Brigades and Visitors

I apologize for such a long gap in updates. I have had a very eventful March with very little time to write. I am doing well however, and excited that I made it successfully past my 3 month mark here, which also coincided with a fabulous and long awaited 4 day visit from my mom and sister. It was so much fun to show them around the Ranch, and even a little bit of Honduras, so that they have a better picture of what life is like for both me and the kids her as well. My mom brought me an entire suitcase of goods that I had been missing from the states, such as peanut butter, chocolate, magazines, clothing items, and some crafts for the girls in my hogar. They tagged along with me to my Hogar one night and took lots of pictures and met all 22 kids in my section. Another evening we cooked dinner with a family of four sisters and ate together, their family and mine. The next day my mom came with me bright and early to help open the clinic and stayed all morning assisting with various tasks such as finding patient charts, and counting up and bagging medications to dispense to patients. Tasks, as she pointed out, that would never have been allowed in the states. To make sure my family got the 'true, authentic Honduran experience,' we ventured out for an overnight getaway in public transportation (picture crowded, old, rickety, discarded American school bus) to pass through Tegucigalpa and visit two colonial towns a few hours away. This was personally a nice little get away for me, and allowed for the perfect quality time with my mom and sister. We ate some good food, walked around, and bought some souvenirs. The four days came to an end all too fast, but I excitedly await their return when my whole family can come in August.

At the Ranch we have one of the most state of the art surgery centers in all of Honduras that currently is used only 4 times a year when medical brigades of various specialties come. I always feel like I am transported back to the US when I walk into the center because it looks so nice compared to any other medical facility I have seen in Honduras. Mid-March we had an Orthopedic medical brigade of 60 people from the States (comprised of Surgeons, nurses, families, translators, and other auxiliary personnel) come to operate in our surgical center. In the first 2 days we did 200 consults and 58 surgeries during the following 4 days. I worked at least 12 hour days, sometimes more for the entire week as both nurse and translator, assisting with communication with patients and helping them feel at ease, and also playing nurse helping with pre-surgery sedation and recovery post-op. When things were slow in the recovery room I was able to pop into some of the Operating rooms and watch the surgeries. It made for a very exhausting, but fulfilling week. It was fun to do some 'hospital' type nursing for the week and get to know some new faces and learn a lot from the surgeons, other nurses, and anesthesiologists.

Another successful development was last week, after a month of planning, we formulated our own little medical brigade comprised of many of the healthcare personnel from the clinic and some fellow volunteers to return to the neighboring rural village of Tamal y Queso.  We piled 14 of us and our supplies into a small pickup truck and bumped along the one-track mountain road. Since this was our first visit where we were actually providing healthcare and education, we decided to begin with a manageable population size and just treat the 42 school children, whom we had all done preliminary assessments on during our previous trip. We brought along our physician and our dentist who assessed each child. We taught hand washing skills, dental hygiene, and all the kids received a toothbrush, toothpaste, multivitamins, and antiparasite medication. We also brought a well-equipped first aid kit to donate to the school and educated the teachers and some mothers from the community on basic first aid skills such as wound care, hand hygiene, choking response and the Heimlich maneuver, how to use basic over the counter medications, etc. It was such a rewarding experience to see direct results of healthcare implementation and also be able to focus more on primary/preventative healthcare. We hope to continue a supportive relationship with this community and with each visit expand the demographics of the population that we are able to care for.

I feel like I probably don't talk about the kids as much recently, since I have accustomed myself now to my environment and they have become a part of my life here. And sometimes the quirky or cute things that they do don't always strike me anymore like they did when I first got here because it has become common. And although my daily 'job' is not directly working with the children, it is for them that I came, and from them that I can often renew my energy. So I would like to share a few stories about the resiliency of one family. One night after coming back late from the surgery center during the brigade, we got a radio call that one of the abuelos from the grandparent's house, was not well. By the time we got there, he had passed away minutes earlier. Although he was grandparent' age, he lived on the ranch because he was chronically ill with emphysema and had two young children of his own here whom he could not care for, 8 and 11 years old. The older of the two, Yeimi is in my Hogar. My heart sank when I saw him knowing that this meant two sweet little girls were now parentless. I had the opportunity that night to help take his body up to the clinic and help preserve it and prepare him for his funeral. An experience that I had not yet had. A few days later, I attended my first funeral, and it was interesting standing in the cemetery and being surrounded by an overwhelming majority of children who had already experienced the pain of losing a parent or loved one. A week after the death, I had the opportunity to spend an evening with another volunteer and the two girls cooking dinner together and playing. Despite the recent events they were so joyful and the older one took great care in being like a mother to her slightly younger sister. They would lovingly talk about things their dad would do or had taught them, not with sadness, but with joy for the memories of him. It just made me feel so much hope for these kids that they are able to face and overcome such obstacles and still go on loving life.

My family with a family of four sisters that we spent an evening with cooking dinner. The two smallest are in my hogar.

In the clinic pharmacy room with Coto, my 'year of service' assistant.

Bagged water... slightly more sustainable than bottled water.