Observations from my first six hours in Honduras:

I was lucky to have a warm shower with decent water pressure. Note to self: C is for calienté, not cold.

Remembering to brush with bottled, rather than tap, water is easy if I don’t turn on the tap at all. Tossing used TP in the trash, rather than commode, is a harder habit to break.

The forests are so lush, they appear black rather than green.

Rivers are brown from silt, trash, and sewage.

In a country so overwhelmed with poverty (the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere), what constitutes as housing is nothing short of a tragedy.

With no where to dispose of trash, litter piles up everywhere the eye can see. Roadsides and riverbanks are peppered with debris.

People themselves don’t have enough to eat, so animals face a miserable existence. Horses, cows, and dogs roam, starved and diseased.

Buildings, homes, and companies of any value are guarded by cement block walls and razor wire.

Shacks are quality homes for the middle class. The wealthy live in large homes behind well-guarded gates. The poor live and raise their children in lean-tos and tarp-covered spaces.

I don’t know how I will return to America and not be sickened by our indulgences.