Honduras
Continued from Page 1
closes for Thanksgiving.
“The needs aren’t going to go
away, but the volunteers are going
to be exhausted,” says Eugene res
ident Bev Lahr, a member of the
Comite. “They’ve put in a lot of
hours and a lot of efforts, and they
need a break.”
“It’s a crazy scene over there —
they’re so busy they have homeless
people volunteering to help,”
agrees University graduate student
Josh Peters, also a member of the
Comity. “This can’t go on forever.”
Peters is in charge of the Univer
sity branch of the relief efforts. He
has overseen the setup of bins in the
EMU Main Lobby, where students
can donate items for Honduras
without traveling downtown.
Although the bins stand alone
and unmanned, emptied each
night by Peters, students, faculty
and staff have not neglected them,
EMU director Dusty Miller says.
“A lot of people have brought
stuff in. It’s been excellent,” he
says. “The first bin on the first day
was filled at least five times with
clothes.”
Clothes are no longer accepted —
the Comity has already filled an en
tire storage room with clothing —
but food and medical supplies are
still in need, and although the Cen
tro Latino Americano drive ends
this week, the EMU will continue to
take donations until Nov. 30.
But the Comite’s work won’t
stop there. After the initial push to
keep the hurricane survivors alive,
Honduras will have to rebuild
everything it has lost, step by step.
“We’re talking about a country
that borrowed a lot of money to
build bridges. Now the bridges are
ruined, but they still owe the mon
ey,” Peters says. “It’s a very diffi
cult situation to rebuild in.”
Although some of this debt has
been forgiven, the country still has
a long way to go.
But Bauer says the Comity is
prepared to continue to help with
more serious fund raisers through
out the year. Honduras is too close
to too many people for the efforts
to end here.
Hitting close to home
For many people, Honduras is
merely a far-away speck on a map,
a place known vaguely as one of
the poorest countries in the world.
But for members of the Comitti,
and for many Eugene residents,
Honduras is home — whether a
former home or a home for friends
and family.
“People would probably find it
surprising how many communities
have ties to Honduras,” says Bev
Lahr, a Eugene resident and mem
ber of the Comit6. “The world is a
lot smaller than it used to be. All of
the people I’ve met have some be to
Honduras, either through the Peace
Corps or as an exchange student.
They all have a close connection.”
Take Peters, for example. During
his three months of training for the
Peace Corps, he lived with a host
family in Santa Lucia, Honduras.
In the aftermath of Hurricane
Mitch, Peters received a call from a
member of that family, who now
lives in Massachusetts.
"Apparently, a little stream that
you could step over rose up and
swept their house away," he says.
“This is a family I know very well.
My first thought was how to pro
vide direct aid to them.”
This reaction is not uncommon
among people with friends and
family affected by the hurricane.
Many want to send food and sup
plies directly to their loved ones.
“Some people don’t even know
if their family members are alive
or not,” Bauer says. She knows
hers are OK, but “some people
who are part of the Comitd haven't
talked to their families at all.
There’s no way to communicate.”
With communication cut off,
homes destroyed, roads blocked
and communities isolated, provid
ing direct aid can be difficult. The
best anyone can do is to help
whomever they can and hope
someone does the same for their
families, Peters says.
“Everyone wants to get aid right
to their families. Just get aid any
where. The Honduran govern
ment is doing a great job of distrib
uting it,” he says.
The devastation
Although the Honduran govern
ment has worked hard in the face
of disaster, the efforts just haven’t
u_u .
Catharine KenikdW.memkl
Emergency supplies such as clothing, food, end water fill boxes headed to Honduras to aid hurricane victims.
raining all over the country, she
recalls. "All of the rivers were fill
ing up.”
By 8:30 p.m., the river separat
ing the village from the capital had
risen to the base of the sole bridge
that connected them. An hour lat
er, Lahr heard a report that the
bridge was covered.
At one point, she went outside.
"The water went from curb to
curb and was flowing in the street
—and this was rain water. The river
hadn’t even flooded yet,” she says.
The hurricane arrived between
3 a.m. and midnight, Lahr esti
deal with a
tragedy of this
magnitude,
Lahr says. Hur
ricane Mitch
has left behind
it a trail of chaos
that both she
and her hus
band have ex
perienced first
hand.
“My husband
left for Hon
duras last
night,” she con
naes. t101a nim not to eat any
thing, not to drink anything and
not to touch anything.”
Lahr and her husband own a
waste recovery business through
which they buy wood products
from suppliers in Honduras. The
same business that called him to
Honduras in the aftermath was the
one that took Lahr to the nation’s
capital, Tegucigalpa, during the
two weeks before Mitch arrived.
Lahr was staying in a neighbor
hood outside of the capital on Fri
day, Nov. 6 — the night the hurri
cane hit Tegucigalpa.
“It had rained all week; it was
Hurricane Mitch hits Central America
Local relief efforts focus in Honduras, which lost 70 percent of its crops
and infrastructure in the disaster. The hurricane also ravaged Guatemala,
El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Katie Nesse/Emerald
“Some people don’t even
know if their family
members are alive or
not.... Some people who
are part of the Comite
haven’t talked to their
families at all. ”
Carmen Bauer
Centro Latino Americano
niciiuh. i ne
power had al
ready been out
for more than
an hour.
“The wind
wasn’t as bad as
I had expected.
By then they
had downgrad
ed it to a tropi
cal storm,” she
recalls. "It was
more the rain.
There was more
rain than you
can imagine.
It was like someone turned a
faucet on over our heads.”
The next day, Lahr surveyed the
damage.
“All the landmarks were gone,”
she says “There was a little shop
that sold roasted chickens. The
signs were still there, but the rest of
it was gone. And the houses on the
other side of the river were all gone.”
In Lahr’s neighborhood, 50 hous
es had been completely washed
away and 200 more damaged, she
says. At first she thought the bridge
was gone, too, but it was merely
covered with water. Later, when the
river went down, Lahr learned that
the bridge still stood, but was miss
ing about 50 feet on either end.
Fortunately, a dirt road into
town was available for those who
had vehicles with four-wheel dri
ve. After knocking on numerous
doors, Lahr stumbled upon some
one with four-wheel drive who
was planning to make the trip.
“I asked if I could go with him
because I knew it might be my
only chance to get out,” she says.
When she finally caught a plane
back to the United States, Lahr left
Honduras in chaos.
“Most of the bridges were still
closed, and transit was very diffi
cult. There were landslides on the
roads, so they were either impass
able or cut from two lanes to one.
There was gas rationing, but every
station I saw had a sign up saying
they had no gas.”
In one area, a four-lane highway
had been cut down to two lanes
because people whose homes had
been flooded were living on the
road. In other instances, people
had climbed on their roofs during
the flood and ended up staying
there for a week.
In the neighborhood Lahr had
stayed in, people still had no water
after 10 days.
"That’s pretty hard for us to imag
ine. They can’t take a bath, or flush
their toilet or even cook,” she says.
About one-third of the country’s
population is now homeless, and
70 percent of its infrastructure and
crops are destroyed, as well as 90
percent of its roads.
“One thing that’s hard for peo
ple to comprehend is it’s a whole
country whose infrastructure was
destroyed," Lahr says. “There
were people with no food or wa
ter, people on their roofs, asking,
'Why aren’t you helping us?’ But
there was no way the government
could respond to the communities
that were cut off, no way to get
help to them even if they had the
manpower and equipment.
“People felt isolated, as if they
were the ones who had borne the
brunt of this.”
The need
Food and medicine are still the
two biggest needs in Honduras,
Peters and Bauer agree.
When a disaster hits, people die
in three waves, Peters explains.
They either die immediately, they
die shortly after due to injuries, or
they die later of starvation or dis
ease.
Honduras is in this third phase.
With communities cut off from food
supplies and people forced to drink
contaminated water, starvation and
disease are major concerns.
“A lot of children are going to
die of diarrhea and dehydration,”
Peters says. “Cloth diapers need to
be washed, and drinking water is
mixed with sewage. A lot of babies
are suffering more than anything
else.”
Already, the country has seen
outbreaks of cholera, malaria and
dengue, an infectious tropical dis
ease, Bauer says.
In addition, food is becoming
scarce. On Sunday during her stay
in Tegucigalpa, Lahr volunteered
at an American school, helping to
cook meals for the hungry. The
day before, the school had made
11.000 meals to take to shelters.
The next day, Lahr helped make
8.000 meals before the food ran out.
“In the morning, we were giving
rice, beans, a tortilla and a piece of
cheese. By the end of the day, all
people were getting was a bag of
plain spaghetti. That was all that
was left.
“In the morning, we were told
we were putting too much on the
plates. We thought we were
putting small amounts, but we
kept nutting down on the portions.
There just wasn’t enough food.”
Because drinkable water is
wanting and some areas have no
electricity, foods that don’t need to
be cooked are in great demand.
“Keeping people alive is the
most important thing," Lahrsays.
Bringing people together
Hurricane Mitch may have dev
astated Honduras, but in doing so
it has brought people all over the
United States together to help out
those in need.
When the hurricane tore
through Central America 19 days
ago, phones began ringing at Eu
gene’s Centro Lat ino Americano.
“We got a lot of (alls from people
asking, ‘What can we do? How (an
we help?”’ Bauer explains. “We
were seeing so many people who
wanted to do something that we
agreed to be a fdter for the efforts. ”
Bauer formed the Comitd of
more than 20 people who have
family members in Central Ameri
ca. During the past two weeks, a
total of more than 300 volunteers
have helped the Comitd by collect
ing, packaging and transporting
donated goods.
“Many of them are homeless
themselves, but they said they
wanted to help because people in
Honduras are worse off than they
are,” Bauer says. “They have real
ly made this effort go. ”
Since the Comit6 began, local
schools and businesses have asked
how they can help, and through
Peters, University students have
gotten involved, as well.
“I think this is an excellent out
reach for students, to make them
aware of what is going on,” says
EMU marketing director Lee La
Tour, who secured bins and made
signs for the campus effort. “It is
wonderful the way everybody came
together and made it happen.”
Bauer has even been contacted
by people in neighboring cities
such as Newport, Roseburg and
Albany who had heard of the
Comite and wanted to help.
In Corvallis, students at Oregon
State University have contributed
10,000 pounds of goods to the ef
fort, says Susan Cleary, the school’s
event registration coordinator.
“We sort of started a domino ef
fect in this region,” Bauer says.
Both Bauer and Peters hope in
volvement throughout the commu
nity will continue as the Comite car
ries its fundraising efforts into the
new year. Although the amount of
aid so far has been enormous, it still
pales in comparison to the destruc
tion wrought by Hurricane Mitch.
“It was a very good effort, but it
won’t be enough to really help a
country that has lost almost every
thing,” Bauer says.