Courtney and Mandie in Honduras: Day 10 and 11

Courtney's littlest Honduran friend, Linda.

Yesterday was our first somewhat “lazy” day. Although we woke early for breakfast, we laid in bed for over an hour just talking before we began our day. Our mission for the day was to go to the neighborhood of Flor del Campo and interview several of the people working in the institute. This is the location of the first official buildings in the ministry, and there were several important video clips we needed. Unfortunately, I am a blonde and Mandie somehow forgot, and during our first interview our camera informed us that it had low battery. So our day at Flor was cut short meaning we would have to return the following day. Because this is the neighborhood in which Mandie previously lived, she was easily recognized and many people were excited to see her! We even received free orange juice from one of her previous landlords.

Since our day ended before lunch, Mandie decided to take me to one of her favorite Chinese resturaunts in the city, King Palace. It was delicious! Because we had no other agenda for the remaining part of our day, we were able to sit back and enjoy a long lunch. On our walk back to the mission house we stopped for ice cream, which is always such a wonderful way to end a great afternoon.

Once we were back at the house, we uploaded the one video we were able to record and worked for several hours on our project. We cropped, edited, listened to lots of potential music, and had a great time seeing the beginning of our project piece together. Suzy happened to drop by so we were able to show her what we have so far and she liked it. :)

Later that afternoon, one of the employees, Melissa, became very ill. She had been to the hospital the night before and received an IV, but had developed more serious symptoms and was in no way improving. Instinct kicked in and Mandie and I quickly became her nurses. We sat with her for a while, and because there was no doctor presently available we did all that we could to comfort her. We truly were nurses for most of the afternoon. It turned out to be Classic Dengue (as opposed to hemorrhagic Dengue), so she should be discharged from the hospital tomorrow morning.

Later, we had dinner, played a round of Mexican Train Dominoes, worked a little more on the video, watched a movie, and headed to bed. Overall it was a very relaxing yet successful day.

This morning we awoke a little earlier because we had to make up for lost time at Flor. With a charged battery, we headed back to the LAMB Institute, ready this time to complete our mission. After several hours of interviewing both children and adults, we were content to leave.

We left in a taxi (which Mandie proudly got at the Honduran price!!) and headed to Jenny’s house to visit for a few hours. We were able to spend some great quality time in their wonderful home. Around noon, we left to pick Alejandra up from school. We walked some distance but were able to see the market and several other “Kodak memory” shots around the area. Fir the fist time, I experienced children living in garbage cans. They live in the dumpster outside of the market because scraps are thrown there throughout the day. It was a heartbreaking site and something I will never forget.

Fanny bought us, her children for the day, ice cream as we walked to Alejandra’s school. When we made it to her school she was elated. She is full of such joy. We walked hand in hand as she talked about her day. On the way back to their house, we passed a very large hog eating out of the river that everyone dumps their trash and sewage into, and she giggled beautifully at the site.

Upon returning to their house, we ate lunch (which was absolutely wonderful) and then had to say our goodbyes. They put us in a taxi, and off we went back to the mission house.

Jorge and Ana, two medical students in Tegucigalpa, picked us up at 3:00 to take us to the hospital and show us around. The hospital here is very different from the ones in the states. Our first obstacle was the guard at the gate. Jorge and Ana are students, so they were easily passed; however, Mandie and I were not sure how we were going to get the guard to let us pass. Luckily, since we were American and possess very blue and green eyes, he smiled and let us pass without even a question.

Hospital Escuela is the teaching hospital of Honduras and Jorge and Ana go to school in an adjoining building, completing some of their clinicals in this and other hospitals. We entered into the Emergency waiting room and I found myself extremely wide eyed. There were people everywhere. They were laying on stretchers made of metal, patients with NG tubes connected to nothing, and a woman with a rotting, bleeding, swollen foot. They were all in one loud room with absolutely no order other than the line of people trying to manage to push themselves closest to the front of the door. Jorge said that people come in regularly with arms cut by machetes and major lacerations, and they just have another person in the waiting area help stop the bleeding. There is no since of urgency or order relating to the seriousness of the condition. I was tempted to ask if we could just sit and watch. They said that in a matter of minutes there would probably be someone with major bleeding or something else which we would have been able to fix.

[here's a link to a post that Mandie wrote about Hospital Escuela last year]

We continued our tour and my eyes remained just as wide. As Jorge, our very animated tour guide, walked us through what he called “hallways of gold, lined with mahogany benches and crystal lamp fixtures” I was amazed at the condition of the hospital. He asked us at one point how the hospital would be rated in the states, and simultaneously Mandie and I both stated…”CLOSED.” There were holes in the ceiling with water dripping down from who knows where, mop buckets of muddy water, broken windows, etc. One of the most astounding aspects of the entire hospital though was their complete lack of patient confidentiality. As we walked the various hallways there would be bins along the halls labeled “Results.” Inside of these boxes, being monitored by no one, were all of the patient’s lab result sheets. You thumbed through the entire stack until you came to yours, and there you could read about your tests. On the psychiatric ward, there are glass boxes filled with patient consults. We were able to walk up to the boxes, see the patients, name and remaining patient information, and read their entire list of notes from the consult. It was astounding. After walking into the ICU, adult unit, and a failed attempt to enter labor and delivery, our final hallway was the Morgue. Ana was absolutely terrified. Nonetheless, we ventured onto the floor, and walked the halls. It was eerie but very interesting. We then found ourselves back in the Emergency waiting room, still lined with people on stretchers and various body parts bleeding, and eventually made it to the exit. It was an experience I will never forget.

After the hospital, we had time to swing by the Mall Multiplaza, which is as great as any mall you’d finding the states (better, in fact, than the mall we have in Charleston). We bought coffee at the Honduran version of Starbucks (Espresso American), browsed Pink, the Honduran version of Victoria Secret, among other stores. Jorge and Ana are a super cute couple and it was fun to just listen to them talk and hear about their lives. On the way home, we started crunching numbers and found out that Courtney’s starting salary as a new graduate nurse is almost twice as much as a master’s prepared nurse makes here in Honduras. Wow!

So…a few days back, Courtney beat Jorge at fusebol. He swore that she cheated, but really he was just a sore loser. Anyway, when she found out that he doesn’t have a facebook account, they made a deal that if she could beat him again, he would open one. Tonight, she not only beat him again, but beat him so bad that now he has to open a facebook account AND use it for a whole year. Ana was so glad Courtney beat him. He made her stand far away from the fusebol because she was “distracting him” (whatever!), but she had a big cheering section going on from her banished position on the couch. We expect friend requests from Jorge by the end of next week.

So…our feedburner says that like 20 people sign on to read this blog every day and we want to know who you are! There’s a link below that says comment and if you click on it, you can leave your thoughts about what we wrote and make us so so happy. :)

Our Honduran tour guides for the day...so proud to be wearing their whites!