Other countries, different weather
In February 2015 the second floor of our main building was built. The wooden elements were prefabricated in Switzerland, shipped to Honduras and assembled here in San Pedro Sula.
Last November, after the rainy season, we noticed the first damage to the outer walls of the new floor. They were too exposed to the warm and humid climate.
The outer walls started to "rot", their porous wood structure had "absorbed" the water and the daily humidity of about 80-90 % prevented them from drying out.
When we reported this damage to the construction company Strüby, they immediately agreed together with Helmut Zurbuchen of Zurbuchen AG to find a solution to prevent further rotting.
They again shipped two full containers of sheet metal, building materials and construction machinery to Honduras. These arrived in Honduras in mid-June. The 5-man construction team, consisting of Erwin and Sepp Annen from Strüby, Helmut and José from Zurbuchen AG and Pauli Scarpatetti, removed the rotten elements from the outer wall and then wrapped the entire building in a foil. They left only one space open for ventilation. Then they covered the whole floor with metal sheets.
On the second floor we normally had extremely high temperatures during the day. To prevent this, another roof with insulating sheet metal was laid over the existing flat roof. Since then we have had very pleasant temperatures in the rooms below.
The Hondurans always admire the speed, endurance, precision of the hardworking Swiss men. They are aware that they would have to spend a multitude of time doing the same work.
Our friends
Since the construction team from Switzerland already visited us in 2015, the children were all the more happy about the reconstruction. The children now call them "our friends". Besides building, they enjoyed chatting and playing with them. José was able to talk to the children in Spanish. The others tried to communicate as good as possible with hands and feet.
The joy of the children was enormous because our grandfather Pauli and our grandmother Luisa arrived with the construction team and slept with us in the home. They played with them every evening and the children could also taste Luisa's fine European delicacies and dishes.
Mayte asked the grandparents to please stay here in Honduras...
At the same time we were allowed to welcome Daniela Steier, kindergarten teacher from Riom, for two weeks. Since she has visited us several times - the first time 10 years ago - she also belongs to our family.
She invited us to the water park ZIZIMA. For the children this visit was very special, because the Swiss visitors accompanied us. They used the opportunity to spend the whole day with them in the water.
Swiss ambassador
It was a great honour for us to welcome the Swiss ambassador to Honduras; Mr Gass, Deputy Director-General of the SDC; Mr Grünigner, Head of the SDC's Latin America Division; Ms Federspiel, Head of the International Commission in Honduras; Mr Melara and Ms Savillon, Programme Officers from the Cooperation Office in Honduras, to our home.
The children had rehearsed a small programme, with a few words and presentations from the children. While the older ones performed a dance our smallest ones took , in the lap of the Swiss celebrities before we enjoyed all together a small homemade snack.
It was a special experience that such important personalities visited us and above all, the simplicity and cordiality of the diplomats touched us very much.
Accident
One of our oldest boys, Daniel, suffered a serious accident. He fell from a 4-meter-high terrace while picking mango and landed on a concrete slab. He suffered a brain trauma with a skull fracture and haematoma, an upper jaw fracture, an anterior shoulder fracture and a zygomatic fracture.
He was driven by the ambulance to the public hospital where the emergency room was overcrowded. He did the computer tomography right away but had to wait for 3 hours before the doctors could do anything.
We did not have this time, because now it was about life or death. Therefore, we took him to a private hospital, because he had been already unconscious for serious amount of time and urgently had to be treated by professionals equipped with the required tools. It was clear to us that we had to give the credit card first, but in such a situation the money is of secondary importance.
In this hospital he was immediately examined by specialists and had to spend the first night in intensive care.
The next day he regained consciousness and was stable, so that we could move him back to the public hospital. After one week he was released but faces now a painful, long recovery process. However, the most important thing is that he is back with us in the home, because here we can all take care of him together and pamper him till he’s doing well again.