Week 1:
1 March my dad arrived in the afternoon in San Pedro Sula. That evening, we treated Danilo to a fried tilapia dinner at Agua Azul. Sunday morning we rose at 5:30 am so that we could leave the Foundation with Don Leonidis as he ended his night watchman's shift. We walked down to Peña Blanca and found a spot to eat baleadas. On the way, we spotted 3 Blue-Crowned MotMots, but I could only get a rather poor shot of two of them.
Being that it was early morning and Peña Blanca was preparing for a new day, we were able to watch people arrive as Don Leo's molinero to grind their corn for their morning tortillas. Here is a little boy doing just that.
After breakfast, we made our way back to the Foundation. On the way, we spotted people setting up booths for market day. The most ingenious of all the booths, in my opinion, was the weigh station pictured below.
At 9 am, we met up with Doctora Moncada and family and headed to Israel's coffee finca. We spent all morning and a good bit of the afternoon touring the grounds, learning about coffee growing, and (of course) stopping for a bit of his mountain grown coffee. Back at the Foundation, we cooked up a quick lunch and shared it together.
Monday began the work week and Dad witnessed the various things I do around here. We replaced a lock on one of the bodega doors (the keys to which had been misplaced, thus necessitating the new lock). We moved a sink and its table (and all of the pipes below!!). In the afternoon, we had lesson #1 at making flour tortillas. Tuesday was more of the same repairs and more tortillas. Dad made some lentil soup and we shared it with the staff. Tuesday afternoon, Dad and I walked downtown to do some light grocery shopping. José, on his way to drop off the employees, picked us up and back to the Foundation we headed. That evening we enjoyed some of Melvin II's fresh sugar cane juice with bananas.
Things were mellow until Thursday when we accompanied Elmer and Denia into San Pedro Sula to shop for the brigade. We spent all day running around to different grocery stores. Our last stop was PriceSmart (Honduras' Price Club). It was invigorating to see so many familiar things...and wonderful produce and breads and the like. I was in heaven. I splurged and bought a package of Rasberry Ice Crystal Light (the package will more than suffice for my remaining months here). While we were there, Denia and I did some price-checking and decided that it was worthwhile to do the majority of our future shopping at PriceSmart instead of running all around. Almost everything was at least a little cheaper than Junior and Los Andes. Unlike previous shopping trips into SPS, we made it back home at the perfect time...right before the staff would call it quits for the day. The result? We had extra and willing hands (since all wanted to go home) to unload the van. We had it unloaded and the groceries put away in record time: 15 minutes!!
Friday morning the clinic saw only a few patients and Doctora Moncada suggested that my dad and I go on a tour. So, we sunscreened and bug-repellented up and headed over to Los Naranjos. We walked along their 4 mile path and were more than a little happy that we had brought extra repellent. It was quite buggy. At the end of the path, we found a beautiful drawbridge over the river, but it had fallen into disrepair and was not crossable. Instead, we sat in the shade and chatted while we listened and watched for the birds overhead. In the afternoon, we went over Esmeralda's solar where Sal y Luz is building a house for her. Esmeralda is not only a good friend and tortilla tutor, but she also cooks for all of the patients at the Barnabas House. Here she is in front of her new walls with her grandson, Isai.
Saturday morning we woke to frigid weather and lots of rain, but we carried on with our plans anyway. We visited Ruth's house where we learned/helped prepare a feast of fried and baked tilapia and chicken. I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off because I was in the kitchen learning to cook Ruth's dishes while still trying to translate the conversation among the men in the living room!
Mid-way through our meal, I received a call from Jefe Melvin informing me that the medical brigade was stuck in the U.S. and wouldn't be coming until Sunday afternoon. This blessed us with some free time Sunday night. Dad and I got into a rather lengthy discussion on/reflection upon Honduras before falling into our nightly reading (still cracking away at all those new books!!).
Week 2:
Sunday morning we headed out to the airport where we met up with the brigade...or 8 of the 13. The remaining 5 came on Monday afternoon. Because of all of the delays and cancelled flights out of Atlanta, the 8 that did arrive were lucky to be here at all. They had to fly stand-by. With the 8 that we had (and perhaps 1/4 of our normal supplies), we ran our inventory and filled up our bins for the week. Monday morning, we headed out to set up clinic. Lucky for us, it was a slow day, so the low number of team members was not felt too hard.
On Tuesday, with the rest of our team and all of our supplies, we headed out to a large and quite distant community. It took us 2 hours from the main road to arrive! I was well-jostled but ready to roll. From Monday's lesson, we had decided that the first ever dentistry team really would perform better with a translator. None of the team members were jumping at the opportunity, so I quickly snagged my chance and got to it. It was a bit bloody, but it was new and exciting. I even had to look up some words in my dictionary as my dental vocabulary was running a little low. Tuesday turned into the rest of the week, and I was more than happy to continue working with Andy and Susanne. Here's a picture of Susanne setting up our work station.
By Thursday we were feeling quite confident. That is, until 20 children in a row came up and asked to have teeth extracted. Here are a few of the braver ones who managed to get through the yanking without too much screaming. In this picture they have already been numbed and are awaiting the "chair of doom."
Thursday morning, my dad helped with the sermon, laying on of hands, and prayers (while Melvin translates).
