Biblioteca Nueva Esperanza

Dear Friends, CONGRATULATIONS!!! We made it! We’ve finished the major portion of our educational center here in Guaimaca. This school vacation we were able to provide classes in the newly completed part of the building. Thank you to everyone that helped make that happen!

January’s report includes a visit to the north coast city of Puerto Cortes and back in Guaimaca a fabulous vacation school, which people were able to take advantage of for less than $4 for three weeks! It’s been a very busy six months or more but we’ve made it to the finish line, or at least the starting line.

Schools start Monday and the Library is in great shape with a new 20X30ft covered patio which will provide the much needed space for the overcrowded library. The main building was raised up in the back to the third floor level and the 60X40ft portion of the building was roofed and the floor installed! The place looks great and now we’ve got over 15 rooms to put all the things that have been donated over the years, to great use!

First of all the library was relatively quiet compared to the busy school year but the ambulance service was very busy. This month we used the Land cruiser ambulance, which we got in 2007, 15 times for the 125 mile round trip to the hospital in the capital city Tegucigalpa. We spent a lot of energy finishing the building construction to have it ready for our second vacation school which was a huge success.

Almost 100 youngsters and a few adults were able to take classes in English, Computers, Guitar, Piano, Violin, and Ceramics. It is great to see the building so alive with students and music. Sunday the 10th we had a graduation ceremony that was great and beautiful with the roof and floor. Kelley and Sonrisa are doing great.

We started out the month by traveling up to the north coast city of San Pedro to pick up a U of Albany student that came down for a visit. Sonrisa was on her “summer” break from school so she had a friend with her and we visited the beach at Puerto Cortes and then visited the Mayan Ruins in Copan in the western part of Honduras and stopped at the beautiful water fall Pulapanzak on the way back to Guaimaca.

We also had another visitor from the southern part of Honduras. Antonio is the son of one of our friends. He has been studying English for the last three years and stayed with us for almost three months to practice his English. We can’t thank him enough for all he did to help us. As he was immersed in English with us he helped weld the roof together, a huge job that we will always appreciate. He also made it possible for us to make that trip to the coast. Thank you, Tony.

This month we also started providing classroom space to a group of fifteen people doing grammar school. They had been studying in the volunteer teacher’s cramped house. This is a great example of how this building can be used. This school year we will also be providing classrooms and other support for a group of 20 or so that will study junior high school using our friend in Tegucigalpa’s radio education program “Maestro en Casa”.

Both of these groups will use our classrooms on weekends and the library and hopefully computers will be available to them. I say hopefully because the computers we used for the vacation schools are slated to be donated to other schools this new school year. Last year( 2007 yearly report will be out soon) we were able to outfit one school with ten computers and a local high school received six of the computers Berkshire Hills School District gave us to help here in Guaimaca.

Now this month we will be able to help at least three more schools and we donated one to the police department. The dental cleaning project is moving along. People are very excited about it. Zoila is training two new young women as she is cleaning teeth. We still have crutches and walkers that we donate and loan out and loaned wheel chairs that trickle back as the people recuperate. We finally gave Dinora the electric wheel chair donated by the Gormalley’s of Pittsfield.

We finished the extension on her house that will be in the 2007 report too. We have been giving the local children plenty of play time with the trampoline, skates, bikes and balls donated by Hot Shots of Long Island. The town started to build a park just up the street from us, so we don’t feel the need to build a basketball court at our place anymore. The two NYC style hoops that I’ve been holding on to, I donated to the park. Thanks again to all that made this all possible and to Shane Nolan that came down to visit and brought connectors for the local water system, an air brush and to Shane’s mom who sent down an automatic welding helmet which will be great to teach welding skills.

Now for the BIG NEWS; Dr. Bushnell, who had given me the dental chairs that we were able to donate to Guaimaca and another local town, connected me with a dental school in Conn. that has donated 14 dental chairs. These are really needed throughout our area. Also the Catholic Church here in Guaimaca is being managed by the Catholic Church of Fall River Ma., who have boxes to ship also.

When I got the special rate from The Great White Fleet, that ship bananas from Honduras, they gave me two containers to be used before March 8th. I need help to come up and get these dental chairs. Fall River is going to share the costs for the shipping. I still have some things that didn’t get into the last container, but I could really use more wheel chairs and computers. Can you help me, AGAIN!!! I will be back in the Ma. Area
soon. If you can help contact me through this web site or call 1-413-6372169.

Hope to see you soon, Eddie