I have to learn to make tortillas

A week in Honduras has already come and gone. There’s a bug attacking my computer screen and that makes me angry.

 

I got here last week along with a medical team from the States, so I chose not to update this while they were here since that would be unfair commandeering of the computer. Not that we had tons of spare time, anyhow. Essentially Monday-Friday we were out doing clinics from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Long story short, we saw over 2000 people throughout the week and were able to refer somewhere around 20 kids to the clinic here for extended care. Children who qualify for extended care have conditions like heart murmurs, extremely high blood pressures (we found one with a BP of 240/140) or birth defects. I was translating for one of the nurses (each of the 4 nurses had a translator with them) and by the end of every day I was exhausted from seeing so many people and switching back and forth so fast between English and Spanish. By Friday, though, I had the system pretty well down so I should be ready for the next team to come in 3 weeks.

 

We did get to do some cool stuff on Sunday and Saturday (our off days). The first Sunday we went on a short hike to the top of a mountain with a beautiful overlook of the lake. Yesterday (Saturday) we got to tour a zinc/lead/silver mine nearby (pictures of me in coveralls are floating around somewhere) and we went to a national park with a gorgeous waterfall and a zipline. The villages we visited to do the clinics in were beautiful, too. The part of Honduras I’m in is (I think) temperate rainforest so everything is so green and lovely. The kinds of flowers we beg to grow in the States pop up like weeds here. It’s pretty amazing. The house I’m living in has a great view of the mountains, too, even when they are covered in thunderclouds or mist.

 

Today I went with Elmer the bus driver to San Pedro Sula to drop the team off at the airport. I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening getting myself situated in my new bedroom, getting some schoolwork done (yes, all this rainforest trekking is part of my Clemson internship) and making friends with the vigilantes (guards). Since it’s Sunday it’s just me and one of them on the property. I spent a good half hour talking to the afternoon guy, mostly about how young people these days have no respect and how they don’t go about dating in the right way (he’s from the old school where a couple could spend 2-3 hours together each Saturday under proper supervision. But he was really shocked when I told him my parents waited until they were married to have me…?) I met the night guard when I was experimenting with my keys and locked myself out of the house, forcing me to ask him for help. I think he thinks I’m really clueless about life in general, because he then explained to me very slowly that I need to lock the front door and the side door at night to be safe. Also, his name is Leonidas and we are going to be best friends, even if he doesn’t know it yet. 

 

Even though it’s only 8:15, I’m going to bed soon because a) I have to be up at 6 for work at the clinic and b) that’s how I roll here in the mountains of Honduras. Since it’s just me in the house I like to sit on the front porch in the evening and pretend that I’m master of all I survey. Then I lock myself out of the house and remember that I’m just a stupid north American girl who somehow landed in Pena Blanca, Honduras.