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8/28/2003
I'm back. This past Saturday I got back from a medical mission trip to Honduras. I'm posting the journal I kept while I was there in case anyone wants to know what exactly I was doing. Here are the first three days:
Saturday 8-16-03
8:45 a.m. Central Time
I’m sitting in Houston’s airport waiting for our flight to Honduras. Everything has run smoothly so far. I’ve met everyone, but I can’t say I know all the names just yet. They all seem nice, and occasionally they are funny. On the flight here, I sat next to Evan in the aisle seat. It was a small plane with all 50 seats full. I couldn’t sleep because I had nowhere to put my head. I’m going on 2 hours of sleep, but I’m pretty experienced with functioning on little sleep. The first flight was about 2 hours. We could watch the sunrise outside our window. It was beautiful.
8:00 p.m. Mountain Time
Now I’m in bed. I believe that I am slowly becoming a morning person/old woman. I’ll be able to sleep as soon as I stop writing.
We boarded our 2nd flight without trouble. Our plane was much larger 6 x 28 = 168 or so passengers. Again I had the aisle seat. I slept maybe 30 minutes on and off. By 9:45 I was ready for lunch. We ate on the plane while we watched the movie “What a Girl Wants.” For lunch I had a chicken sandwich with salsa, carrots, and some green vegetable. It wasn’t too bad. We also had some macaroni salad, potato chips, and Milano cookies (!). For some reason I was a little more scared on this flight. The landing was pretty rough, but we arrived in Tegucigalpa safely. The flight was about 2.5 hours. So straight from Kentucky, Honduras in probably about 5 hours.
After we went through customs, Tim and Gloria, two kind Hondurans, were waiting for us. We loaded our tons of luggage and took off for some unplanned shopping. Originally, we were told that we would shop on Friday, but that plan was changed. We exchanged our American dollar for the Honduran limpara. The exchange rate is 17.4 limparas to 1 dollar. It was difficult to shop since I was trying to figure out what exactly a good price for even a postcard would be. I finally realized that buying something for “dos mil” was actually just $12. The large group, my exhaustion and the simple foreign idea of shopping on the first day all slowed down my shopping skills.
On the way through town, I noticed all kinds of Coke signs. “Coca-Cola” was on everything. It was sort of crazy. Something even more surprising was the moment I walked in to the gas station. We were greeted by a guard carrying a huge gun. I have already adjusted a little to that strange security aspect of life in Central America.
After my crazy shopping (I did manage a few good purchases) we loaded our van and headed to the place we will stay tonight. I slept for almost the entire bus ride, and I really don’t have a clue how long the drive was. It was probably less than an hour. Gloria and Tim are sort of in charge of us while we are here. They recently built a nice hotel/cabin/house place for missionaries like us to stay at. The room I’m in has 6 beds and a bathroom. The other rooms house up to 12 people each. It is a really nice place, but we can’t get too used to it. We leave in the morning for the real adventure.
Once we got here, we separated all of our medicines from our personal items. We were able to shop a little from the wood carver and jewelry maker. They have some very impressive talents. We also had a snack this afternoon: watermelon (not as good as KY’s), a mystery bread (but good) and some citrus juice of some sort.
Tonight we had dinner around 5:30. We ate rice, some fried fish, tortillas, largely-sliced mixed, steamed vegetables, and some beans I didn’t eat. So far the food has been better than expected. As we finished, one of the nice ladies brought out dessert. The little cookies didn’t look like they had much taste, but they were delicious. I had three.
After dinner, we had a devotional. Mike shared a few readings from the Bible that sort of explains why he is taking part in this trip. Everyone shared a little about why he/she is here. We discussed our fears and concerns and what regrets we may have when we leave. Talking helped me get to know a little more about each person. The group of 12 are really caring, sincere people. I’m very excited about working with all of them.
Also, it was very stressful today when I couldn’t communicate with the store workers. I’m going to study my dictionary tomorrow on the way to the village. I think we have a 4-hour drive. We leave around 9. It is 8:36 and I’m gong to bed!
I feel bad that I can’t call home. I hope they aren’t worried.
Sunday 8-17-03
3:00 p.m.
Last night I slept very well. My mattress wasn’t very thick, and the wood beams were felt, especially under my lower back. I placed a pillow under me and then it was much more comfortable. I slept from about 9 to 5:45 without waking up. And after that, I slept on and off for another hour. My roommates were Carrie and Mary, and they were jealous of my sleeping abilities.
Once I got up, I jumped into the shower. I knew it would be cold, but I never thought it would be THAT cold. It felt like needles pressing against my already chilled body. My quick shower was followed by packing and loading the truck to be taken to our house in the village. We put all of the meds in the van and then had breakfast. For breakfast we had pancakes (possibly banana flavored) with honey and mixed fruit. The pancakes were great, but I missed my maple syrup.
After breakfast I wrote some postcards to Mammy and Papa, Dad, Mom and the Vances. I gave them to Gloria to mail. Here it costs about 50 cents to mail to the U.S. This is nice compared to the high rates I experienced in Germany!
Right at 9:00 we left Gloria’s to find our village. For the first 1½ hours, I read and napped a bit. Shortly after I awoke, we stopped at a little town with several shops and a restaurant I bought a Gala apple, some Papitas (potato chips), some strawberry milk like stuff, and a thing called Dalmata (Dalmation I think). It was a chocolate cake sort of like a Little Debbie. The apple was the best apple I could remember eating, the chips weren’t too bad, and the strawberry milk was pretty tasty. I just decided to eat the chocolate. I was feeling pretty deprived, and this tastes pretty good.
For the rest of the drive, I stayed awake and enjoyed the incredible scenery. I can’t believe how different every little thing is from America. Even the roads are completely different. There are no centerlines most of the time. People pass you despite the fact they can’t see around the curve. It is crazy. The hills and curves of Kentucky are nothing compared to those of Honduras. It really is like a roller coaster here. The view is amazing atop the mountains. We made it to our clinic before 1 p.m. We unloaded, had lunch (some interesting, but tasty sandwich), and then we organized the medicines in the pharmacy. It is packed. Jenna is going to be working there for sure, and I hope I get to, too.
Right now we are all sitting around talking inside the clinic. We are waiting for John and his daughter Andrea to show up. When they arrive we get to see where we are going to be sleeping. Hopefully, we’ll go to the kitchen (in another building) to eat then too. Everyone wants to know what I am writing down in my journal. They all think I am writing down all the funny stuff they have been saying....They are just paranoid!
8:45 p.m.
Once again it isn’t even 9 and I’m in bed. John and Andrea got here around 4. We worked a little longer at the clinic and then we went to another building where we would eat. It rains in the afternoons here around 2 or so. The dirt roads stay pretty muddy so when we were headed to eat, we loaded in the back of an extended cab, short bed, diesel pickup truck basically went “muddin’” as Andrew would call it. It was a lot of fun. There were about 8 of us in the back. I had to sit on Pat’s lap, and she kept sliding off of her bench seat. She ended up on the floor of the bed amongst all the mud a few times. I felt sort of bad. Anyway, for dinner tonight we had chicken, rice and beans….and we didn’t have dessert. I liked it all except the beans. After dinner some jokes were told including John’s famous and disliked dead mule joke.
We finally worked out some of the confusion about where we would be sleeping. At first we were all going to stay in this four-room house. We had 3 rooms to work with, but since all of the women except me have a tent, we took up lots of room. There are 2 in two of the rooms, and 3 in the other one. Two people set their tents on top of the beds…talk about unadventurous. The seven women and the honorary woman, Mike, are going to stay in this house. The other 4 men went back up to the clinic to sleep. They all tried to make me use an unused air mattress, but I refused. I wanted to experience the 3-inch thick one that they provided. Some are impressed with that and my minimal luggage. It is fun. They say that we will have a generator tomorrow night so that we can have some light.
Tonight I couldn’t wash my face because the water isn’t always running, and I didn’t want to use what little drinking water I have for washing my face. However, my OCD is starting to show through with my face cleanliness. Oh, and my biggest problem so far has been forgetting my bag of Q-tips and cotton balls a home. I can’t stand not cleaning my ears after a shower. Fortunately, they found an extra travel size box of them in the unneeded medical supplies.
I feel bad right now because us Americans are taking up the entire house with their tents and 3 Honduran ladies are laying outside on the fake mattresses waiting for someone to pick them up to take them somewhere else to sleep. We could definitely fit them in our house if they took down their tents. The people who have gone on these trips before think that the Hondurans aren’t as prepared as they usually are for us. However, I think it is all going as well as I expected.
I think I’ll read and then sleep. It is 9:00 now.
Monday 8-18-03
7:10 p.m.
Right now I’m eating an Oatmeal Raisin Granola bar and sitting at the kitchen table with a light over my head. Despite the somewhat annoying flicker of the light, I couldn’t e happier. The generator we have tonight allowed us to bring home some medicines to package for tomorrow. We call it “homework.”
This morning I got up at 5:30. I stayed in bed until the shower was free. My first shower experience in our “house” wasn’t awful. I just bit the bullet and took it. I definitely decided I wouldn’t be shaving my legs this entire trip.
For breakfast we had cinnamon and sugar oatmeal, fresh pineapple, and some sort of red/bread/biscuit kind of thing. We headed to the clinic before 8 and started seeing patients as soon as we organized. Jenna, David, and I worked in the pharmacy, and I was very glad to do so.
(The generator just ran out of gas, so I’m now writing with a candle assisting me.)
As soon as everything got rolling, patients began to swarm outside. There are three doctors and one dentist. Filling the prescriptions was easy at times: 30 Acetaminophen, 30 children’s vitamins, etc. But sometimes we basically had to guess what the patients needed, how often they needed it and how much they needed. That was pretty crazy, and it took quite a bit of getting used to since I am so precise at Towne and Country. I think having worked there has definitely helped me find my way around this pharmacy. It is really amazing how fast I adjusted to the new surroundings and new way of working. Sometimes we had no clue what we were doing. Usually when this happened, we sent David to ask someone. It was difficult trying to explain the medicines’ instructions to the patients. Things like Amoxicillin usually took help from a more fluent Spanish speaker. A few of the ladies who somewhat understood English, or could piece together our horrible Spanish, or just understood by our gestures and finger counting, were a lot of help when they were around. Almost all of the patients got parasite pills. Because of this, we had to package them as often as possible. Fortunately there are only 6 pills per package, but the directions are a pain to write: “tome una tableta dos veces al dia por 3 tres dias.” I thought pre-packaging for nursing home prescriptions was bad enough, but this is just annoying.
Around 10 this morning, I got hungry, but I somehow forgot about the hunger just as soon as I realized it’s existence. We were brought a coke and some Cheetos. However, we didn’t really have time to eat and drink. Before I even knew what happened, it was after 12 and the doctors had stopped seeing patients for the day. In the pharmacy we found ourselves swamped around this time, though.
Eventually we got to leave for lunch. At lunch we had tortillas, refried beans, and cabbage. Talk about interesting…but I ate it anyway. We also had some sort of soup After lunch, John passed around M&M’s. I was relieved. Before 2, we headed back to work. As we headed up to the clinic, the mass of people lined up was overwhelming. We knew it would be a busy afternoon. I think it went by smoothly, though. Jenna and I bounded and joked and laughed. Wheat is really nice is that the patients can’t understand us. Well, that is also perhaps the worst part.
Anyway, the pharmacy has two windows. Between all the prescriptions, I get to see some neat/unusual things. Today I saw many women breast-feeding their babies without concern about who saw them. It was shocking at first, since it is so different from America. I also watch children stare into the window. This one little girl was so precious. She kept staring in and I finally asked her and her friends if I could take their picture. I think our cameras and hand movements finally made since to them. One finally said “si” and smiled. It was a priceless moment. The girl continued to come back throughout the rest of the day. When Even was helping us package some vitamins, he offered her one. When she finally accepted the offer, she raised her hand, fingers all exposed, and said “cinco.” It was cute.
It is amazing how happy and content everyone is here, despite their living conditions/surroundings. I’m very surprised at how well mannered they are. When we were slow, they never screamed at us. In the U.S. I believe that even if they were being offered free service, they would not be as appreciative as these Hondurans are. I know I’ve been “yelled” at more at Towne and Country.
As the day wrapped up, Jenna stuffed a Ritz and cheese cracker in my face. We also did some aerobatics and laughed a lot. Jenna started saying “no mas” about everything when dinner neared. I just laughed and continued taking orders. We stopped around 5:30 and went down to dinner. For dinner we had some kind of rice/chicken/carrots/green beans concoction. It tasted really, really good. We also ate baked apples, beans, tortillas, and pineapple tea. This has definitely been my favorite meal yet. After dinner we talked about how everything is going. They are very happy with the way we are running the pharmacy – yea! We packaged meds tonight, and now I’m going outside to talk before bed.
jenny 10:25 PM
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