Coffee at Bedtime

Even though it has been just a few weeks since I have written, I feel like so much has happened and time has just flown by. I am starting to feel the Ranch becoming my new home. Sometimes it is actually easy to forget that I am in Honduras until some funny cultural difference strikes me and brings me back to reality. One night, all the kids were out on the basketball courts for dinner with the normal chaos that ensues when you put 350 kids together of all ages. We sat in the dark eating our dinner… the (dreaded) favorite, Sopa de menudo, which is a chicken broth soup with all the internal organs and left over parts of the chicken (liver, heart, and kidneys included). The kids are especially excited if they get a chicken foot in their bowl to suck on.  After our meal there was a giant caldron of coffee boiling over a fire. And sure enough, a little while later, the coffee (with 30 pounds of sugar in it) was served out to all the kids, big and small, and they loved it! This was one of those cultural moments when I just had to laugh and say “why wouldn’t you serve coffee to a bunch of small children right before their bedtime?”

As part of our orientation last week, we got to take a trip to the nearest town called Talanga, 30 minutes by bus from here. We visited the Comedor Infantil, a lunch soup kitchen for impoverished children 2-10 years old who would maybe not receive any meals otherwise. It is a project that was started 1 year ago by a Passionist volunteer and will now be supported by NPH and coordinated by one of our own new volunteers. It was a very valuable trip to get to see how other children live outside of the Ranch. While the children here at NPH don’t get to live with their families, they have all their basic needs provided for them, and limitless possibilities in education, such as the opportunity to attend high school and college if they so choose.

It seems like several times a week there is some sort of special event. On weekends there is always something going on, from movie nights to talent shows and dance competitions. The kids will choreograph a dance routine in small groups and perform it in front of everyone. As a whole, they can all dance impressively well, and even the little ones can really move their hips while dancing Punta. By the end of the night, it is not uncommon to have a small child asleep in your lap. Recently we had the Graduation celebration for all the graduating kids from kindergarten up to university, before the start of school this coming week. Thursday we celebrated the Patron Saint of Honduras, Suyapa, starting with a giant procession and a catholic mass at 7am. Last Sunday was Visitors Day where all the kids who have any extended family or even parents who cannot or are not allowed to care for them come and see their children for a day. This happens 3-4 times a year. As volunteers we are in charge of all the kids who do not get visitors for that day, and try to make it as fun for them as possible, with swimming, field games, cake, and movie watching.

Monday marked the start of my actual job training, and to be quite honest, it has been a bit overwhelming. Orienting to a new nursing role is difficult. It is even harder and sometimes just downright frustrating to be doing it in another language that I am still trying to understand. Besides our Health Coordinator and one Doctor, I am one of two licensed nurses here. To summarize my job description, I am in charge of running the External Clinic at the Ranch. I walk 15 minutes to work from our volunteer house to the entrance of the ranch where the clinic is located. I get there at 7am and by then there is already a line of about 30 people waiting to be seen. These patients may travel for 2-3 hours by foot and by bus to get to the clinic by 5 or 6am to receive an affordable medical consult. We charge $1.50 for the visit, and all medications are $1. We also have a full functioning laboratory in which patients can have all sorts of affordable blood tests taken and results analyzed on the spot by our Microbiologist. Because we only have one Medical doctor and she must work in the internal clinic in the afternoons seeing the Ranch children, we only allow 20 patients a day to be seen at the external clinic. One of the hardest parts of the job is to turn someone away after they have already paid the bus fare and possibly traveled many miles to get here, starting in the wee hours of the morning. Upon arrival to the clinic first twenty patients receive a number on a first-come-first-serve basis, and some may wait 6 hours until they are seen. That is just how the Honduran health system works.

My job varies slightly every day depending on what other help we have in the clinic. I help admit the patients, find their charts, take vital signs and a short history or reason for the visit, and do patient care such as wound care procedures or taking out stitches. I also help to fill the medication prescriptions that the doctor writes in our little on-site pharmacy. Now you may all be thinking, “well Heather is not a Pharmacist,” and that was exactly my thought as well. According to our US standards, this would not seem exceedingly safe, and even much less so when I can’t be present and there are two young assistants with no formal medical training are left in charge. Therefore I am now on a quest to try to relearn everything that I have forgotten from my nursing pharmacology class to better educate both myself and others to make this a safer system. I am excited to gain from this clinic experience many different leadership and administrative skills that I did not expect to come away with, but will ultimately be glad to have.

I would just like to thank everyone who has been sending me emails and encouraging notes over the last 6 weeks here. It is very helpful to know that I am so loved and supported by my friends and family!

 Children from Talanga at the Comedor Infantil, playing before lunch time.

The view from our volunteer house in the early morning.