Honduras, Day 3: Monday

Monday the 22nd:
So on Monday a bunch of us got up to see the sunrise at 6 and do our devotions.  But...the front door to the porch was stuck shut so we had to look out the window a the sunrise and do our devotions in the dinning/living area.  It was a little disappointing, but there would be other days to see the sunrise.


After breakfast, we loaded up the vans and headed to our first clinic.  It was like and hour away.  The roads were dirt and we drove way up a mountain.  Actually, we drove up mountains every day.  But Honduran driving is crazy.  There are pot holes all over and we were always swerving to avoid them.  And we would pass cars when there were cars coming in the other lanes towards us.  There weren't lines on the roads to separate lanes and there weren't really any rules either.

So the clinic that day was in a school.  At first I think we were all a little unsure of what so do (cuz the MAMA staff were setting up and we were just standing around).  But we went out and started talking and playing with the kids.  We blew up some balloons for them and they loved them; although they ended up popping most of them.  Other people were braiding the girls hair or painting their nails or just trying to talk to the kids.  This one boy was talking to me and I had not idea what he was saying.

Then we all spread out and helped with different things.  A group went to do cement, and those of us at clinic either played bingo with the kids, helped with de-worming and vitamins, helped with blood pressure, worked in the pharmacy, helped measure and weigh kids or what I did which was help Emerson (one of our translators) measure hemoglobin levels.  That involved pricking fingers to get a drop or so of blood and compare it to a little chart.  The darker the blood the healthier.  So that is what I did all day.  And the little kids would cry and struggle to get away from their mothers.  It was really sad and I felt really bad for them.  So all day I pricked fingers.  And in the school it was so hot, even though we were in the shade.  Just sitting at a table I was sweating.  Anytime a breeze came through we windows, Emerson and I would comment how nice it felt.

When we had seen everyone (a total of 192 people) we began packing up the clinic supplies which we waited for the cement crew to come back.  A few of us went with Dr. Brad so a house down the road to see a woman who hadn't walked in 12 years.  She had some sort of really bad arthritis and he joins were all swollen.  All day she would sit in her little chair doing nothing.  Anytime she wanted to go anywhere, two people would have to carry her and to eat, others had to feed her.  It was really sad but she seemed content and she was very bright.  She and Dr. Brad talked in Spanish and he would translate what she said for us.  We sang her a few songs and she asked us questions.  It was really touching to see her.  Dr. Brad was able to give her some reading glasses and pain medicine but there wasn't much he could do for her.


Shortly after we walked back to the school, the cement crew came back.  That day, that had had to carry their supplies, buckets of sand, water, bags of concrete, shovels and hoes up a hill to the house they were going to do the floor at.  And it was up a hill in the sun and in the heat that I had been sweating from just sitting down in the shade.  I can't imagine how hard it must have been for them.  But they did it and they persevered.

Monday night is a whole story by itself so I will blog about it later.