Cheque Leque Panqueque

So sorry I was unable to update during my last few days in Honduras! After we got back from our brigada to Choluteca on Wednesday, we had two busy days at the clinic and I was in the midst of straightening things out for my departure on Saturday, so I did not have much down time!

Tuesday and Wednesday in Choluteca were two more busy brigada days! There were a LOT of patients, especially on Wednesday, but having all five of us volunteers present really helped to keep things moving. By the time Wednesday rolled around, word had gotten around town about our brigada clinic, so there was a huge crowd waiting for us when we arrived Wednesday morning. We started a number system to keep order among the patients, but had to stop giving out numbers at 10am because there were so many people and Víctor wanted to get out by noon. We slightly over estimated how many patients we could fit into those two hours, but Víctor, being the extremely patient and caring doctor that he is, saw every last one of the patients who had been waiting. We calculated that at least 400 patients must have passed through during our two and a half days in Choluteca. 

Had a visit from a little friend while I was giving visual acuity tests outside during our Choluteca brigada!

More paletas!

Elisabeth, Christine, Leah and I in the car back to Teguc

Once we made it back to Teguc on Wednesday, it really started to hit me that I only had a few days left in Honduras. I had just finished my fifth and final brigada and there were only two days of clinic work left. Thursday was a busy day, especially at the pre-clinic station, where I helped two technicians with patient's preliminary testing before they went in to visit with the doctors. The other volunteers observed doctors attending to patients, helped in archives, and observed some of the brigada surgeries. It was neat to work at pre-clinic that day because I recognized a few of the patients that came through from previous brigadas and it was nice to see that they were able to make it to Teguc to seek the extra treatment they required. After a solid day of work, Fabio, one of the technicians who works in the operating room, invited us to the dance class that he teaches at a gym a few times a week. It was similar to zumba, but definitely more intense and with awesome Latin American music! We had a great time, got a great work out, and probably shook things up a little bit for all of Fabio's regulars!

We got a kick out of the name and slogan of Fabio's gym!

The girls and Fabio in the dance studio; one side of the room was open to outside, which made for an extra humid, sweaty work out

On Friday, we headed to the clinic for our last day of work! I floated between nearly all of the volunteer positions, filling in wherever I was needed on a not-so-busy day. In addition to helping in the archives and in pre-clinic, I had the opportunity to observe Dr. Flores attend to some of his patients. I enjoyed watching how gentle and caring he was with each of his patients and he took the time to explain to me each of their cases and their diagnoses. The rest of the afternoon was pretty slow, so were able to spend some time with all of the wonderful friends we had made at the clinic during our last afternoon with them! After work, some of the technicians invited us to a pupusa dinner in honor of our last day. We had a great time telling jokes, fun stories, and reminiscing about the month we spent at the clinic.

Rolando being goofy during our goodbye dinner

Christine, Elisabeth, Leah, Karen, Blair

Christine, Elisabeth, Leah, Ninoska, Blair, Karen, Keyla

Leah, Dr. Victor, Blair

Blair, Leah, Dr. Victor, Elisabeth, Christine

Blair, Leah, Fabio, Elisabeth, Christine

Blair, Elisabeth, Alex, Leah, Christine, Ryan

I made it safely back to the States on Saturday without any complications or delays. Some of the mini "readjustment" moments that I encountered upon my return were noticing how naked the landscape looked without a single mountain in sight, how coke tasted funny without cane sugar, how I didn't need to greet others or ask for things in Spanish, and how silent the roads sounded without a constant chorus of car horns. It is definitely strange to realize how much of a routine we had gotten into while living in Honduras and it will take some slight adjusting to get accustomed to the schema of my life in the States. 


After all of the positive memories and experiences that I had during my program, I look forward to keeping up with the work of the ZOE Eye Clinic in Teguc and with the impact that Unite For Sight is making on a larger scale. I have also been inspired to continue my studies and work hard to pursue a career in optometry and to persevere in my learning of the Spanish language. 


I do not know where to begin in order to try to describe how wonderful this experience has been. I learned so much about Honduran culture, the Spanish language, and eye care in an extremely unique and first-hand way. It was incredible to be a part of the important and impactful work that Unite For Sight does and to know that so many lives were touched because of my contribution. I built close relationships and connections with the individuals that worked along side of me, especially through our common goals and shared passion for    assisting these needy patients. I feel so blessed to have been constantly surrounded by such genuinely loving and caring individuals during the entirety of my time in Honduras. Often times, the work was tiresome or even draining: working in the hot, humid weather, having to patiently explain the instructions for the visual acuity testing in five different ways, or announcing that Víctor could not see any more patients for the day and having to watch patients turn away. However, the truly inspiring moments - a patient's overjoyed reaction at the clarity of their vision with reading glasses, receiving blessings and heartfelt thanks, or performing a post-op visual acuity test for a cataract-excision patient and witnessing them score a 20/20 - made every single second of my time there worth it. 

And so begins the homestretch!

We've had some finicky internet problems at our apartahotel over the weekend, so I'm sorry for the lack of updates!

Last Friday, Elisabeth, Víctor and I wrapped up our brigada in La Esperanza with an informational presentation about a general eye health and common eye problems. I enjoyed listening to Víctor's presentation. Even though I had heard most of the information through the required eye health course I completed before this trip, it was neat to hear everything described in a different way and in Spanish. He was a great instructor! After Víctor finished his presentation, we helped him teach the attendees how to perform a visual acuity test. Víctor hopes to have some local helpers on his next brigada to this area. We returned to Teguc Friday afternoon and rested for the rest of the evening to recover from a busy week.

Saturday was a pretty slow, lazy day. We took care of some housekeeping business, watched Spanish movies, played cards, did some reading, and swapped stories with the other group after they returned from their brigada to Amapala.

Sunday, after everyone had rested up a bit from their brigadas, we took a group trip to Valle de Ángeles for the the afternoon. Lourdes, the owner of our apartahotel and our go-to guru, helped us find a good deal on a taxi for the 30-45 minute ride. Nestled up in the mountains just outside of Teguc, Valle is a small, touristic village with lots of venders and restaurants. It was the first time that we saw a lot of other gringos! We all felt like we had a little more street cred than those gringos though... they were very blatantly foreign!

This morning the five of us and Víctor loaded up the van and drove south to Choluteca, where will have brigada until Thursday this week. The weather down here is infamously hot and humid - the humidity index today was 99%. Nevertheless, we had a successful first day of clinic work and we saw a lot of patients today. A first for me and Leah today: examining a policeman with a large gun strapped around his torso. It was slightly unsettling at first, but we kept our cool and everything was just fine.

Think gas prices in the US are high? Gas here is 83 lempiras/gallon - that's over 4 U.S. dollars!

The school where we made our presentation last Friday in La Esperanza

A shrine to the Virgin Lourdes in La Esperanza

Elisabeth and I sitting up front with Víctor on our brigada 

The city of La Esperanza

The surrounding mountains in Valle de Ángeles

Paletas at Valle de Ángeles

Our "welcome to Choluteca" feast

The hotel pet here in Choluteca

The famous paletas (popsicles) of Choluteca! These paletas are made in-house and contain large pieces of fruit. They are absolutely delicious. We plan on going here at least once every day this week...

 

And to finish off the update, I have a few more Víctor-facts!

1. Honduras is the most mountainous country in Central America.

2. The majority of schools in Honduras are either public, goverment-funded Spanish schools or bilingual Spanish-English schools. Spanish schools run from January to Novemeber and the bilingual schools' school year runs from August to June. Víctor told us that the problem with the government-funded schools are supposed to have at least 200 days of class in a school year, but due to the recent teacher strikes, less than half of this minimum is being met.

3. New fruits I've learned about (although, I haven't had the chance to try them yet!):
Toronja = similar to a grapefruit
Granada = pomegranate; We visited a family friend of Victor's in Marcala and they let us try some home-grown granadas!
Guanábana = one of the strangest fruits I've ever seen/heard of; Wikipedia describes its flavor as "a combination of strawberry and pineapple with sour citrus flavor notes contrasting with an underlying creamy flavor reminiscent of coconut or banana." That's one complex fruit!
Naranjilla = citrus-like fruit that looks like a red tomato on the outside and a green tomato on the inside
Nance = small, sweet, yellow fruit ; about the same size as a cherry tomato

4. Víctor told us about some unique wines that are made in the region we stayed in for our brigada last week. There are wines made from various fruits such as strawberries, oranges, and peaches, and others that seem a bit more unconventional, like potato. Víctor bought a bottle of potato wine for himself while we were in Marcala. He also told us that he is still hunting for a rumored wine made from coffee.

5. Huevos de amor vs. huevos (Eggs made from love vs. just plain old eggs)
Víctor asked us what we liked to eat for breakfast so we could put in a request at the hotel for tomorrow morning. Ryan mentioned that he like deating eggs for breakfast. Víctor asked him if he like huevos de amor and then hard to explain himself. Huevos de amor, according to Víctor, are REAL eggs because they are made naturally from a hen and a rooster rather than the "ordinary" eggs that are fertilized via injection. We had some giggles over this and Víctor's other instances of embellished storytelling.

I cannot believe I am beginning my fourth and final week here in Honduras! It has been a truly amazing and unforgettable experience! We're expecting big crowds here in Choluteca over the next couple days, so we're excited to help out these patients and watch our supply of reading glasses begin to dwindle! The group of us leaving this Saturday are definitely trying to make the most of every minute we have left this week, even if it means splurging on a couple extra paletas. 

Rocky Roads and a lot of new photos!

We had a really great balance of work, sightseeing, and learning today. At the brigada clinic this morning, we had a more steady flow of work than we did yesterday, which was nice. e saw about 100 patients during the 5 hours we worked today. We were abel to give out a lot of glasses and V íctor referred several patients for free surgery at the ZOE Clinic in Teguc. A couple of fun stories from our last couple days of brigada work:

-Today, two ladies came in together for eye exams and were both prescribed reading glasses. When Elisabeth and I helped them pick out and try on glasses, they were ecstatic. As soon as the first woman slid on her glasses, she was extremely excited at how clear the hand-held reading chart was, "¡Tan clarito!" Then, they both started gabbing about which styles they liked the most, "¡Tan bonitos!" They were quite the pair - it was fun to help them out today!

-Yesterday there was a slight confusion with a patient's visual acuity testing. Because cataracts are more common in elderly individuals, when older patients come through, their visual acuity scores are not always very good. When beginning the exam, patients understand that I am about to test their vision and usually pipe up to tell me that one eye is worse than the other or that they have a certain ailment that affects their vision. When a person says "I can't see with this eye," it could mean a lot of different things, so you cannot simply assume that they are unable to see anything at all and the visual acuity test is still performed. Covering one eye at a time, we start by asking if they can distinguish the shapes on the "E" chart. If not, we ask if they can count fingers at varying distances, starting at 3 meters and moving in to about 20 cm if they still have difficulty at a distance. If there is still difficulty with this, we test their perception of hand movement. If no movement can be seen, the very last step is asking if the patient can perceive light with the eye in question. Patients who can only see hand movement or perceive little or no light often have severe cataracts. A man came into the brigada yesterday and told us at the visual acuity station that he could not see with one eye. Like we would with any other patient, we went through these steps until we got to the light perception question. Upon asking him this question, he clearly told us that he could perceive light with that eye. Today, Víctor told me after a patient passed through our visual acuity station yesterday, he visited with him and discovered something eerie. A man with an ocular prosthesis could "perceive light." What the man failed to tell me when he said that he "couldn't see," was that he REALLY couldn't see because it was a false eye! 

Around 12:45 today, we finished up our brigada work, found somem lunch, and began making our way out of Marcala. About a year ago, when Víctor took volunteers to a brigada in Marcala, they visited the beautiful waterfall, La Estanzuela, which I mentioned in my previous post. We got to visit it this afternoon! It was absolutely gorgeous! La Estanzuela is definitely a hidden gem - even most natives of Marcala don't know of it. So, when we visited the waterfall today, we were the only ones around and got to explore the grounds near the waterfall at our own leisure. Check out some of the pictures below!

After our refreshing afternoon at La Estanzuela, we hit the road for La Esperanza, another city in the departamento of La Paz. It was the bumpiest ride I have ever experienced. I felt as if I was in a Jeep commercial featuring a huge, masculine car in four wheel drive, clambering over rocks and rough terrain with a caption saying "Professional drivers on closed course. Do not attempt." Another one of Víctor's many talents: driving. 

La Esperanza is a quaint town nestled in the mountains. The weather here feels wonderful! Tomorrow we'll be meeting up with another group of volunteers and we will be listening to some public educational talks about eye care and health, and we will also give a demonstration on how to perform a visual acuity test. Sounds like it'll be fun!

The first few pictures in this set are from a couple weeks ago when the other two volunteers were here. They just shared the pictures with me, so I thought I would post them!

Me, Leah, and Sraavya at the Pre-clinic station in the clinic in Teguc

Ryan, Me, Leah, Sraavya, and Nayasha at Tatumbla

Ninoska, Nayasha, and I working in the Archives in the clinic in Teguc

A beautiful view from our drive from Teguc to Marcala

The view at the hotel in Marcala. We enjoyed eating fresh mangos out on the porch! 

A coffee plant. When the green pods turn red, it's time to harvest them!

Elisabeth working the glasses table at the Marcala brigada

Víctor hard at work at the Marcala brigada

This is the road we took to get to the waterfall. The road from Marcala to La Esperanza was almost entirely like this as well. We drove on this rough stuff for nearly two hours!

Our trustworthy brigada vehicle. It's about time we give it a name, especially after the trip we made today!

Víctor leading the way on the hike to the waterfall

La Estanzuela

An overlook on our drive from Marcala to La Esperanza today