Poverty On The Line

When I was a little girl, I loved hanging up laundry on the clothesline with my mom every summer. Those are some of my most cherished memories. The smell of freshly cleaned, sun-dried laundry was unlike anything else. In the winter, we relied on the clothes dryer, not quite the same, but something we appreciated.


I appreciate it even more now.



Here in Honduras, clothes are hung to dry throughout the yards. Some were hung on fences or barbed wire, the only wire they had available. While the sun does dry the clothes, the feeling of freshness isn't what we're used to. Many of the neighborhood we visited today were strewn with garbage and animal droppings, there were flies everywhere, and the lack of proper sanitation left a smell that had to be experienced to be understood.

Sometimes, the clothes are washed in rivers that aren't fit to even touch.


And yet, somehow, in the midst of such extreme poverty... there is beauty to be found.

In the people... and in the clotheslines.