Dear everybody,
The Rotary Club of Santa Rosa de Copan has just returned from a mission to the Wampusirpi area in the Mosquitia. Our goals were (1) Insure that our first donation of twelve tons of food arrived safely, and help with its distribution, (2) Meet local relief authorities, and resolve the communications problems we have been experiencing, and (3) Identify further needs to guide our future activities.
As many of you know, COPECO (the Honduran emergency management agency) had promised since November to obtain U.S. Army Chinook helicopters to fly our donation and us into Wampusirpi, and in anticipation of this we had trucked our donation to the Soto Cano (Palmerola) Air Base at COPECO's request. I was thus stunned to learn after weeks of inquiry that the goods could not be found in Soto Cano and were appearing in bits and pieces in Wampusirpi.
Realizing we could wait no longer for the helicopters, we left for Wampusirpi on board a Mission Air Fellowship/Air Serv relief flight we had chartered for the purpose. Mission Air Fellowship and Air Serv are nonprofit organizations dedicated to light humanitarian airlift services worldwide. If you've never heard of them before, it's because they spend their money on quietly doing outstanding work, not on public relations and horn blowing.
Once in Wampusirpi, we discovered that the situation is even more critical than reports have indicated. Many families had been without food for the previous three days, and were foraging for edible roots in the surrounding forest. As we arrived, and later as we assisted in aid distribution, we were received with tears.
The aid distribution, based in a village church, took fourteen workers over six hours to complete and didn't end until 9 pm, an ungodly hour of the night for a village without electricity. The process was efficient, fair, and detailed. Wampusirpi's CODEM (village emergency management committee) has a census of every person in the surrounding seventeen villages and their status of need. Each incoming aid shipment is inventoried and proportioned for each household on the basis of need and household size, right down to the pound. Each head of household must sign or mark for all aid received. In this way the village committee has written records on exactly what was received (when, who sent it if known) and what was distributed (who received it and when). This level of sophistication and honesty in the middle of a famine ridden jungle surprised and gratified us, and we hope that it encourages donors to continue their support secure in the knowledge that their assistance is wisely and fairly used.
Later we met with the village emergency committee, and spoke at length about the area's needs. First, of course, is food: not nearly enough is getting in. Many large and loud promises of help proved empty and apparently dissuaded other, more serious donors from assisting. The United Nations' World Food Programme has promised (though yet to deliver) rice, cooking oil, and canned sardines, so our future shipments will not include those items.
Second, the wrong kind of aid is arriving. Spanish smoked ham and Dutch cookies are great, but for what they cost to obtain and ship a lot more rice and beans could have been delivered and distributed to many more more families in need. Additionally, I personally looked through a big bag of high heel shoes and ski parkas piled up in the church. (These are for a tropical jungle, you will remember.) If that's what comes in clothing donations, then we'll pass, thank you. There is, in fact, a modest need for appropriate clothing, but it needs to be sorted at the point of donation, not down here, and that sorting apparently isn't being done.
Third, and very importantly, each aid shipment must be accompanied with sufficient gasoline and two cycle motor oil for distribution. There is virtually no gasoline or oil for sale at any price in the Mosquitia and all must be shipped in. Otherwise the aid just accumulates in the church and causes ill will in the outlying villages, who reasonably if erroneously accuse the village committee of hoarding for personal use. A twenty ton donation should be accompanied by about 1,000 gallons of gasoline and 130 quarts of oil. (These figures are for the Wampusirpi area; other areas will need more or less.)
Fourth, other priority needs are:
* At least one more outboard motor to speed final distribution of aid.
Transportation is waterborne via dugout canoes, but a shortage of motors
hampers distribution. Once sufficient gasoline and oil arrive, the
motor shortage will become more acute.
* Several sailcloth tarps to cover and keep the goods dry during final
distribution. Some donations have been harmed or ruined by splashes or
rain.
* Plastic 55 gallon drums to store and transport gasoline.
* 40 meter band ham radio and antenna for the mayor's office.
Communication is a serious problem (no telephone, telegraph, or internet
in the Mosquitia) and the few organizations in the area with radios have
been unable to reliably pass messages to and from the village emergency
committee.
The committee also believes that the famine will last at least two years. I had erroneously assumed that the next rice harvest (November 1999) will be normal and the area will become self sufficient at that time. However, they noted that so far (three months after Mitch) not even weeds are growing well in the dried mud covering the fields. They are awaiting soil analysis reports, but in the meantime assume that it will be two to three years before local agriculture can become self sufficient. This means that assistance will take longer, and be more costly, than anyone predicted at the beginning of the crisis, and places a much greater burden upon long term donors and efforts.
Additionally we traveled upriver to the village of Kurpa. Kurpa is situated on a bluff some 45 feet high overlooking the Patuca River. There we found the river's high water mark, eight feet high on the schoolhouse wall on top of the bluff. Several families live under plastic tarps, as their houses were destroyed. Numerous other homes are structurally unsound, as the flood deposited mud in the thatch roofs that has dried and become as hard and heavy as cement. The villagers were pleased to hear of Miskito self-help group MOPAWI's housing construction program.
The food situation in Kurpa is just as serious as in Wampusirpi, but with much lower morale due to the above mentioned misconception that food in abundance is being hoarded in Wampusirpi. They received our explanations with overt skepticism, the only solution being increased gasoline shipments and one or more additional outboard motors.
We have returned home from this trip greatly sobered by our new realization of the scope of the problem, but re-energized and ready to meet these challenges. We thank you and all our donors for your generosity in making this shipment and distribution possible, and hope that our effort, and the people of the Mosquitia, will continue to have your support and confidence in the difficult months ahead.
We gratefully thank Angela Rivas of Casa de Cafe, Edgardo Benitez of the Asociacion Asang Launa, and the pilots and staff of the Mission Air Fellowship and Air Serv for their invaluable information and assistance in this effort. I hope more organizations and individuals working in the Mosquitia will follow this example and coordinate their activities for the benefit of all.
Sincerely,
Warren Post
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa de Copan
Warren Post lives in Santa Rosa and owns the highly recommended Pizza Pizza restaurant. He can be reached via email at wpost@hondutel.hn..
Eco Travels in Honduras Previous Update - January 1999
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