Journal 1
Sunday, July 9th, 2017
Today we were greeted by Albita and Virginia with a delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and pineapple. In the morning we traveled to Bioparque Paradise which is a large botanical garden filled with plants, fruits, creeks, and small cliffs to climb. Two men showed us around the plantation where we were able to try lots of different fruits straight from the branch such as star fruit, lemon, tangerine, and passion fruit. We hiked a small mountain and were welcomed by a beautiful view of Lago de Yojoa at the top. We also hiked a steep mountain downhill to see a beautiful blue creek and huge bamboo trees.
After visiting the Honduran botanical garden we traveled to a supermarket in town where most of the team bought Honduran cookies, chips, and drinks. We came back to the Alfredo House where we had amazing enchiladas for lunch.
The rest of the afternoon was spent sorting supplies for each day such as vitamins, flip flops, beans, rice, dresses, and soccer balls. We played our team playlist on a loud speaker to lighten the mood of sorting supplies.
After sorting supplies the team traveled to D&D Brewery which was tucked away in the mountains. We all enjoyed different dinners and drinks among the lantern lighted forest. We headed back to Alfredo House after dinner and played Bananagrams and card games until we were ready for bed.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Today we woke up to the smell of freshly made ham and egg omelettes wafting upstairs from the kitchen, which was accompanied with toasts, bananas, and papaya. We then boarded our buses and trucks to head to our first village, Mojarras. The ride there was considered rough, even for Honduran standards. We drove through a stream, and gained many steps on our fitbits from hitting so many potholes.
When we arrived in the village, we were greeted by dozens of families already lined up to see us. Several young boys were overjoyed to help us unpack all of the supplies, and ran around carrying the heavy boxes on their heads and shoulders. It took a little bit of extra time to set up, but we soon began treating patients.
Throughout the day we saw 204 people in the general clinic, distributed vitamins to 170 people, gave deworming medicine to 118 people, treated 64 children with fluoride, saw 57 people in the eye clinic, 42 people in the dental department, wrote 13 referrals, and performed 73 extractions.
We returned back to the Friends of Barnabas house to a delicious dinner of stir fry, rice, homemade tortillas, green beans, and yuccas. After dinner we exchanged our favorite moments from the day with each other while enjoying freshly made flan. One of the most sentimental moments from the day involved an interaction with a blind and mute child in the eye clinic. The boy was unable to read the letters aloud to test his vision, so they developed a system in which he would point in different directions to indicate which way the "E" was facing.
The rest of the evening was filled with Al, Jared, and Tommy making bracelets and anklets from leather, and modeling them for all to see. We are looking forward to another day of work tomorrow, and hopefully a less bumpy ride.
