Honduras
So I figured I would share my trip with everyone and the amazing things I saw. I don't think I can give an accurate description of the things I saw. I don't think my pictures can even show accurately my experience in Honduras. I will show pictures later though when we all put our pictures up on webshots. This experience has definetely convinced and motivated me to pursue dentistry and continue with doing medical brigades. As much as we have inspired the people there, they have also inspired us. We take so much for granted here. We are so impatient to wait in line for 15, 20, 30 minutes. Yet these people waited in line for hours to be able to see a doctor or get some free toothpaste. But anyways..this is going to pretty long and maybe not so interesting, but maybe so. haha.
Saturday - we arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. It is pretty rural everywhere considering that in the capital there are cows roaming around. It was the only place where we saw one or two stop lights though. We were picked up and taken to Sister Maria Rosa's house. She started the organization that we are working with and she is the Mother Theresa of Honduras. We then drove to Nuevo Paraiso where we would be spending the week. We stayed in bunk bed rooms and we also had Sister's personal chef who made AMAZING food for us. They had guards there 24/7 so it was safe for us.
Sunday - We toured Nuevo Paraiso that was started by Sister. It had schools and a medical clinic that we toured. We then went to the orphanage to play with the kids. They kids are amazing and so cute. Speaking to them was a little iffy because of my spanish but it ended up being good practice for the rest of the week. After we went to a boys farm where 78 boys went to school and lived there and worked on the farm. We stayed and hung out there for a while until going back to Nuevo Paraiso. We had about 3,000 pounds of medication that our group brought back so we unpacked and did inventory the rest of the night and packed our bags that we would take the next day.
Monday - Our first brigade was about an hour drive away so we took a bus and some pickup trucks to put all of our bags in. When we arrived there were a ton of people waiting in a line for us. We set up the dental area and met the Honduran dentist that would be working with our dental student. Our dental team had 6 people in it and the Honduran dentist didn't speak english and I was the only person that spoke spanish well enough. I had to communicate between David (the dentist from our group) and the patients and also between the Honduran dentist and the rest of us. I worked aside David making dental trays, grabbing him tools and anesthesia, cleaning up their mouths and hands, holding kids hands, and communicating between dentist and patient. It was so hot that day and all of our scrubs were soaking with sweat by the end of the day. Some people had really bad teeth. One person we had to extract 5 teeth leaving her only one tooth left. The Honduran dentist had to take out 7 teeth in someones mouth, leaving her with none. One lady after we extracted all the teeth she had was so happy for our help she hugged and kissed me, saying God bless that we were there.
Tuesday - got up at 6 am again for the second brigade. This one was in the mountains and was the scariest drive of my life. The roads are sooooo bad its ridiculous and you're going one lane up this mountain. At one point we had to drive so close to the edge of a cliff to avoid foot deep potholes in the road. We were about cm from the edge. It was scary. Some kid scared me because he was standing on a ledge above us just staring down at us with a machete. All the kids have machetes. One kid that they treated that day had a wound from a machete. That day we saw even more people and were much more efficient. It wasn't hot since we were high up in the mountains. I extracted two teeth myself after David showed me how. He also asked if anyone wanted to inject the anesthesia for one of the patients and little me with 4 other guys was the only one ballsy enough to do it. That day we had to extract 7 teeth from one young girl who wasn't even 20 and who will never have teeth again.
Wednesday - Our third briage went really well. It was about an hour away from nuevo paraiso. Our first patient was an old man with only one leg who was sooooooooo smelly. Not just his breath but his whole body. I don't think he has ever brushed his teeth before because he asked if the toothpaste I gave him was for his arms. So I had to teach him how to brush his teeth basically. I noticed alot of big families, where mothers had like 6 young children with them. Also many of the mothers didn't have a husband because men have multiple women's children.
Thursday - our last brigade and our largest. This one was 2.5 hours away and we got done like 3 hours later then we normally do. There was one lady that I thought at first had died in the dental chair. There were alot of people that had some kind of brain problems because they walked around with this dazed look on their face. We asked her to open her mouth and she didn't blink or respond for several minutes and David had been holding her head and when he let go her head just fell to the side. We had to call over the Honduran doctor and she started responding after a few minutes but she was still so out of it. There was a young girl about ten that she didn't even grab my hand like I let the other kids do and she never even flinched her eyes or blinked the entire time. She was just in a daze the whole time. It was spooky. I also pulled some more teeth and gave an injection that went through some guys cheek. Oops. I know what you're thinking but it wasn't my fault! That was scary because I got poked in the hand but I am pretty sure it didn't break the glove. That would be bad. David had taken a clean needle and stuck it in my other hand to demonstrate what breaking the glove would feel like, but it didn't feel that bad! At one point I tried to walk around with a bag of toys and I got swarmed by 30 kids who just about knocked me down. haha. We ran out of toys and that was sad news. So one of the dental team guys started blowing up gloves and drawing faces on them and they swarmed him and all wanted one. It was funny. One of the guys in pharmacy yelled at him "Hey mark, can you make me a bicycle?" haha it's funny but also really sad that these kids just wanted anything and they were so happy to get one.
Friday - We were done with our brigades, treating 3,355 patients, 275 which were dental patients, 350 extractions. This day we had a visit from Sister Maria Rosa herself, an 80 year old woman, who drove hours to come thank us personally. We went back to Tegucigalpa to visit an orphanage of hers and play with the kids. They love getting their picture taken and also taking your camera and taking pictures of you with it. They barely have anything but they are always smiling and laughing and even though they just meet you they want you to hold them and hug them. We then went to Valle de los Angeles to go souvenir shopping. After dinner it stormed really bad which is really loud on or tin roof. There was a blackout for 4 hours. Luckily we had a generator for a little bit. But we were originally supposed to go to a club rented out by the Honduran guys but couldn't anymore. So we brought the club to us and then the power went out again so we had to use candles. Flew home the next day and basically my life was changed in only a week.
Saturday - we arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. It is pretty rural everywhere considering that in the capital there are cows roaming around. It was the only place where we saw one or two stop lights though. We were picked up and taken to Sister Maria Rosa's house. She started the organization that we are working with and she is the Mother Theresa of Honduras. We then drove to Nuevo Paraiso where we would be spending the week. We stayed in bunk bed rooms and we also had Sister's personal chef who made AMAZING food for us. They had guards there 24/7 so it was safe for us.
Sunday - We toured Nuevo Paraiso that was started by Sister. It had schools and a medical clinic that we toured. We then went to the orphanage to play with the kids. They kids are amazing and so cute. Speaking to them was a little iffy because of my spanish but it ended up being good practice for the rest of the week. After we went to a boys farm where 78 boys went to school and lived there and worked on the farm. We stayed and hung out there for a while until going back to Nuevo Paraiso. We had about 3,000 pounds of medication that our group brought back so we unpacked and did inventory the rest of the night and packed our bags that we would take the next day.
Monday - Our first brigade was about an hour drive away so we took a bus and some pickup trucks to put all of our bags in. When we arrived there were a ton of people waiting in a line for us. We set up the dental area and met the Honduran dentist that would be working with our dental student. Our dental team had 6 people in it and the Honduran dentist didn't speak english and I was the only person that spoke spanish well enough. I had to communicate between David (the dentist from our group) and the patients and also between the Honduran dentist and the rest of us. I worked aside David making dental trays, grabbing him tools and anesthesia, cleaning up their mouths and hands, holding kids hands, and communicating between dentist and patient. It was so hot that day and all of our scrubs were soaking with sweat by the end of the day. Some people had really bad teeth. One person we had to extract 5 teeth leaving her only one tooth left. The Honduran dentist had to take out 7 teeth in someones mouth, leaving her with none. One lady after we extracted all the teeth she had was so happy for our help she hugged and kissed me, saying God bless that we were there.
Tuesday - got up at 6 am again for the second brigade. This one was in the mountains and was the scariest drive of my life. The roads are sooooo bad its ridiculous and you're going one lane up this mountain. At one point we had to drive so close to the edge of a cliff to avoid foot deep potholes in the road. We were about cm from the edge. It was scary. Some kid scared me because he was standing on a ledge above us just staring down at us with a machete. All the kids have machetes. One kid that they treated that day had a wound from a machete. That day we saw even more people and were much more efficient. It wasn't hot since we were high up in the mountains. I extracted two teeth myself after David showed me how. He also asked if anyone wanted to inject the anesthesia for one of the patients and little me with 4 other guys was the only one ballsy enough to do it. That day we had to extract 7 teeth from one young girl who wasn't even 20 and who will never have teeth again.
Wednesday - Our third briage went really well. It was about an hour away from nuevo paraiso. Our first patient was an old man with only one leg who was sooooooooo smelly. Not just his breath but his whole body. I don't think he has ever brushed his teeth before because he asked if the toothpaste I gave him was for his arms. So I had to teach him how to brush his teeth basically. I noticed alot of big families, where mothers had like 6 young children with them. Also many of the mothers didn't have a husband because men have multiple women's children.
Thursday - our last brigade and our largest. This one was 2.5 hours away and we got done like 3 hours later then we normally do. There was one lady that I thought at first had died in the dental chair. There were alot of people that had some kind of brain problems because they walked around with this dazed look on their face. We asked her to open her mouth and she didn't blink or respond for several minutes and David had been holding her head and when he let go her head just fell to the side. We had to call over the Honduran doctor and she started responding after a few minutes but she was still so out of it. There was a young girl about ten that she didn't even grab my hand like I let the other kids do and she never even flinched her eyes or blinked the entire time. She was just in a daze the whole time. It was spooky. I also pulled some more teeth and gave an injection that went through some guys cheek. Oops. I know what you're thinking but it wasn't my fault! That was scary because I got poked in the hand but I am pretty sure it didn't break the glove. That would be bad. David had taken a clean needle and stuck it in my other hand to demonstrate what breaking the glove would feel like, but it didn't feel that bad! At one point I tried to walk around with a bag of toys and I got swarmed by 30 kids who just about knocked me down. haha. We ran out of toys and that was sad news. So one of the dental team guys started blowing up gloves and drawing faces on them and they swarmed him and all wanted one. It was funny. One of the guys in pharmacy yelled at him "Hey mark, can you make me a bicycle?" haha it's funny but also really sad that these kids just wanted anything and they were so happy to get one.
Friday - We were done with our brigades, treating 3,355 patients, 275 which were dental patients, 350 extractions. This day we had a visit from Sister Maria Rosa herself, an 80 year old woman, who drove hours to come thank us personally. We went back to Tegucigalpa to visit an orphanage of hers and play with the kids. They love getting their picture taken and also taking your camera and taking pictures of you with it. They barely have anything but they are always smiling and laughing and even though they just meet you they want you to hold them and hug them. We then went to Valle de los Angeles to go souvenir shopping. After dinner it stormed really bad which is really loud on or tin roof. There was a blackout for 4 hours. Luckily we had a generator for a little bit. But we were originally supposed to go to a club rented out by the Honduran guys but couldn't anymore. So we brought the club to us and then the power went out again so we had to use candles. Flew home the next day and basically my life was changed in only a week.