Honduras August 2, 2019

Honduras August 2

The night at the coffee plantation was rough for sleep. The hammock was comfortable, but I was dumb and faced the wrong direction. Dr Lo, Caty, and I were sleeping in hammocks in the main room where people had to walk to get to the bathroom. The reason I say that I faced the wrong direction is because I was facing the bathroom. There were walls but they stopped about three or four feet from the ceiling. That means that every time someone went to the bathroom and turned the light on, it was shining in my face. Surprisingly, I also got cold, but it was a weird kind of cold. I was hot and sweaty, but when a breeze came through the room it made me cold. Being on a mountain there was some good breeze. Mary was the first person to wake up and start showering. She showered at 3:30am and not long after she was out, other people decided to get up and talk even though we did not have to be ready until 6a. I think out of our whole group the only people who slept well were Beth and Maggi. They did take pills to help with sleep though. Many of the people in our group also woke up sick. One girl even had hives, but her sister thought it was because someone was eating peanuts and she is highly allergic. In the room some of the girls from Honduras slept in, there was a huge cockroach on the wall. It was the size of the palm of my hand or maybe a little bigger. They were freaking out about it. They were so funny. The line for the bathroom was constant too. When I finally got to get in, Maggi and I both went because there were two stalls (although they had a wall in between and no door). People should have done this all morning because it actually helped. Sometimes the line was because of people showering too. I never thought about how crazy it would be to have so many people and one bathroom. Obviously, we made it work.

When we left the plantation it seemed like the roads had more water on them. Our truck did a lot of fishtailing. One time we slid so far to the right (my side) that I thought the truck was going to flip. That is when Kassidy almost fell out of the truck. She was standing on the right side and there were two girls standing to her left. When everyone was shifted to the right as the truck slid, she was bumped into. If it was not for Lyndsay and Caty grabbing/blocking her to keep her in she would have fallen. We had to stop and pick up the trailer a short distance from the school we had the clinic at. As we entered the school grounds, there was a big bump. This time the trailer did come off and roll down the hill because we did not have the chain. All us girls in the back yelled “oh no” as it started to roll down the hill. If it was not for the short rock ledge and a tree, we would have lost the trailer and our supplies down a small drop off into a wet, grassy area. Oscar sent us inside to help set up seating for the clinic while the guys went out to bring the trailer up. It did not take them long and we were able to set up our three rooms quick with chairs and supplies. We were in three rooms again. I probably already said it, but I think three rooms was helpful. Freddy would stand at our doorway and call in people as we finished with who were were doing vitals on. I weighed the people I saw as the last thing before I sent them to the doctor or dentist. Many times I would finish and he would have someone sitting in my station already. A couple times when he didn’t, I asked him to wait a minute so I could drink some water and rest for a few seconds. I did not want to rest to long as there were so many people. We had a bunch of families again, but I don’t feel like there were as many big families as yesterday. I did vitals on a mom and her two sons, who I think 20yrs old and 9yrs old. The oldest son had cerebral palsy and the younger maybe autism. I had Mckenna ask another lady I saw if she was going to the doctor or dentist. Then I realized that was a stupid question as she had no teeth. Caty had another lady that had no teeth and she asked her the question too before she noticed. I guess that lady laughed and said I have no teeth. She also saw a family that was a mom her older daughter and I think two or three year old son and that daughter’s 16 month old baby. The baby was so big. I guess she weighed more than her uncle. The team was able to see over 250 people before lunch time. Even with all the restroom breaks for the sick team members. We actually had our five providers and two from the heart to heart clinic. I think the two extra providers was such a big help. When we were done, I actually heard Dr Lo was so tired that she fell asleep in between patients and accidentally fell asleep with a patient there, but thankfully the patient did not know.

A couple minutes after we left for the hotel, Oscar saw a guy on a motorcycle he knew. The guy works as a welder. They talked to each other and decided to weld the trailer with the hope that it would not come off again. They talked about welding it to the hitch, but then there would not have been room for all the movement on the roads. We turned around and drove to his shop. He decided to weld he handle, that causes the tension on the hitch, closed. That means that when they need to take they trailer off, they have to take the whole hitch off. While we were having this done, our other two vehicles were waiting for us down the road. They got to see a toucan! Rebekah was so happy because that is what she wanted to see the whole time. I was sad to miss it, but glad she did not miss seeing it. We finally got back on the road. It was a tight squeeze this time as more people were sitting than standing. At one point we had to do some off roading that was crazy and fun! We drove a food few feet down a river even. This is because there was work being done on the road. We stopped once to see if someone would let a couple of our girls use their bathroom. They were the two worst with being sick. Thankfully, the family said they could even though nobody in our group knew them. Another time our truck stopped to wait for the others to catch up. We waited for about 10 minutes. Oscar said he did not know how, but had signal and called someone in town. One of the girls was so sick that she got out of the truck during this time thinking she would vomit. Oscar made plans to take us the rest of the way to town and have someone take us to the hotel because the two girls were so sick. He made one more stop at another house of someone he did not know so they could use the bathroom. I think the nurse with us asked the family if they had lemons or limes as they are said to help with nausea. The family was so nice! They let the girls use their bathroom and quickly came with two of the fruit and a knife to cut them for the girls. They also gave us about ten extra. The mom saw our nurse in her scrubs and told her she thinks she has dengue fever. The nurse gave her some information on what to do to help and Oscar has some acetaminophen that he gave the family for her to take. We made it to the main road and never had any trailer problems. Oscar asked another stranger if we could leave our trailer at their house because he was going to go back to look for the other vehicles and did not want to have it attached. They let us park it in their yard. It was at this point that our van arrived to take us to the hotel. Our driver has stopped and purchased Gatorade for us as the girls needed electrolytes. This was the first time I actually enjoyed drinking it. We finally made it to the hotel and learned the air conditioning system had been shut off, so the hotel had to turn it back on and help us reset our units. We put the two sick girls in Caty, McKayla, and Joanna’s room so they could be laying in air conditioning and not sitting in the hot, humid weather. All our trucks arrived about ten minutes after our group. I am happy the girls were able to rest a little before getting back in a vehicle to go home. They had a little extra time as we had to unload the trailer before anyone could leave. It was a long, but fun last full day in Honduras.