Hello
Tom,
You
asked us to give you a little more information about our visit
to La Esperanza last month following the www.projecthonduras.com conference
in Copan Ruins:
La
Esperanza is located in the Department of Intibuca in the
mountains of the Honduran mainland about one mile above sea
level. This
is one of the poorest regions of the country and home to
the indigenous Lenca. It
is located about 65km from Siguatepeque which is at the halfway
point on the San Pedro Sula to Tegucigalpa highway. It
is about a 3 hour drive from the airport in San Pedro Sula
to La Esperanza and the roads are in excellent shape. In
fact the highway between Siguatepeque (how long is it going
to take us to get you to spell this right much less pronounce
it correctly?) and La Esperanza is the best one we’ve
seen in all our years driving around the country.
La
Esperanza is said to have the best climate in Honduras at
a mile high and surrounded by even higher 
mountains. This
region is the vegetable garden and orchard for the country. Doris
was overjoyed at the selection of fruit and vegetables available
at the central market, many of which we never see in La Ceiba
or Utila. She
also enjoyed sleeping under a blanket at night, not a very
frequent occurrence on the North Coast or the Bay Islands. The
city is laid out in typical Spanish colonial style with a
central park and large Catholic church in the center. There
are several nice hotels in town with rates well below those
in San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba.
Although
La Esperanza has a hospital, there is very limited medical
care available in the Lenca communities in the mountains
beyond. As
we have experienced in Limon and La Union, many people live
too far away to make the trek into the city to seek help. Within
an hour drive of La Esperanza are dozens of villages who
have no doctor or nurse and seldom if ever see a medical
brigade.
We
have a good friend in La Esperanza, Ron Turner, a Canadian
engineer who owns the local hydro electric power project. He
and his father, Ernest, who at 73 still handles day to day
operations at the project, were
a big help to us in exploring the area and would provide
logistical support to an AHMEN team should we take one there. We
also met an American missionary couple, Bob and Kathy Owen,
who have lived in La Esperanza for years and have a church
as well as an alcohol rehab center there. They
were pleased to know that our teams all have an evangelical
component to them and would cooperate with us as needed.
It
is probably too late to consider sending a team to La Esperanza
next year but perhaps you would consider planning your trips
so that you can join us next October in Copan Ruins for the
projecthonduras conference from the 21st thru
the 23rd. From
there we could drive to La Esperanza so you can get a firsthand
look. We
could do the whole circuit; San Pedro Sula-Copan Ruins-La
Esperanza-San Pedro Sula in a week.
Doris
is sending you some photos of La Esperanza separately through
a GMAIL account that for technical reasons, she uses only
to send pictures, not to be replied to.
Saludos,
Brent
