Swimming To School by Rodger Harrison Taking school supplies to the small mountain schools in Honduras is seldon a dull task. Every trip is different. Here is a story that I thought some of you might be interested is hearing about. Although the main thrust of our last mission was to help train our new volunteers for the local rescue squad we did take some time to distribute school supplies to some of the smaller mountain schools. We supplied most of the 8 schools on our route, and only had one more school to go. The plan was to do this last small school of 50 children, just outside of Pueblo Viejo about 8 miles from Copan Ruinas. As usual for this time of year it had been raining every day, but I didn't give it much thought. On the morning of this school visit I met with Norman Valiences the teacher who was to ride with us to the school. We traveled down a muddy road until we came to the river, where Norman explained that the school was just on the other side of a small stream. Stream! It was more like a raging rapids. The villagers had tied a rope across the stream, and another safety line further down stream to catch you if you got washed away from the first line. Children were taking off their clothes, and putting them in a plastic bag tied to their waist and them pulling themselves along on the first rope line. They made it look easy. When I asked Norman what would happen if I lost my grip on the first line, and missed the second line, he just shrugged, and said all I should do then is swim like crazy for the other shore. He assured me that sooner or later I would reach dry land. Now those of you who know me, know that I am dedicated to the cause, but the thought of stripping off my clothes, in front of a large crowd of children, and making a swim across that raging river dragging my camera and clothes in a plastic sack just seemed to lack luster for me. The teacher kept urging me to give it a try as I had explained that Paramedics For Children never made a donation to any school unless we handed out the school supplies ourselves. But, this was a different story all together, and for once I decided to bend the rules. I watched as the school supplies made the crossing bobbing up and down in the river towed by a smiling Norman. When he reached the other side, him, and the students turned, and waved back to me, and them headed off to the school. I figured that if this teacher was willing to do all that, he surely was on the level, and the supplies would be delivered as planned. Some times you just have to have faith in your fellow man, right? As I walked back to the truck I thought about the odds of ever seeing any thing like this in the good old USA. Imagine American children having to swim across a raging river to go to school. Imagine the stories those kids would tell their children. "Walk? Why when I was your age I had to swim to school ...upstream...both ways, ." Yeah right!