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!