Guanacaste Medical Brigade

My school has been cooperating with Cape Cares, an organization that sends medical and dental brigades to remote areas in Honduras, for several years. My school will send two translators and a chaperone to accompany the team of doctors and dentists who come on the brigade. I have been on two of these brigades before to a place called Los Encinitos in both ninth and tenth grade. This year I signed up to go on another brigade to a place called Guanacaste. I went with my friend and my mom on Saturday January 17 and I came back home on Friday January 23. This is the story of what happened each day in Guanacaste as a translator.

               

Sorting medicine with my friend. 

On Saturday my mom and I arrived at my friend’s house and we waited there until the time we were supposed to go to the airport to meet the team. We were accidentally early to my friend’s house and ended up waiting from ten-thirty until around one. We drove to the airport and we waited for a while until our team of seven came out. There were two doctors, one psychiatrist, one nurse, one dentist, and two others who helped out with whatever. We had to pile into this little van for the two to three hour drive to San Lorenzo, the place we would be staying in was thirty minutes away from Guanacaste. We had to squeeze in three military men as well that the government sends with every brigade to ensure the team’s safety. Once we got to the place we unpacked and settled into our temporary home. We then helped sort medicines before dinner. Once we ate dinner we went to bed, getting rest for the next day.

Me translating for the pediatrician. 

                We woke up at six-thirty, on Sunday January 18, to be ready for seven-thirty when we would be leaving for Guanacaste. We arrived at the medical clinic we would be working in at eight and we started to unpack. Sadly my friend, my mom, and I couldn’t really help since we were just translators and we didn’t know how the team wanted their rooms to set up. Right before we started, I helped translate for the dentist as she was the only one ready to begin. And once the team was settled in, my friend and I decided that I would translate for the pediatrician and she would translate for the nurse in triage. If we wanted to switch later on we would. The morning was quite slow, not many people came. I soon didn’t have anything to do and since my friend wasn’t feeling well, I went to translate in triage. After lunch which came at around two, which I didn’t like, we started up again and I think I went back to triage but I’m not positive. We had many people arrive in the afternoon which made for a hard first day. We stayed until six and we got ready to leave. It was a tiring first day since we had a slow morning and a fast afternoon, the scorching heat did not help.

Me as more of an assistant than translator. 

                On Monday January 19, we woke up and left at the same time. We started earlier than the day before because we didn’t have to set anything up. This day I began with the pediatrician again and my friend went in triage, my mom went with the dentist. That day I didn’t translate much because we had a medical student from Tegucigalpa there to do her required community service  and thus she was able to translate and work for the pediatrician. I became an assistant that day, bringing cards places and leading people into the room and to the pharmacy. That day we didn’t have that many people and we finished at around four. Lunch came at one-thirty which was still too late in my opinion but it wasn’t as bad as the day before. That day we got to the house and the electricity was out. It was awful. The heat was just too much, I was sitting and sweating at the house. At the clinic we had fans and the electricity did go out but it didn’t feel as bad as it was at the house. I was so looking forward to going to the house and sitting in the wonderful AC that they had there. It was terrible because no matter what I did, I was too hot. Thankfully the electricity came back on when we were eating dinner and we were able to sit in the house without dying.

Me in triage.  

                On Tuesday January 20, I was in triage. From that day on, I was only in triage and my friend was with the pediatrician. I really didn’t enjoy not translating on Monday and I wanted to be in a place where I could be translating, so I stayed in triage. That was a good day, it was slow paced but we had quite a bit of people come down. We didn’t have nearly as many people that came to Los Encinitos, but quite a few came. I really enjoyed working in triage, I got used to the types of questions that were being asked and I was able to ask the questions before the nurse had to ask me to ask the patient. I would ask general questions about why they came, what hurt most, etc. and we took blood pressure, temperature, weight, and sometime blood sugar, which I always looked away for that part. We ended at around three or four that day, it was a good day. That evening we had a presentation of the foundation that we were working with called Agrolíbano and we found out about all the wonderful things this foundation is doing in the south of Honduras. It was pretty amazing although the presentation was too long and the slides weren’t presented well. My friend translated for the presentation.

The interview. 

                On Wednesday January 21 I was in triage and all of a sudden cameras started coming into the clinic. Apparently there was a TV interview that was going to be going on at the clinic to promote the brigade. As I was translating several different TV stations and newspaper reporters came and went with cameras. We took a break for the interview and once they interview was done, we went back to work. After lunch we weren’t receiving any patients, just a few stragglers. And so we finished early. We left earlier than any other day, I don’t remember exactly when. It was hard because we were tired but we didn’t do a lot of work. Not as many people came which was kind of discouraging because we expected the TV special to draw in a lot of people. Once we got to the house we had plans to visit the San Lorenzo hospital. When we got to the hospital, they showed us around and I was the translator. It was very interesting to see how it was run. It wasn’t very sanitary but apparently it wasn’t as bad a Hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa, according to my mom. I hated the maternity ward; the way it was set up looked so uncomfortable for the soon-to-be-mothers. That, for me, was the worst part of the hospital. After the tour we went back to the house for our dinner and to go to sleep.

My friend, me, and the crazy kid! 

                On Thursday January 22, our last day at the clinic, I was in triage. This day went super slow and we ended at around eleven because no more people came. It was very disheartening because we really wanted more people to come. The team started packing right after we ate lunch and once everything was put away we were ready to go at around two-thirty. We went back to the house and we waited around until it was time for dinner, where we would go out to eat in San Lorenzo with the ladies that we worked with at the clinic. The foundation Agrolíbano was taking us to dinner. We went to dinner and my friend and I had a little boy who talked with us while we were waiting for the food. This was a mistake because this kid was crazy. He was hilarious but he was crazy. He talked to us about several things, he swung us in the hammock where we almost crashed into a bird cage, he then (at the table) tried to bite us and he attacked us. At the end he lay on the ground and started crying as if I hurt him. I didn’t touch him but he was angry with me and ended up kicking me in the leg (not very hard) and the military man scolded him. It was very odd and when we were leaving though, the kid was okay and he ran out to say goodbye. I yelled goodbye out the window and waved, no hard feelings. My friend and I couldn’t stop laughing at the whole situation. We actually laughed way too much the whole week due to some things that happened during it.

                On Friday January 23 we woke up earlier because we were going to be visiting the foundation’s schooling and farming programs. I again was the translator as we toured the foundation’s amazing programs to help the south of Honduras. We went back to the house and we then packed up to go back to Tegucigalpa. We went to Valley of Angels so the team could shop. We got there at one and we left at around three. They dropped my mom and I at our house in Santa Lucia and then went back into the city to go to the hotel the team would be staying at. That evening at around seven we went to dinner with the team that Cape Cares funds. That was a fun time but when we went back to their hotel we had to say our goodbyes. We said our goodbyes and then my mom and I went back home, my friend went back to hers, the team would fly out on Saturday January 24.

Here is the clinic we worked at all week. 

                Overall it was a wonderful experience. I really had a great time with the team and with my mom and friend. I had fun even though it wasn’t as I expected. I was disappointed that not a lot of people came but I had an awesome time so I can’t complain. This is my last medical brigade with Cape Cares and I will remember it always.

                Goodbye, until next time!