A Memorable Place

Honduran mountains test and reward

By Carey Andrews

SPECIAL TO THE SUN

I had to stop and catch my breath as I struggled up the high, narrow path. The torrential rains from the afternoon before had left the trail muddy and treacherous, and although I tried to follow closely behind the sure-footed Honduran leading me up the mountain, the altitude was affecting my breathing, and my feet seemed to find every slippery hole in the ground.

The air was humid and hot. I thought of the others building doors and windows inside the cool stone church, and I began to wonder why I had volunteered to walk to the farthest house to begin hanging doors. I reminded myself that I had come to Hon-duras to be of service to others.

I traveled here on a monthlong program organized through Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tenn. I was one of 10 other students on the trip -- all of them close to my age, 19, and from all over the United States.

Like the scorpion we found living with us in our tiny stone house, and the frigid temperature of our bathing water, this hike was another test. With a new burst of energy I climbed on, slipping, sliding and clinging to tree trunks.

We followed a shaded path straight up the mountainside for another quarter-mile before reaching an opening in the trees. I looked up and saw a wooden hut with a thatched roof on top of the hill.

I followed my guide and friend to the hut, where he pointed with pride to a three-room stone house about 500 yards away. With the help of a service group, each family in the small mountain village called Las Mercedes had recently constructed a new house. Our group was here to build and hang wooden doors for the residents' new homes.

While the guide waited for a cup of coffee, I surveyed the family's back yard. To my left was a small patch of pineapple plants, to my right, dozens of banana trees. Straight ahead was a fantastic view of the mountains.

As we walked over to the new house and began to hang the first door, I realized that yet another challenge was behind me. And while the hike had been a struggle, different from the door-building I had been doing each day in the village church, the view from the mountaintop was beautiful -- almost more than I could have hoped for.

During my stay in Las Mercedes, I was tested by extreme living conditions, endless corn tortillas, freezing showers, rainy afternoons and physical labor. The week was long and difficult, but I could not have asked for a better place to challenge myself than in the beautiful mountains of Honduras.

Carey Andrews lives in Baltimore.

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