me realize how lucky Americans are, even those of us that live in poverty on the reservation. The poorest of the poor here would be very rich in Honduras. I have not seen anyone here starving to death or sleeping in cardboard boxes, but in Honduras, that is common. Here, even though we sometimes complain, we have access to medical services. When the poor in Honduras get sick, there are no medical services available to them. Seventy-two percent of the population has no education. Here, we take our education for granted. My trip to Honduras made me grateful for my life here! Now that I have returned, I will have further training in Americus, GA to become a tithe ambassador for Habitat for Humanity.

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