The sun is hot.  It’s mid-day and very dry, typical conditions for southern Honduras in November.  A slight breeze does little to provide relief.  We are in a large meeting hall, at least large by local standards.  Constructed of concrete block and adobe-red floor tiles, the building is like so many others in this city of a little more than 100,000 people.

It’s the last week of November 2002.  While most Americans enjoy the Thanksgiving season, these [Central] Americans prepare for graduation.  There is nothing unusual here about graduation in November. It marks the end of the Honduran school year, which runs from February to November.  The 150 or so friends and family here come from Limon de la Cerca, a colonia in the Choletecan school district. Among the guest are 5 “outsiders”, - eye witness to an event few would have dreamed possible. All have gathered to celebrate this school’s graduating seniors, five young men and seven young ladies, 12 in all.

All the schools in the area graduate seniors during this month, some more, some less.  This year La Escuela Ricardo Soriano has 12.  Their success is a testimony to hard work and dedication.  Like many other Honduran communities, these students are bright, motivated, and well-prepared.

So what’s special about the class of 2002 La Escuela Ricardo Soriano in the colonia Limon de la Cerca?  Is it the graduates? Bright and capable, but typical of Honduras’ best.  Is it the teachers?  No, skilled and dedicated, but typical of Honduras’ dedicated educators. The parents? Great parents, but like moms and dads in the other schools, they work hard to care for their families.  No the parents are not what is special.

So, what’s extraordinary about this graduation? Imagine if you can the following scenario.......

A large hurricane hits.  Its no ordinary storm. Experts label it the “storm of the century”.  It destroys much of the city where you live. In fact your city is in the top two hardest hit in the country. It rains for days. One day the rain exceeds 18 inches in 24 hours.  The river where you live flows at the highest levels ever recorded.

At the peak of the storm your house is washed away.  It is in total darkness and happens in a terrifying instant. You survive by the grace of God but daylight shows complete and total destruction. For a time you are stranded by the high water.  Even if you could go someplace there is no clean water, no food.  There is no power. There is no shelter. There are no helicopter rescuers, much less medical help.  You are lucky to have survived at all and it you are really lucky, your immediate family survives.

Everyone you talk to knows people who are dead, many never seen again.  The killer storm shows no preferences - friends, mothers, fathers, young, old.  You know families where only one person survived.  You know families where only kids survived.  You know families where no kids survived.

Days pass and some aid arrives - bottled water and rice go fast. A few more days and tents arrive for temporary shelter. Tent farms spring up on high ground and plastic tarps are the hot item.

Weeks pass.  Clothing arrives in large mixed bags giving you something more to wear than the one set you’ve worn for weeks. With no radio or TV, its hard to know what’s happening, if anything at all. Its impossible to know the extent of the damage.  You think about what to do next. You can’t rebuild because there is no money. Even if you had money, there are no materials. If you had materials, the land where your house was isn’t even there any more so where would you build! Where the house and farms were is now only a valley of rocks. There is barely a trace left of the fields, houses, schools, churches, clinics, and roads that you called home.  Even the highway connecting the north to the south is washed out, slowing relief efforts even more.

You hear the toll: Maybe as many as 16,000 are dead, 60% of the countries economy destroyed. This year’s crops are gone just before harvest, farmland with them.  The government has no money to rebuild. Sickness is growing and epidemics are possible.  For now, you just worry about one day at a time. Finishing the school year does no even enter your mind.

Two months pass and you hear of international relief agencies sending workers to survey the damage. You hear rumors that high ground will be available on which to re-build.  You hear about a small group of North Americans who have actually started on a few housed about 5 kilometers east of town. You walk a half of day to see for yourself what’s happening. You pass by more tent farms where people are living in the open.  And yes, work has begun. But there are thousands homeless and these guys are working on only about a dozen houses.  They promise 50 houses altogether, a drop in the bucket.

Over the next 8 months more house are built and a well is drilled. The experts said there is no water here but the well turns out to be the best for miles around.  Now with water, conditions begin to improve for the first time since the flood. There is nothing green, no stores, only rows of concrete-block houses.  Still things seem to be improving and there is hope.

Sound like a worse case scenario?  Worse case yes, scenario no.

Hurricane Mitch, October 27, 1998.  It was called the storm of the century - the third-deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record. (The deadliest, recorded in 1780, killed at least 20,000 people on Martinique. The second largest storm killed 8,000 to 12,000 in Galveston, Texas in 1900). Stronger than any storm ever recorded in Honduras’ history. The destruction, the deaths, the losses –all really happened and it happened just 4 years prior to this graduation.  Who would have been so bold as to stand on top of the rubble and predict a new community, healthy and strong, normal and new, graduating seniors – in four years?

The local authorities selected an area and designated it as the site for rebuilding. The good news: it was high ground out of the flood plane.  The bad news: it was high ground away from the river that provided water for living and crops.

January 15, 1999, 2 ½ months after Mitch. The first dirt, the first concrete, the first blocks were set and re-building for the thousands of homeless started. The place did not even have a name.  The first workers were from Texas, so the locals coined the name “Cholatexas”. Everyone thought the site might eventually be annexed into the city of Choluteca.

Within 14 days all of 24 houses were underway.  In a mater of months the first 24 houses shared land with dozens of houses.  Homeless jobless families moved into houses they helped build.  Like time-lapse photography, the landscape changed week to week - from wide open nothing to a community.  Bus service started. Businesses opened. The unexpected success of the first well spawned the drilling of more wells.  Clean water was abundant.  In time the community was named Limon de la Cerca (population 20,000+ as of 2003).

The next school year open late for the children of the flood. There was no school building.  The community was rich with kids, having grown faster than anyone expected. School started under a temporary shelter constructed from used lumber stripped from the concrete forms on those first 50 houses. Weekly church services were held under the same structure.

A new school building was under construction and with the help of outsiders it was soon able to provide basic education to the families of the flood. The school, La Escuela Ricardo Soriano, is located in the center of the community.  It features clean and airy classrooms. Opening its doors only 20 months or so from the date of the great flood, it now numbers about 450 students.

In a vivid and remarkable way, the 12 symbolize a triumph over adversity most can only imagine and far fewer have ever experienced.  The recovery represents the best of mankind when generous responsive people from all over the world join together to relieve suffering.  Hard work and dedication, victims and outsiders, public and private, working together, a result even the most optimistic among us would never have predicted - 12 graduates.

So what’s so extraordinary about this graduation? Now you know.