Ojojona

The following weekend I visited Miriam’s site in Ojojona for the fair and to look at two potential sites for a project she is developing with the OMM - Oficina Municipal de la Mujer (Munipal Office for Women). This office, which promotes women’s issues on the local level, is creating a Casa Refugio (women’s shelter) to provide temporary housing for battered women, a space for job/leadership training events, and a small business for women in the community. Miriam is working on this project through the Peace Corps Partnership program, where the community provides 25% of the funds and the other 75% comes from donations that Miriam will solicit. In this case, the community portion will be an in-kind donation of land and other building materials.

Ojojona is a cute little colonial town about 30 minutes south of Tegucigalpa, which draws a lot of tourists on the weekends for its old colonial buildings and the earthenware pottery of the region. According to the Moon Handbooks Guide to Honduras, Ojojona was settled by the Spanish in 1579, and originally played a more important role than Tegucigalpa because of the mines in its nearby hillsides.