Footprints...in Roatan

The Lord replied, "My son, My precious child,  I love you and I would never leave you.  During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

As you may or may not know, Footprints in the Sand is one of my favorite poems.  Therefore, it seemed like a good analogy for the holidays around here.  Holidays around home are special times for our family as we always gather together and celebrate with our siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents.  Unfortunately, being in Honduras makes it a little far to travel for a weekend.  In thinking of the Footprints poem, these times would reference those times when there was suffering and struggling; the times when there was only one set of Footprints.  Just as in the poem when the Lord carried you through these trials, I had family come here to spend the holidays with me.  Christmas my parents came, New Years a few schoolmates came, Easter, my older brother Philip came.  While he went through quite the journey to get down here, he finally made it, and we were able to share a week of vacation together.  Two days we spent getting scuba certified (hmm, I wonder if I can put that on my resume under 'certifications'?!), went out east for a BBQ one day, had a potluck for Easter (complete with a spiral ham and turkey!), and spent a day at the clinic.  What a blessing it has been to be able to "unexpectedly" spend the holidays with family.  Upon coming down here, I knew of no plans for visitors.  It has been amazing how God has blessed me over the last several months with visitors.  While live is wonderful here, seeing familiar faces from time to time has been very nice!

Something that I continually find interesting is hearing the differing opinions of volunteers and visitors as they come to visit.  Everybody has different previous experiences with poverty and mission work and with that they approach things differently.  Poverty can be a hard concept to grasp and until you really start to work with people of poverty, live in their world for a time, and see how their every day lives run, you can't really fully understand all its intricacies.  It's easy to read book after book about it, but it still seems different once you get placed in it and it is something that takes time to really grasp.  Watching volunteer residents and students come from working in the states to working here is also something that is quite the concept.  Working at the clinic I have started to learn what the big time meds are, which ones are more expensive, and which ones are more preferred by doctors in the states that have access to any medication they want.  At the clinic, we only have access to a limited number of medications, usually based on what we get by donation.  Therefore, prescribing conservatively is a little more important.  Here you don't just give a medication to please a patient; here it is much more important to make sure the patient completely understands what they have and how medications help it (or don't).  If they don't need a medication that they are seeking, we explain to them why they don't need it and more often than not, they are okay with that.  Why can't people in the states be okay with that?  Why must we have to do every knit-picky, sometimes unnecessary little thing just to avoid a lawsuit?  It's things like this that will take some time to adjust to when I get back to the states.

Last week was Semana Santa here on the island (well technically everywhere I suppose :P ).  For those of you that don't understand Spanish, that would be Holy Week.  While many people may see it as a time of preparation, prayer, fasting, and remembrance of Jesus' death and resurrection, Semana Santa is more or less a holiday around these parts.  Many tourists overtake the island- whether they come from the mainland (which most do) or from other parts of the world.  West End is blocked off to cars and the beaches and resorts in West Bay are packed and out of control.  From the reports that I have heard, things weren't quite as crazy this year as they have been in the past, but I still managed to avoid most of it.  Can't really complain as I don't really relate Holy Week with party week.  Since it is a 'holiday' around here, the clinic was closed all week so that meant a week of vacation to relax and not do a whole lot.  Boy was that wonderful; just in time for me to gear up for the next 3 weeks while Peggy goes back to the states.  What did Peggy leave me with this time (aside from the clinic)?!  A 40ft container filled with donations for the clinic and the hospital.  Luckily it is all sorted and labeled clinic or hospital so hopefully it shouldn't be all that bad- I'll let you know how it goes.

We're still waiting for the license for the upstairs so that has yet to be opened, but it is possible that we will be have a birth take place up there sometime this week.  As time carries on, I continue to work on a training/orientation guide for the clinic so that whoever ends up following in my footsteps will have something more to go off than what I had.  There is just so much information at the clinic that isn't recorded anywhere; it's only in people's heads.  What happens when they leave?  The information of course goes with them and no longer benefits the clinic.  Therefore, hopefully this manual will help a little bit with that.

Weather is really starting to warm up around here getting into the upper 80's and 90's.  Many people here complain (term used lightly) about how hot it is and how much they work up a sweat.  However, I don't think it's usually really much worse than it is at home.  I think the humidity at home is worse than it is here.  When I tell people that they have a hard time believing me cause "there isn't humidity in South Dakota"; but oh yes, there is!  I don't know where it comes from, but it's there!

Mayday, Mayday!!

Yesterday a group of us decided to head out to Hole in the Wall, a small little restaurant on the east end of the island.  There was a boat arranged to take us, however, because of the strong east winds, traveling on the south side of the island was not going to be a good idea.  Since the boat was already payed for we had the option of taking the boat anyways, not going, or taking a vehicle.  But then, the suggestion was made that we should just take the boat along the north side of the island as far as we could and then get in a bus to cross over to the south side to get to the restaurant.  That is what we decided to do.  Here we are cruising along on this boat, inside the reef (dumb idea considering the depth finder kept alarming...but who am I to say anything?!), when all of a sudden we stop.  Why?  One of our motors went out- good thing we have 2!  So we continue on down the coast when all of a sudden, in the middle of a bight surrounded by mangroves, the other motor goes out! What are we going to do?!  It just so happened that another boat was passing by about this time.  We flagged him down but of course he was carrying passangers that he needed to drop off.  He assured us that he would be back to help us.  An hour later we are still waiting.  By this time, we are all well past hungry, our beer is gone, and we feel like we are either on Gilligans Island or a reality TV show.  Danielle, another volunteer with me, looks at me and says "well, I have a peanut butter sandwich that we could each have a half of.  Well, maybe we should wait a bit, who knows how long we will be here, we might want it later."  It's about this time as well, that we start to give up hope that this guy is coming back for us, so a couple of the people on the boat try to get in contact with people they know that could come and pick us up.  A few minutes later, the guy finally returns!  We all transfer over into this guys boat, make it to shore where there is a bus waiting for us.  By this time, it is now 3:00 (3hrs after setting out, 2 hrs longer than it was supposed to take!) and we are unsure if we will be able to make it to Hole in the Wall in time because they close at 4.  It's going to take us almost that long to get there by bus, because we are out in the middle of nowhere, only accessible by dirt roads.  We call ahead, he assures us they will stay open for us, so we set out to find food!  While on this winding, bumpy, dirt road (that reminds us of an Indiana Jones ride), we attempt to enjoy a nice cold beer (easier said than done) and we are subjected to some of the prettiest views of the harbor.  At about 4:00 we finally make it to Jonesville where we load a few Dory's and head out to the restaurant.  One of the Dory's that we boarded was all decked out with various trinkets, life vests, life savers, a comfy chair for the driver, and a carpeted boat bottom!  Luckily our patience paid off- awaiting for us were mashed potatoes, beans, coleslaw, fresh rye bread, all you can eat lobster, and rib eye steak (I believe).  What a great meal we had.  On our way home on the bus, I couldn't help but think about how it felt like I was back in high school traveling home from a sporting event or other school function/trip.  By the end of the night, my tan had been successfully worked on, my stomach was full, and I was more than ready for a good night sleep!

After my slow, relaxing week at the clinic last week, with no new volunteers, I am well stocked with volunteers again.  Today we welcomed another 5 volunteers that will be working with us for the next 3-4 weeks.  Orientation for all of them seemed to go pretty well for all of them today, so hopefully we will have a good week.  Tomorrow a Honduran pharmacist will be starting with us at the clinic as well, so that will keep me busy with training her and assisting her in finding her way around our pharmacy.  With the addition of people to our team, it also means that people have left us as well.  Emily, my nursing student went home this past weekend, so I am back to being the only full time nurse in the clinic, doing as many of the nursing responsibilities as physically possible.  The person that used to keep our consult rooms and store room all cleaned and stocked, also decided today that she doesn't want to do it anymore.  Therefore, one more thing for me to either do or find people to do.  Hopefully this will be something that I can get some of the Honduran staff to help me with.  In order for this to be "their" clinic, there are things that they should be responsible for (with the help of others of course).  That being said, they need to be taught/informed of what all needs to be done, as some of the stuff has just always been done by volunteers and they haven't been responsible for. 

Today also marks 6.5 months that I have been here- wow, it seems like forever ago that I got here!  I am still enjoying myself and everyday I am finding ways to keep life intersting.  There is still plenty that I am learning and scenarios that touch my heart regularily.  Last week and this week, I am house/cat sitting for someone that is off island for 2 weeks.  Being the huge pet person that I am (*note sarcasm), there are 5 cats that I must attend to, one of which has diabetes and must get an insulin shot every morning.  Needless to say, I am still no more of a pet person than I was before.  I could definitely make it through life without have anymore pets and wouldn't be the least bit disappointed.  But, they are still all alive and accounted for so I guess I am doing better than I usually do when left alone with Peggy's- haha!  The weather is really heating up around here lately.  Over the past week or so we have had temps in the upper 80's with heat indexes in the 90's.  And to think it's only going to get warmer!  I could use some of that snow that you guys have extra of right about now!

Peace and Love to all my family and friends at home!

Laura