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Building 600 Homes
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| Maria Herrera (right) with her daughter and granddaughter at the Marcovia resettlement site. |
After drinking a couple of cups of very strong black coffee and a breakfast of eggs and corn tortillas, the next morning we headed out to visit a housing project in the town of Marcovia, about 40 minutes outside of Choluteca City.
Back in November of 1998, as the Hurricane Mitch emergency first evolved, the Honduran government turned much of its energy to repairing roads and bridges, leaving individual reconstruction efforts -- such as housing -- to aid agencies like CARE.
In the town of Marcovia, Mitch destroyed more than 2,000 homes, affecting some 26,000 people. I visited Marcovia back in February when Hondurans cheered as we arrived for the groundbreaking ceremony for a 600-home construction and resettlement project.
The mayor of Marcovia had acquired a large plot of land from the Honduran National Agrarian Institute and people from nearby villages were pitching in to clear it of debris and shrubs. Five tents filled with materials and tools and a huge water tanker were the only things on the site at that time.
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| Maria Herrera prepares dinner over the intense heat of the fire. |
On this day in Marcovia, 76-year-old Maria Herrera stood beside a mud-stained tent, stirring soup over a wood-burning fire. Her face was serious, with a quiet dignity that comes from years of hard work and struggle. I asked her about her house before Mitch. She told me she wasn't sure exactly where it used to be. Nothing looks familiar anymore along the Choluteca River. The last time she saw it, water was starting to pour through the walls. She left all her possessions behind and sought shelter at a nearby hospital.
For the past seven months, since the housing construction began, Maria has been living on the Marcovia project site with her daughter and granddaughter. Carolina Gamero, CARE's project coordinator, informed me that Maria's 81-year-old husband died last month.
"We had to struggle before the storm for what little we had," Maria told me. "We're still poor, but we also remain determined to keep on struggling. That's the only way we're going to survive."
The day after our visit, Maria's long wait would come to an end as she moved into her new home made of concrete blocks and cement.
Continue to Day 3
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