Students from Arts & Sciences returned recently from a successful trip to help low-income residents of Honduras. In what has become an annual excursion, the BU Global Water and Medical Brigades returned from the Central American country in early January. The Water Brigade, which is organized by students, included many Arts & Sciences students as well as students from other schools at the University. History Professor Cathal Nolan joined the group as faculty advisor. The team built a small dam high up in the mountains in one of the most remote and poorest parts of the country. They also constructed a pipeline to carry potable water down to a treatment tank and delivery system for a village of 700.
The students rose at 6 a.m. every morning, took cold showers, and drove over an hour in the back of four-wheel-drive pickup trucks up rugged mountain roads. They then hiked up the mountain past where even the pickup trucks could go, carrying pick-axes, spades, backpacks, and water, to dig a 3.2 kilometer-long pipe-trench that ran down treacherous and steep mountain slopes.
They cut roots with machetes and removed rocks and even boulders, most around 100-150 pounds but some weighing as much as 1,500 pounds. They mixed cement with sand on the ground at the dam site, some students as light as 100 pounds lifting the heavy mixture one shovel at a time. Then they did it again, and again, and again, without complaint until they were exhausted but beaming with pride.
They worked alongside dozens of the Honduran villagers who will directly benefit from newly abundant, clean, treated water, once the system is turned on by the end of March—in time to avert another baleful dry season. The students also worked in the village with local teachers, teaching mothers and children about basic sanitation and avoidance of water-borne parasites, distributing medical supplies and clothing, assisting doctors and nurses with all types of cases, and losing badly two improvised soccer games against the local children.
The BU Global Water and Medical Brigades went to Honduras under the auspices of Global Medical Brigades, an international network of university clubs and volunteer groups that travel to developing countries to offer health care. The BU group has established two scholarships to allow BU students to participate in future brigades, and the members of the brigade hope to found several more.