Mimicking muñecas

Yesterday was the first work day for the two new volunteers! Leah and I each took one of the new girls to different parts of the clinic and helped them to get oriented and to learn more about the various volunteer duties. It was fun to show them the ropes! Other than teaching Elisabeth and Christine, there isn't much to report from our day in the clinic. However, in the sitting room yesterday, an instrumental CD of classic church hymns was playing and I recognized most of them, including my favorite, Beautiful Savior (a special shout out to my mama with this highlight!).

Today was Day 2 for Christine and Elisabeth. They finally got to jump into some of the work themselves after doing a lot of observing their first day. In addition to feeling more confident about my own responsibilities at the clinic, especially after showing the new girls, I feel like Spanish is coming a little more naturally as well. I fell like I've definitely gotten accustomed to the Honduran accent, so I can understand just about everything I hear. But, I'm still working on producing responses more quickly! Although, the phrases that I repeat often, such as the directions I give patients when conducting the visual acuity tests, come very naturally now, and maybe even with a slight "s-less" Honduran accent. There was a little girl who came through the clinic today when it wasn't very busy, so I had the chance to talk with her for a long time. We had a couple ups and downs in our relationship today. After befriending me, she had to go through a traumatic eye drop experience, pobrecita. After she forgave me for helping administer the eye drops, she loved hearing me speak a little bit of English, talking with me, and pointing out my unnatural Spanish accent. She even had me repeat a couple Spanish phrases back to her so that I could mimic her accent. She was an adorable muñeca (doll or darling). Hondurans use this term of endearment when talking to sweet little girls - I think it is so cute!

This afternoon, after our work in pre-clinic and the archives was finished, we needed to get things organized for this weeks' brigadas! We're splitting into two groups: Elisabeth and I (two blonde Lutherans - what a coincidence!) are going with Víctor tomorrow to a place up in the mountains and the other three are leaving Thursday to go to an island just off the coast with Dr. Bryan and Mario, one of the techs. We spent a couple hours this afternoon going through the reading glasses and sunglasses we brought, dividing them equally between the groups by style and power, so as to avoid another "pink glasses" incident. Once again, we won't know what the internet situation will be like until we get there, so I may not be able to post updates for a couple days. Víctor is expecting a good crowd at each location, so I'm excited to help out this week and to accompany Elisabeth on her first exciting brigada!