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

Pulperías don't make juice, and ferreterías don't sell ferrets

Elisabeth and I have had a really interesting day with Víctor! During drive from Teguc to Marcala, Honduras this morning, our brigada work, and afterwards, Víctor was an encyclopedia of interesting facts about Honduras. Here is a list of some of the things we learned on one of my most informative days yet!

1. Honduras is split into 18 departamentos, or "states." We passed through three of them on our drive today. We traveled from Teguc, which is in its own district, much like Washington D.C., through Francisco Morazan and Comayagua, and now we are in La Paz. The drive was absolutely gorgeous! Víctor told us that we were lucky because today was so clear; hardly any of the views were covered by clouds or fog!

2. Honduran politics are very corrupt, in both major national political parties, as well as the smaller ones. Various parts of Honduras receive lots of money to go towards improving infrastructure, repairing highways, flood recovery efforts, etc., but the funds hardly ever seem to trickle down to these levels for implementation. There is also a lot of skepticism surrounding the actions of the national police. Víctor told us a story of how a small, private plane landed at an airport, owner unknown, and the police took hold of it. Soon thereafter, the plane disappeared.

3. It takes about 10 hours to make the drive from North to South of the country. There isn't a straight shot (by car) from East to West due to large areas of jungle and forest in the middle of the country.

4. La Paz is renowned for having some of the world's best coffee. The higher up the mountains the coffee is grown, the better the quality. Víctor also mentioned that one of his favorite organically grown coffees has a more clearish color rather than black.

5. Many coffee growers use banana plants to give shade to the coffee plants so that they receive an appropriate amount of sunlight. The "fruit" of the coffee plants are red when it is time to harvest them.

6. Blackberry juice, jugo de mora, is awesome.

7. The term for "dachshund" in Spanish is perro salchicha (sausage dog).

8. There are three terms for what we call "bananas": bananos, guineos (used commonly in the North and sometimes refers to the green, unripened fruit), and datiles. Bananas are not to be confused with plantains, plátanos. Plantains are significantly larger and are generally too tough to be eaten without cooking them first.

9. There are a couple varieties of mango grown in Honduras. During March/April, very small, sweet mangos are grown and the larger, more "run-of-the-mill" mangos are grown throughout the rest of the summer.

10. Whenever there are no UFS volunteers present, Víctor usually performs brigadas all by himself. He told us a couple scary stories about getting stuck on foggy roads late at night!

11. On long brigadas like the one we had last week, Víctor usually can survive the first three days fairly easily. But he told us today that by Day 4, after seeing so many patients, his eyes get so tired, the even he can't see letter charts he uses to test the visual acuity of his patients. However, he has every line of both his letter chart and number chart completely memorized, so it doesn't matter!

12. There is a cascada (waterfall) just outside of Marcala, that even many native Hondurans don't know about, even though its bigger and rumored to be more beautiful than some of the famous Honduran waterfalls. We're hoping to visit it tomorrow!

13. Víctor's son has accompanied him on brigadas since he was two years old.

14. We learned a lot of other new words for various kinds of fruits today... but I can't remember them all!

I feel as though I learned even more about the country today, but I can't recall all the details at the moment! As I remember more interesting facts and learn more with Víctor during the next couple days, I'll be sure to add them in!

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!