It takes a village

My experience on this trip showed me teamwork at its finest. Even though this group was the largest to date, I was a bit nervous before the trip about the scope of this trip, especially with the number of projects that were planned. I was curious to see not only how this group of foreign volunteers would interact with each other, but also how it would be working with the native Honduran population.

As the week progressed, I was so amazed with the cohesiveness of our group and the number of projects we were able to accomplish. It was great to see so many of the kids playing such a vital role in the clinic, such as distributing medications and video ethnography. This week showed me how each team member was able to step up to the plate, adapt to a new skill, and deliver amazing care to a deserving population. One of the most memorable experiences includes working on a neighborhood latrine in the village. Despite the language barrier, together we were able to construct much of the latrine by the end of the week. After hours of digging a 4 foot hole, the owner of the neighboring house even offered us some fresh Coca-Cola, that was likely purchased with this income for the day. It was a joy to see such camaraderie among our American team as well as between our team and the local Hondurans.

-Vanessa, PGY-3

La vida simple

Iphones, washing machines, laptops, and cars…as a fortunate American, I have the privilege of using these appliances on a daily basis. During my stay in Las Lajas, Honduras it was humbling to experience the simplicity of life without these luxuries. Americans often associate happiness with material possessions, and this was not the case in Honduras. The quaint life of a Honduran in Las Lajas revolved around family and community.

During my time in the mountain communities of Las Lajas, it was refreshing to see families and children giddy after receiving a used pair of soccer cleats and a kit with a toothbrush and toothpaste. These children, despite their tattered clothes and paucity of toys, were excited as ever to just play soccer and tag with our team of volunteers. This seemed like a stark difference to the majority children of America, who now spend a majority of their days on an iPad or in front of a computer or television. It was refreshing to see such joy from simple pleasures and even made me even miss the days of my childhood when life revolved more strongly around human interaction.

-Vanessa, PGY-3

Camaraderie

I’ve been back in the States 2.5 weeks now and have had plenty of time to reflect. Our days in Honduras have blurred together, and I’m left with a feeling of gratitude for the patient encounters, but especially for the camaraderie and friendships built during this trip. It was a unique and unforgettable experience to room with my co-residents, faculty, and their family members. Through flying together, sharing rooms and beds, nightly group dinners, morning yoga sessions, exploring caves, bug spray rub downs, beach and pool time, and bodily function mishaps we grew closer as co-workers and friends.

3rd Year Family Medicine Resident  

Emotions

Day 4 of 8 and I’m filled with all different emotions—excitement, gratitude, awe, sadness, and guilt, among others. I’m elated to be here providing medical care and other services to the Honduran population. I’m grateful to our hosts and to the patients for being so welcoming, but also to our faculty for allowing us this unique opportunity. I’m awed by the beauty of this tropical land. Yet, despite all of this, there is an unsettling sadness for the poverty experienced by these hardworking people. Admittedly, there is also a little guilt for my privileged life. It turns out your zip code is much more telling than your genetic code. I don’t know the answer to solving the world’s poverty crisis, but in the meantime I’ll do my best to contribute in any way that I can. To end on a more fun note, I surveyed the children of the families with us about what I should write about, and these were their ideas:  tiny village dog or baby horse, installing more ecologic stoves in the nearby village, building the latrine, the patients, our good driver who got us safely up the mountainside, and the good food J More to come… 

3rd year Family Medicine Resident

Crazy Mom

Crazy Mom

This Honduras trip was not only enlightening in our exposure to another place, people, and way of life, but was also a huge personal milestone for me: international travel with an infant.

That's right, I decided to bring my 6 month old daugther with me on this trip. Due to work conflicts, my husband was not able to come so I was truly flying as a single parent. I had a huge about of doubt and worry about this before the trip: was i being selfish? was i putting my daughter to undue risk? would we be a burden to the other people on our trip?

Fortunately, those questions were all put rapidly to rest. We were lucky enough to be travelling with a group of 40 including many of my residency faculty and their families. The whole team was incredibly gracious in their offers for help and eased my stress by making me feel like having Lily there was an added excitement for everyone.

Having her with me also acted to highlight even more strongly the health of the local children. While I had my daughter sleeping in a giant mosquito net tent, the local kids are running around sans-bug spray, sleeping in the open, with rotting teeth. Certainly shows my privilege...


Overall, this was a fantastic experience for the 2 of us to share. Lily acted as a fantastic ice-breaker for her shy mom and I was able to talk to more people and create some fantastic relationships both with some of the local Hondurans and with people on our trip. I'm eternally greatful to everyone for their help and support and look forward to bringing Lily back to Honduras someday!

Here's Lily's safe napping spot at our clinic!

Emily Fisher PGY3

Contrast

During our recent time in Honduras, I had this persistent nagging feeling that something didn't quite compute. I would look out at the gorgeously lush and picturesque Honduran landscape and for some reason it seemed my mind just wouldn't accept it.
I eventually came to realize that this disconnect lay in the incredible contrast between the beautiful country and the conditions in which many of its citizens lived.
Beautiful hilltop homes overlook a mountain view of tropical forests and stunning sunsets, but are made of aluminum siding without running water and with trash littering the ditches next to roads and interspersed in the lush greenery.


Our group led cleaning campaigns at the villages and it was remarkable the amount of trash that was present. I couldn't help but wonder if we were only contributing to this situation with all our plastic pill bottles and disposable toy goody bags for the kids. One colleague mentioned that the kids didn't seem to understand the campaign since one of the children broke his glove and, instead of putting it in the trash bins they were using, he simply dropped it on the ground. It would be tempting to assume that this reflects a lack of caring about the community, but I am reminded of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you don't have the basic necessities of life, worrying about where the trash gets thrown away is likely low on the list.


To live in such beauty and in such poverty is a stark contrast I'm still trying to match together. Perhaps the way there is to focus on the beauty and kindness of the people, which certainly matched their country's beauty. ENLACE's founder, Javier, and our hosts Don Israel and Doctora Floripe were incredibly kind, gracious people who love their country and its people and act as guides for others to see that beauty as well.


Emily Fisher PGY3

ALSO - lessons for students and instructors

During our stay in Honduras,  I got to help teach the ALSO (Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics) course to local healthcare professionals. There were nurses, general practitioners and OB faculty in attendance. Many of them drove long distances to learn and were excited to be part of the group. During the 2 days we spent together, I think that in certain ways I learned more from the group then they did from me. They freely shared stories from their day to day and the barriers they face to provide patient care. For example, there are no patient rooms and many times laboring mothers share the same bed. Epidural is not available. Electronic fetal monitoring is very limited and not commonly used. Postpartum follow up is essentially non-existent. Understanding how their medical choices are affected by their environment truly broadened my perspective and makes me grateful for the exchange we had.

Bruna,  PGY-3

Work Hard & Play Hard

This was my first mission trip and one of the things that positively surprised me was the camaraderie amongst the group. Days started early with exercise and preparation for the activities ahead.

The days were spent with clinics, home visits, stove installations, latrine building, health education and all sorts of community outreach initiatives.













There was room for every single person in our trip to contribute: a 7 y/o applied fluoride on another child, teenagers interviewed the community, and adults helped in the point of care station.













At the end of a long day, having had family and friends work with us , debrief with us and enjoy quality time together was priceless.







Bruna, PGY-3

Gastronomic Reflections

One of our ice breakers involved choosing an adjective that started with the same letter as your first name - and given that my name starts with an H, there are limited options. Horrifying, horrendous, hasty, happy, hilarious, humble, humiliating, huge, hobbit-like. 

However, I chose Hungry as my adjective and nearly every laughed at me. 

Mainly because it is true. 

I highly doubt however that other people are less hungry than I am, but likely they just don't realize it. Other disclaimer, I don't often eat snacks so meals are my main sustenance. I have tried to get into the habit of snacking, but I cannot count the number of snack bars I have bought and let sit on my desks. Snacks are just not as good as meal time foods. Nonetheless I digress. 

I have tried to put together some photos and descriptions of Honduran foods we ingested during our trip, and unfortunately I only had 3 pictures. I thought I took a lot more but I was obviously mistaken. 

Breakfast in Honduras - lots of pureed beans. I actually grew to really enjoy the beans - some sort of red beans pureed with onions and bell pepper from what I heard. Served with whatever - eggs, plantains, pancakes, tortillas. Apparently it goes with everything. 

Dinner nearly always involved pico de gallo, almost always tortillas, and some sort of protein. The nights we had fried chicken were very popular with the children. They also loved the taquitos. 

You will probably notice the lack of fiber in our diet. But no need to worry about that. Trust me. 

Helen PGY3