After another thrilling landing on the shortest runway in the world, the advance team was deployed on our mission. We quickly scoped out the situation, and decided to do some recon at the nearest Espresso Americano with a Mochacino in hand. Following an uneventful trip to NPH we determined that our immediate surroundings were safe. We received advance word from the priests up in Olanchito that the brigade sites up north were safe and uneffected by the earthquake. The only obstacle was one bridge that had been taken out by the quake.
After carb-loading with pasta the evening before, on Saturday morning we headed out on our first mission to Comayagua for a hearty Dunkin' Donuts breakfast - which consisted of a bagel sandwich and multiple cups of coffee. We then continued on our way to Hogar Tierra Santa (the Holy Land) - an orphanage near Comayagua. At the orphanage we met a team from the University of Minnesota and decided to join forces to evaluate the 130 children at the home.
We set up clinic in the school run by teachers that are employed by the orphanage. We had to be creative and utilize the facilities available to set up a make shift clinic. The outdoor hallways were used for signing in and pre-clinic, and 3 classrooms were used for the physical assessments. Our examination tables were a teacher's desk in one room, and in the other two rooms 3 student's desks were pushed together.(Photo - Pat and I standing in the main street in town to get to the orphanage)
Over the next two days we were able to see over 80 of the children providing the first complete physical examination many of them had ever had. We helped to develop the first medical record system for the home. It was a great privilege to work with several global studies students from the University of Minnesota that organized the trip and helped to care for the children in the home. Overall, it was a great trip, and hopefully will lead to an ongoing relationship.
Having completed our mission, we returned to our home base at Hotel Honduras Maya for some margarita refreshments (Christine - no worries. Pat says "I did not partake in ANY of the margarita celebration")
Monday being the traditional day of rest for medical brigades in Honduras (that may or may not be true), we decided that day 3 of our trip should consist of intense brigade planning poolside in the morning (when Annie managed to get severely burned in the 10am sun...). This was followed by tracking down our medications we ordered from Germany which were stuck in customs, and then arranging the pickup from the office near Casa Angeles. While there we visited children in the special needs home.
To celebrate our success in getting our box of medications out of customs, we decided to make our cab driver swing by Espresso Americano so we could get our fix of Mochacinos. After stopping at the first one, we received the devastating news that their granita machine was out 0f order. Our advance team put our heads together, and found another Espresso Americano where we were successful in finding our delightful frozen goodness.
Fully satisfied, we returned to our base at Hotel Honduras Maya to continue our brigade planning.
Overall we feel our mission was successful. We found no significant earthquake damage, but did find numerous moccacinos which has kept us going strong until now. We are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of the main force to complete our brigade in Olanchito. The team arrives tomorrow, and we take off on Wednesday for our site up in the mountains of northern Honduras.
Advance Team here signing out for now. More brigade details to follow.
This blog was composed by Advance Team leader (Pat) and In-Country leader (Annie)
P.S. Wanted to send a shout out to my "little sister" in Maryland (Pat's daughter) Casey and all her friends who follow my blog.
3 comments:
While the advance team was hard at work locating mocaccinos ground control was also very busy. Christine (the boss) and Team leader in training nurse Jackie mapped a course to Chevy Chase (seems simple I know but those of you in the DC area know all those cars and accidents make it as difficult as creeping up the hill in an old school bus plus Christine is hopelessly directionally challenged) to retrieve donated medication, then Jackie performed a solo mission out to the scary suburbs for donated pjs and underware for the orphanage children. We were overwhelmed by the generousity of our donors and very happy to add a few more duffle bags for the advance team to lug around. The team is now in the air and will start their adventure soon!
little sista casey here. sounds like you guys are doing great. have fun
Cool. Have a great rest of the trip~Alison(Caseys friend)
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