Bridges! (8/20/2001)

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Life will never be the same!  Last night we went to church in Lis Lis without driving THROUGH the rivers!  We drove OVER them on our two new bridges! 

The bridges are not quite completed, but finished enough to be used.  Another contractor needs to fortify the approaches so they don’t wash away during the rainy season.

 

For the people in Balfate and Lucinda, this means they won’t be stranded this year by the rains.  They will be able to send the milk from their cows to the dairy year-round.  They will be able to ride the bus rather than slop through the mud and wade through the rivers.  They will be able to keep their general stores stocked.  Of course, the people further down the road will still need to deal with the Lucinda and Esteben Rivers.  But once they get to Lucinda, they will be able to catch a bus.

 

It also means that property value in our area will likely soar as people from La Ceiba will be more attracted to the beach and country.  This will have mixed blessings, as we probably will see the area become more developed around the hospital.

 

For the hospital, the bridges mean that more people will be able to reach us during the rainy season.  Teams and visitors can come all year with less fear of being stranded.  

 

For us, it means that we will not need to pack over night bags every time we go to town.  The afternoon rains will no longer be a problem for travel.  It also means that we will not need to stock up on food for the rainy season, nor will we have the sometimes welcome benefit of being stranded without visitors.  And our car should have less wear and tear without the constant travel through the rivers.

 

Life indeed will never be the same.  We are thankful for the bridges, and are interested to see what this rainy season will be like.

 

Dave Drozek with

 

Thoughts from Honduras

 

(PS from 2025: As we soon learned, the approaches to the bridges were actually designed to wash out to protect the integrity of the main bridge structure.  So, we still needed to plan for being stranded when the big rains came!  However, the every day, non-rainy season traffic was greatly facilitated with the bridges!)

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