Summing It Up

Physically, we are back and enjoying the comforts of life here at home, but mentally, our thoughts frequently return to the people of Honduras and our time there. We visited 5 small villages surrounding the town of Las Vegas. Mila Laura, the mayor, planned and organized our days, arranging transportation, interpreters and meals. We were accompanied by Red Cross workers, 2 interpreters; Mila's son Ramon, and Marco, a municipal worker. We can't say enough about these two young men, who drove us, fixed flat tires, organized the people waiting for care and did just about anything we asked them. Together with Laurie Scudder, her daughter Elaine, Maureen Britton, her daughter Emily, Kristie Thane and myself, we became a team. In partnership with the MAMA Project (www.mamaproject.org/honduras) and the Red Cross, we distributed deparasiting medications and vitamin A. During our daily visits we saw approximately 800 people, treating for hypertension, skin conditions, wounds, infections, gastrointestinal complaints and muscle pain, giving out medicines, counseling and follow up recommendations. We distributing over 30,000 vitamins to infants, children and adults, and new for this year, we distributed 4,000 toothbrushes to the children and their families. Our friendly puppet show taught the kids how to brush their teeth and explained how cavities form, causing pain. And indeed, looking at these childrens' teeth, they are familiar with that pain. We want to thank the many dentists, teachers, students, church groups, girl scouts, friends and family who helped us get the toothbrushes. We also want to thank the agencies and people working with insuring our success on this trip.
I am so happy to have been able to accompany my 2 cousins, Laurie and Maureen, and their daughters, as well as Kristie Thane on this wonderful and moving trip. The experience was one I will treasure, thanks to their friendship and devotion to helping others.
Sincerely,
Donna Reilly

Sitting in Miami Airport - July 17

The last few days have been very hectic and we have not been able to connect up to update the blog. Friday was a great day because we were thrilled to see the changes happening in Nuevo Jerusalen For the first time we had a covered area to work in with cement floor. It was practically the lap of luxury. Lainie brought pictures from last year as a surprise for some of the kids. They were thrilled to see their own images! We passed out the last of the 4,000 toothbrushes we brought and sang "Lavense los dientes" for the last time. (But it will remain a running loop in our brains forever.)
Desafortunadamente - Mo and Emily were both out of commission with a viral malady. They had a rough night and stayed at the hotel.
We returned in early afternoon and sorted through the meds and supplies we had left and left some for the Las Vegas Red Cross. The rest we gave to the MAMA Project. Mary picked us up and we drove to Tela for a day of R and R. It was wonderful to see the ocean and beach. We had a great dinner together. The next day was spent lounging ocean and poolside- though even in these beautiful spots the daily struggles of life in Honduras are evident.
We drove back to the Mission House in time for a wonderful dinner from Isabel on Saturday night and left early Sunday morning for the San Pedro Sula airport. Finally arrived home about 2:30 in the morning on Monday after flight delays due to weather.
Thank you to everyone for following our story and all of your support. The advantage of such a long layover in Miami-- we got to debrief and we are already planning next year's trip.
¡Amor a todos!
Donna, Laurie, Maureen, Kristi, Laine & Emily

El Bijao - Thursday July 14

Buenos Noches a todo,

Another very busy day today -- maybe 160 patients. But we are really clicking as a team and, IMHO, we handled it pretty well. El Bijao is a new community for us - none of us have ever been there before. It is in the middle of several coffee plantations which provides work for many of the people and is a relatively prosperous community. The school has 5 classrooms with white boards, text books and desks for all of the children. It had electricity but no running water and the outhouse was pretty rough. The children, as always, were beautiful, most of them in their white shirts and navy pants or pleated skirts which is the school uniform throughout the entire area.

Emily was sick -- desfortunadamente (that means unfortunately and we have all decided that it is the most fun Spanish word to say). Poor kid. She tried -- but 101 fever and nausea forced her back to the hotel. The municipal workers brought her back and Doris, the lovely woman that cooks for us, kept a careful eye on her. We started her on some meds and we are hopeful she´ll be able to join us tomorrow in Nuevo Jerusalen, a small, very poor community that is always our last stop of this trip.

Despite the relative prosperity of El Bijao, we were truly stumped by some of the unusual illness we say today. We are pretty certain the one child with huge parotid glands had mumps, we saw one of the worst cases of scabies we have ever seen, and a very sweet older woman with a 25 year old dog bite that sent our translator running from the room. But mostly -- we see the same kinds of things you see in the states and continue to marvel at the overall health of people who live such difficult lives.

Its always very bittersweet to see our week coming to an end. On the one hand -- the idea of a fresh salad or hot shower is pretty appealing. But to leave such wonderful people who have been so kind and welcoming to us for the week is always hard. We are all sure we will be back again so that makes good bye a lot easier.

By the way, this was the first day day where it did not rain! We´ve had pelting rain almost every afternoon! We older women actually volunteered to ride in the back of the truck to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, we can´t load the picture of all of us in the truck, but we will try tomorrow.

The woman to the right remarked how young she looked when we showed her her picture!

Las Marias - Wednesday July 13

Buenos Tardes, nuestros amigos y familia!

The rain! Yikes! We knew we were coming in rainy season-- but the gringas really didn´t have a clue. It has poured buckets every day. Today we visited a beautiful community on the shores of Lago Yojoa called Las Marias. We´ve been there every year. And for a while we thought we might have to move there since we were unable to leave due to the deluge. We finally left with 7 of us and all of our medicines and equipment stuffed in the back of an ambulance. Up and over a Honduran mountain or two, fording several creeks that weren't there when we arrived, all of us wedged in a 30 year old ambulance.

As always -- the children melted our hearts. 110 patients today --a slow day by the standards of this week. Fortunately most of the people we see are remarkably healthy and very grateful for the small things like vitamins or tylenol. The puppet show was a huge hit and all of the kids were able to sing along -- lavense los dientes-- by the second verse. It is pretty remarkable to watch these kids-- the big kids automatically move the little ones to the front so that they have a better view and there is virtually no shoving or pushing (that is if you don´t count the pushing to get closer to Donna, Maureen and Emily). Donna called it a child sauna-- about 10 degrees hotter in the middle of the pile.

The toothbrushes have been a huge hit -- though it may be a bit like closing the barn door after the horse gets out! Honduras seems to be on a perpetual two steps forward, one step back cycle....but definitely with forward progress. Las Marias has electricity --new since last year. And Las Vegas has trash receptacles and one-way streets which are a step up from the everyman-for-himself traffic of previous years. Los Arcos, our hotel, is truly jammed with guests which seems to be a nice sign of more commerce. But there are still the steps back -- a chicken pox outbreak in Las Marias because of no vaccinations and roads to El Palmer that are downright scary. Life is so hard here but yet there is such a sense of community and togetherness.

Tomorrow we go to La Bajia - a new town for all of us that is way up in the mountains. Tonight we will pack pills, go to the pharmacy for some more supplies, and hopefully rest a bit. The previous two days were really long and we are all feeling a bit refreshed by our day in Las Marias.

Hasta mañana,

Donna, Laurie, Maureen, Kristi, Laine and Emily

july 12, 2011

Today we were in El Palmar - a VERY remote village way up in the mountains. The ride up was the stuff stories are made of - some of us standing in the back of a pickup, climbing a grade so steep the trucks were skidding and slipping. We were bounced around like ping-pong balls. It was great fun. We arrived to lines of school children, all in their uniforms, answering to the mayor´s greetings. The ride back took a little longer than it should have - we had a flat 5 minutes outside of the village. It took AAA, in the form of Marco the other truck driver, a while to respond with help.

El Palmar is a village which literally hangs off the edges of cliffs and rock ledges. Picture a Dr. Suess-like village. Despite the lack of electricity and running water, the white school uniform shirts and socks were bright and spotless when we arrived. These people are very resourceful! For example, today a woman with an infant and toddler walked 10 K over these ridiculously steep and rocky roads to come to the clinic.

We are blessed with some guardian angels in the form of Mila Lara and her son Ramon. She is the mayor and he is her son. He attends college for enviromental engineering in Canada. He has returned after his 1st year and we are constantly impressed by his presence and maturity. He takes charge of setting up the Red Cross and our operations and acts as a constant interpreter. He is really amazing. Thanks to his mom, the seasoned members of our team have been impressed with the improved conditions in Las Vegas. The streets and town in general are so much cleaner.

Monday Evening

Today we arrived in Quelapa, a small town, outside of Las Vegas. We rode up through the mountain in the back of small trucks with all of our stuff. The mayor and her son came with us and an interpreter to help us set up in a small school. We started seeing people around 8:30 and did not finish until 5:30. Laurie and Kristi saw @ 180 people with problems ranging from typical headaches and sore throats to serious high blood pressure, asthma and infected wounds. Lainie and Emily ran the pharmacy and helped with translations. Mo also had a stint as pharmacist as well as some first aide triage. In my opinion, the best part was when Emily, Maureen and I taught the kids to sing the songs we wrote. It really broke the ice quickly and the little ones were eventually joined by the big ones. "Lavense los dientes, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, is a catchy little tune that learned off the internet and we will all be singing in our sleep tonight. The puppets are a big hit, especially with the little, little ones. You can see how closely they surrounded us in the picture below. I was afraid the puppets with teeth were too scary. The kids corrected my pronounciations, so I knew they were communicating!

Emily was the playground ring leader and Pied Piper. You can imagine how the kids hung on her and followed her around. We taught them to thumb wrestle and play quack, quack, honk. They taught us some games too.

Tonight we have to head back to package more meds and get ready for tomorrow.

Love to all of you, we miss you!

Donna

Dear friends and family,
Except for a nail in a plane tire and some minor turbulance (that made us all think we were going to die) we arrived safely in San Pedro Sula. Mary, the nutrition center director, met us at the airport and collected us and our bags. After trip to local super store for supplies, we headed to MAMA´s guest house. Isabel cooked for us and helped us with our Spanish translations of the toothbrushing songs we will use in each village. Her son, Herson, named our puppets for us.
The heat is formidable, but the night was cooler after tremendous storms. We have learned the Spanish words for thunder and lightening! We made a visit to the nutrition center and got a chance to meet some of the kids. We hope to post some pictures of them tomorrow. We´re now in Las Vegas. We´ll have our first clinic tomorrow.
Ramon, Mila´s son, escorted us to the internet cafe and we are running out of time. So better go. But if any 18 year old girl is looking for the perfect boy... he is it! He now has 3 extra Moms since Donna loves him as much as Laurie and Maureen do.
Wish us well tomorrow. Buenos noches,
Donna, Laurie, Maureen, Kristi, Laine and Emily