FAQs

            Last week was good, and relatively uneventful. We had visitors from Huntsville, so that was fun. I redid the inventory of medications, and we reorganized the pharmacy in the MUR office. I’ve also had more free time for things like going to the coffee shop to get a smoothie. Saturday night we had a viewing (in Spanish) of the movie Courageous. (Of course it made me miss all McBrides. Hey, if yall wanted to come to Honduras sometime we could have a viewing of Facing the Giants with the “celeb guest” that plays Bobby Lee Duke!!:).

            Since last week was good but hasn’t given me a great blog topic, I thought I would go off most of the e-mails I’ve received and answer some questions about life in Hondo. So here you have answers to the FAQs.

-Favorite thing about Honduras: the weather, and how beautiful it is here; laid back personalities.

-Least favorite thing about Honduras: stray dogs. Hate them.

-The food: Pretty good! Although everything is fried, but I’m getting used to it. I can just feel my arteries clogging daily. I’ve eaten things called pupusas, baleadas, chilaquiles and other things I can’t remember the names of. Google them. Also, there’s a good chance most of that is misspelled.

- Spanish situation: Still working on it. Getting better, but I have a long way to go.

-Most ridiculous moment: the roommates having to teach me about the dish soap. It looks so different!

-Most stressful moment: Trying to learn to drive stick shift on a major road in Central America.. and stalling out through an entire green light. Oops.

-What can you pray for: Currently, patience. And learning Spanish.

-Weather: it has been pretty warm during the day, and slightly chilly at night. It’s starting to get pretty toasty though. March and April are the hottest months.

-Current entertainment: Yulema listening to music, singing along but changing the words (which she does often and is always funny). At the moment, changing the words to thank me for buying her a Pepsi, which she pronounces “Pexi.”

-What I miss the most: People, salads, and working in an environment where hand sanitizer is abundantly available. 

I’m sure there are plenty more questions that I could answer or random facts that I could share, but I can’t think of anything right now. I’ll try to come up with something more interesting for next time! Also, I can't fix the crazy indentation. Oh well, it's staying.

Medical Brigade

            This week, a group came down from Texas to put on a medical brigade in a little village called Las Sandias. We saw almost 1000 patients in 4 days. I “translated” for the MD a little bit, but mostly for the dentists.. So basically I learned how to say “which teeth do you want us to pull” and “spit” and I just repeated those over and over. I also may or may not have gotten to pull a couple of teeth. Also, yesterday we went to the orphanage. It was sad to see all of the sweet kids, but it was fun to love on them and play with them for a while!

            It was great to have the Pine Tree group here. They worked really hard and I loved having more people around that speak English! It made me really excited about this summer. Ohhh and sorry I've been bad about posting pictures, but I'm going to be worse now because my camera is no longer functioning. So from here on out they're going to be Iphone pics.

Las Sandias

 The "dentist's office" of the brigade

Hanging out at the orphanage

Safe House

            It’s been a good week. I’ve been staying busy with preparing for the group to get here on Sunday, church events, and plenty of other things. I’m still struggling to communicate, but it’s getting easier. The other day Sharlene said “I really hope you learn more Spanish at language school,” which I thought was funny. At least I understood her! There have been a handful of developments this week, like the fact that we figured out where I will be living…. Oh, and that I have a baby for a roommate.

            Here in Santa Rosa (all over Honduras, actually), one thing that we see way too much of is how common it is for girls to be sexually harassed, raped, or for girls to feel like they have no option besides prostitution. You certainly can’t count on the police, and nothing ever gets done about it. When Jon picked me up from the airport last week he told me about the opening of a safe house for sexually abused or at risk girls. Already there were a couple of girls who have been moved out of their homes because of urgent situations, and are staying with people for now. This house will have rules about who can come inside, curfews, etc. There are still details to be worked out, but the point is that there will need to be someone there who isn’t at risk, who hasn’t been abused, who can serve as a sort of “mentor.” So, that’s me. Not because I’m worthy of being a mentor to anyone, clearly, but because I am close to their ages, and I will be able to form relationships with the girls that live there. Also, because I need a place to live. Haha. Anyway, we’ve been praying about it and I think God is opening a door for a really cool opportunity. So, be praying for the house, for the future inhabitants, and for me that I will be equipped to handle whatever situations arise. This opportunity has potential to be an awesome ministry as long as we let God shape it into what it can become.

            I went to see the house with the other gringos after church last Sunday, and I really like it! It’s really pretty nice, and it’s in a guarded neighborhood. It has 3 bedrooms and maid’s quarters. There will definitely be more girls than that living there. Seeing as I will go insane if I don’t have a way to escape, our solution is that I will be living in the maid’s quarters. It’s small, but I will have my own room and my own bathroom. (I may or may not have to walk outside to get to my bathroom and into the rest of the house, but hey, it’s the third world. I wasn’t expecting such a nice house anyway!) The size and the fact that I will basically have an outhouse is a small price to pay for the privacy. Plus, the whole thing is fenced in, so it’s not like anyone can wander up to me as I’m trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

            Ok, so the new roommates. At first I thought it was God’s joke on me because of my slight distaste for children.. Haha but now I realize it doesn’t have much to do with me. My newest roommate is 16 years old, and she has a 3-month-old baby boy. He is precious. I actually really love him! She was living at home with her mom, her mom’s boyfriend (or whatever he is), and her half siblings. I’m not clear on all of the details, but the step-dad has been abusing her. Now she and the babe are staying at the yellow house with the rest of us, and I’m pretty sure she will be one of the girls (and the baby) living at the safe house. Since she is a baby herself, the other girls and I are getting a LOT of parenting experience, while we all learn how to care for a baby together. BONUS: I WILL be teaching this kid English. He’s going to be my own personal baby genius translator. 

Week 1

I made it to Honduras! I’m so excited to be here, and it has been a great week. I got settled into the “yellow house”, which is one of the Mission UpReach (MUR) offices. There are 3 other girls staying here that are from Honduras and El Salvador (Julema, Sharlene, and Berta). They have been very patient with me, since they don't speak English. I’ve spent time getting to know the MUR staff, and being shown around Santa Rosa. I have jumped right into my role as the nurse here. I honestly was afraid I might get here and be useless. I know that I have a skill that is needed, but wasn’t exactly sure it would be that helpful. I was wrong. I have actually been working already, and can see that God has some awesome things planned.

I went to check out the site for the medical brigade in a couple of weeks with Donna. It’s small, and is going to be very interesting to see how we set up. I went around with the DESEO girls (DESEO is an acronym, can’t remember what it stands for, but is a branch of MUR. They go to 11 schools around the area to teach about nutrition, hygiene, etc., and they are allowed to do a small devotional.) Ok anyway, I’ve been to church (they have something at the church pretty much every night, except for Wednesdays), I have done an inventory of all of the medications that MUR has in the “pharmacy”—large task. Most accomplished nursing moment so far: a man had something in his eye at a bonfire, and I told him to wash it out. He was fixed. Amazing! Haha 

I miss English. I am ready for language school. Constantly trying to speak and understand another language is surprisingly exhausting! The girls I live with are great, very helpful, very sweet/patient, and I’m about 90% sure that they’re funny. However, it’s been difficult to chat. My most used phrases with them are “repeat” or “slow down”, and probably “good night”. So I have been much quieter this week than I have been by choice in years. (Luckily all movies here are in English, so when they bring a movie home to watch, I get to understand it and they have to use subtitles. Although earlier in the week we watched “Love in the Time of Cholera” which did not have subtitles, so I semi-translated. Made me think of that Russian lit professor that I had at Auburn whose wife didn’t speak English, and how he said that they watched lifetime movies all the time. He said he would get tired of translating halfway through the movie and he would make up his own story line. I thought about it, but I’m not creative enough with my Spanish for that yet. Maybe one day:)

Also, even the blog stuff is in Spanish. Darn you, Google. I will post some pictures soon!