While climbing the road to El Divíso yesterday morning, our little silver bullet of a rented van sputtered its wheels against the rocky ruts worn deep into the ruddy soil. 15 eager volunteers from across Honduras and the States (and one from Switzerland) had packed in shoulder to sweaty DEET-soaked shoulder. Violeta dug her fingers into Eric's arm as the momentum around a now familiar curve weighed heavily across our back (the fifth) row. Moments later Lago Yojoa made its brief appearance below, framed amid sloping hillsides and, at the northern horizon, the hazy peaks of one of two transcontinental mountain ranges.
At some point along this daily trek, I've no doubt that each of us contemplated in some manner the beauty of the countryside around us... I suppose Violeta may have spent more time contemplating her mortality, but clearly there's value in that too ;).
Un toque more than five days in, we've collected more memories, moments and marvels than one could possibly hope to record with pen, paper or blogspot. And at least in my case, I'm learning to deal with a certain amount of (happy) fatigue after long
mornings seeing patients in our pop-up clinic within the El Divíso iglesia and full afternoons throwing our hands, minds and sometimes dance moves (in Tessa's case) into an incredible array of projects already transforming the under resourced village.
Amid the nonstop clamor - and this will be no surprise to those who know them - I continue to be amazed at my co-residents innate adaptability and the intuitive ease with which they connect to patients and their families across cultures, across linguistic barriers, and across fly-strewn tables covered with handwritten visit summaries of a family of seven. A sample smattering of memories might include Elise wetting and packing soil into a newly installed high(er) efficiency stove, Violeta riling up a class of elementary school ninos in with a lesson about preventing los piojos (lice...), or, of course, any hundreds to thousands examples of Tessa's limitless energy and enthusiasm acting as both the pilot light and DuraFlame (secondary shoutout to a Joelle obsession) when the last licks of energy begin to flicker in the late afternoon lull.
I count myself fortunate to be surrounded by a unique, varied but singularly dedicated crew of providers - and not simply in the medical sense, though they are most certainly that too.
With that, and with fatigue creeping (and a nice helping of my trademarked run-on-sentences), I'll just go ahead and leave you with a certain other classic toque of Honduras - shamelessly adorable nino portraits. Hasta el proximo.
~ Geoff ~
