How time flies... over half way done in Honduras

Our whole volunteer group together at the goodbye party before saying goodbye to four.

Sharing the Ranch with my family.

Relaxing on the beautiful beaches of Cayos Cochinos, Bay Islands, Honduras.

Exploring Guatemala and Honduras with friends Linnea, Erik, and Beth.

In front of our sand-floor hut on and island called "Peanut"

Parker made fast friends with the girls in my Hogar.

Rafting the Rio Cangrejal in the northern jungle of Honduras.

Proud to be an American... in Honduras.

June ended with me completing 24 years of life and celebrating my first Honduran birthday.  I would like to add that the birthday song they sing here is the longest I have ever encountered. And all my hogar girls screeched with great pleasure as they cracked 5 eggs over my head (Honduran tradition). They decided to take it a step further and dumped milk and mud-water mixture on me as well. Whose birthday were we supposed to be celebrating anyway? A week later I also celebrated my first USA Independence Day out of the country. The volunteers had a big bonfire in the center garden of our house where we roasted bargain Honduran hotdogs and ate a delicious American flag cake. I was also told “Congratulations” by several Honduran employees, which made me giggle.

On July 15^th I started a week-long vacation and headed to Guatemala to meet up with some FLBC camp friends, Beth (who is in the Peace Corps there) and Erik and Linnea Johnson. After getting delayed at the border because I forgot my residency card and my passport looked like I had been illegally in the country for 4 months, I finally made it across the border and reunited with my friends a day later. We traveled through Antigua, Panajachel, down to the giant Lake Atitlan, and stayed the night at a beautiful hotel overlooking the lake and several volcanoes. We spent the next four days traveling though Honduras seeing Mayan ruins and enjoying the beaches on the northern coast, before retuning back to the Ranch to spend the weekend here. It was such a blast to spend time with friends from back home and explore new parts of Central America.

The day they left marked the start of a surgical/medical brigade of 68 doctors, nurses, auxiliary personnel and families, here on the Ranch. The first day of the brigade I spent assisting and translating for a Dermatologist who came and treated hundreds of children and their skin problems. The most common issues being foot funguses or “athlete’s foot,” warts, and skin rashes. The other days of the brigade I worked in the surgery center in the admissions room helping to prep all the patients for surgery. It is always hard work and long days starting at 5:30am and working until evening, but really rewarding. Two of my hogar girls had surgery during this week, and it was a pleasure to be able to follow them through the whole pre-op, inter-op, and post-operative process, and even get to observe their surgeries. Many of the patients that receive orthopedic or general surgery when the brigade comes are patients that at some point have passed through the external clinic, where I work. For many of these people who come to the external clinic in need of surgery, we can only offer basic pain medication and write their name down in the “Brigade Book” to contact in 3-6 months when the next medical brigade comes. It is very rewarding to see patients walking out of the surgery center (even though it might be on crutches) with a big smile on their faces, finally relieved of a disability or illness that they may have lived with for years, when they never thought surgery would be an affordable option.

We get two groups of new volunteers each year and they overlap by one month with the outgoing volunteers to better facilitate training and orientation into their new jobs. While no new nurses came in this group, we had 5 fabulous ladies arrive the first week in July to start their 13 months of service. Therefore, the day after the medical brigade ended, it was time for four of our volunteers to close their service and we celebrated our last night together with a big goodbye party in Tegucigalpa. It was sad to say goodbye to these volunteers whom I have lived and worked with for the last 7 months, and weird to realize that the next Goodbye party will be my own. The next morning I got on a bus and headed north 5 hours to meet my mom, dad, brother, and sister who flew in to embark on 10 days of traveling all over Honduras. They were great sports through a variety of conditions, including sleeping in a sand-floor, grass-roofed hut on a small island and a lot of riding in the back of pick-up trucks. Visiting Copan Ruinas and my host family where I first attended language school, white-water rafting in the jungle, and hiking and relaxing at a cozy Bed & Breakfast in the cloud forest were definitely highlights. We spent a weekend on the Ranch just relaxing and hanging out with the kids. For my dad and brother, it was their first time seeing where I have lived and worked for the past 7 months. My brother was definitely a big hit with the 11-15 year old girls in my hogar. One, without a shy bone in her body, just sat right down right next to him and didn’t leave his side for the rest of the afternoon. Another stared up at him from her seat when he walked into the room and just uttered one word… “Beautiful!” I also loved it when my dad just sat right down at a table and started coloring with the girls and then exchanged drawings at the end with one of the girls, Yulissa. On Wednesday I said goodbye to my family with a few tears, but it was such a wonderful experience to be together as a family seeing some new parts and sharing my favorite places of Honduras with them.

So now I have just been adjusting back to the work routine and enjoying the new volunteer group. It is also nice to be back in Hogar with the girls. This upcoming week will be a big week for me, as I am helping in both the internal and external clinics and coordinating the activities of 4 visiting nurses. But if there is anything I have learned over these past 7 months, it is how fast time flies by regardless of how much you try to slow it down, so you might as well just carry on and try to love every minute of it.