More pictures of the clinic!

I realized that there aren't many pictures on the blog of the clinic, so I wanted to post a few more on here today to you could see more of the environment where we work. The land the clinic is built on was donated by a man everyone calls "Murphy." He lives across the street and never comes out of his house, but he has the friendliest dog I've ever met if that counts for anything. In the front yard, the clinic has one of the only playgrounds that is on the island - there aren't any parks, but this is at least a jungle gym with swings where kids can play while they wait for their appointment.

The building used to be only 1 floor but a 2nd floor was added in the last 2 years. The second floor currently holds a birthing center that isn't in operation because there aren't enough full time doctors and nurses to staff it. In the mean time, the rooms are used by the gynecologist and also rented out to a psychologist. The psychologist comes from the mainland once a month - she is the only mental health care provider for the islanders, so if they need something related to mental health outside of her once monthly visit they have wait.

There is a room dedicated to dental supplies and procedures. There are two part-time dentists and a number of hygienists and  and assistants. They do simple procedures such as teeth cleanings and more complicated ones such as tooth extractions. Unfortunately they can not sedate patients so they aren't able to pull wisdom teeth, but they do have an X-ray machine! This is the only dental care available on the island.

There is also a pharmacy where all medications are dispensed. Hundreds of thousands of medications are dispensed each month - mostly children's vitamins, prenatal vitamins, and medications for hypertension. Any females over the age of 13 automatically get prenatal vitamins as teenage pregnancies here usually start around that age. There is currently a 4 million dollar donation from the World Health Organization of medications that has been donated to the clinic that is stuck in customs because the government is demanding an outlandish bribe that the clinic is refusing to pay.

Lastly, there are a number of rooms where the doctors, med students, and PA's see patients. There are approximately 75 patients a day - both adults and children. Island events and the weather will affect how busy the clinic is every day, but overall the flow is steady. The clinic sees 75% females and 25% males with a pretty even split between adults and children. There are often translators available to help as you will see in the bottom picture. The first floor has a waiting room (where patients have waited up to 5 hours to see a doctor), a triage room, 4 patient rooms and a laboratory. This is also where the dental room is.

Lastly, the upstairs also has 2 offices where the administrators and Miss Peggy can often be found working. This is also where staff meetings are often held. Volunteers can also work in these offices as well and use clinic computers for various tasks.

This concludes your virtual tour folks! More can also be seen on the website at www.clinicaesperanza.org.

Hola

The title of this post originally inspired me to try to write the first paragraph of this blog in Spanish. That quickly failed after I realized I didn't know the second word of that sentence, "title," so I quit. And went and ate some guacamole - which let me tell you, I have mastered the recipe (it is potentially the only recipe I have mastered since we've been here). Speaking of cooking, I still haven't figured out the heat situation with our oven. Everything is gas heat so I can't tell it to turn on to 375 degrees, I just have to turn it to a number on the dial and hope for the best. Yesterday I attempted to make chocolate chip cookie bars for our spanish teacher and instead I made something more similar to black bricks. I had to throw them out but not after I of course tried to eat them first... I mean throwing out chocolate is just inappropriate.

Sorry for the ramblings. I think the heat is getting to me as it is not only 1 million degrees here currently but we are also out of power on the island (i.e. no fans) and have been for 3 hours. So I am sitting on our couch in my swimsuit as close to the window as I can get. I stayed home today due to a sore throat and so far my day has consisted of reading, a nap, making spanish flash cards, and swimming in the ocean. Roatan productivity at it's best ladies and gentlemen.

As for the clinic - I finished my class on adolescent reproductive health and we are going to pilot it at the clinic and a methodist school on the island that has agreed to teach it. If all goes well, we are going to try to get it into more schools as time goes on. My next project will be a grant application from the government for funding - the clinic has 501c3 status in the U.S., so we can use that to apply to USAID. Eric is still enjoying the clinic overall, although he has noticed more and more cultural barriers as time goes on. It's difficult for him to get hard facts about what is happening with the children sometimes because the parents here tend to significantly over state what is happening in hopes for extra medications, etc. For example, a mother brought in a 6-month-old child the other day and told Eric he had been throwing up daily for 4 months straight and wouldn't eat a thing. The child was laughing and of a healthy weight - so obviously these facts are not quite accurate. On the other end of the spectrum, he saw a 14-month-old child last week who was the size of a 2-month-old, and he said the parents both looked as if they were about 12 or 13 (he actually asked the dad if the baby was his brother). They said the baby wouldn't eat so all they had been feeding it for months was rice. This is likely also because they don't have any money to buy other food, but there isn't any kind of food bank or food donations on the island. Now of course I have been brainstorming how I can start a food bank...

On a happier note, Eric and I started our scuba diving certification this past weekend. We finished 2 of the 3 days, and have 2 open water dives remaining (we finished 2 this weekend). We both really, really enjoyed it. On our second open water dive we saw a sea turtle eating! We got to hang out right next to it and watch it eat, and then it swam away and surfaced. We have also seen more fish than I can possibly remember, such as angel fish, parrot fish, grouper, sea urchins, a flounder, eels... and so many more. My favorite thing (other than the turtle) was the school of Dorrie fish (from Finding Nemo) that we saw on our first dive :) I am easily pleased with fish it seems.

Some random pictures are below for you to show you we are still alive and well :)

Yes, those are iguanas below and yes, it was disgusting. We were at an iguana farm. Never again.

 A shrimp boat used for shrimping, which is a huge industry down here.

And the power literally JUST came back on. Nothing like a good 'ol fan to complete the day :)

Happy Wedding Sara!!!!

Well this post is a few days late due to internet issues, but one of my best friends, Sara Larson, was married this Saturday! I wasn't able to be there but luckily got to skype with her for a bit on Friday before her rehearsal dinner. I've also been sent a lot of pictures and got a play-by-play from my friend Katherine, so I practically feel like I was there! The bride looked gorgeous and it looked (and sounded) like everybody had a blast. Congratulations Sara!!!

The second most important thing to note is it is 7 million degrees here right now. Literally.

Even thought it has been about a week since my last post, we don't have a ton of new things to tell you all about. During the weeks we have continued to be extremely busy. We were supposed to get scuba certified last weekend but Eric was feeling a little under the weather again (street food is evil) so we took it easy instead. He was feeling better Saturday evening, however, so we went to our friend Kelly's house because it was her birthday! We had a great time - it was a small gathering of people but she had one of the island chef's come over to teach us how to cook Lion Fish. Eric even got to play video games!

Speaking of Lion Fish, Eric recently got certified to legally spear fish for Lion Fish :) They are an invasive species here so they are constantly trying to fish them and kill them. These fish eat everything on the reef and really hurt the underwater ecosystem here.  Luckily Lion Fish tastes amazing so the people here love to eat it. He has yet to kill one yet but he has been trying! Last night we went night snorkeling with some locals who showed us where on the reef are good places to "hunt." Before we knew it we had all been out there for 2 hours!

Last weekend we also went on an amazing island tour. It started at 9am and went all day long. A local named Billy led the tour, and we went with some other volunteers at the clinic. We started at the West side of the island and slowly moved East throughout the day. It was a great experience to see lots of parts of the island that we wouldn't see otherwise. My favorite place was Punta Gorda. Our driver told us the people in that village have very little but they are very happy- and he was right. They were so welcoming and wonderful. We were served Manchuca there which is an authentic island soup made with white fish, conch, and lobster. We also got to dance the "Punta" or "Point" with some locals. They were so excited to have us in their restaurant they went and got their drums and maracas they played music for us and danced. They they asked all of us to dance with them! We had a great time and were sad to leave there. We don't have any pictures from there though because our camera died :( We also went on a cool boat tour and saw some towns called Oakdale and Jonesville. These towns are only accessible by water - think Venice but it all sits on an ocean instead of canals... and not as nice. There are also a lot of mangrove trees that you tour around.

This picture here at the bottom is my favorite - this is how they fish on the East side of the island. They use little wooden canoes and canoe paddles. Then they just use string with a hook and bait and use that to catch fish - no fishing rod or anything. They seem to be pretty successful at this method - Eric took this picture of a local fisherman.

Tonight we are going to get together with some other volunteers for a lobster dinner :)

Hope everything is going well for everyone at home!! Miss you all and I will try to post again soon!

Fourth of July and a comparison of the 1st and 3rd world in Roatan

You may think that living in another country means we didn't get to celebrate the 4th of July... well think again :) Lucky for us, there are so many expats living on this island, one of the resorts here does a full-blown 4th of July celebration! We spent the afternoon volunteering at a fundraiser for the clinic, which was a carnival for little kids. Eric and I created an obstacle course where the kids had to jump rope 10 times, do a 3-legged race to the cone and back, crab walk, and then race back to us and hit our hands. For whatever reason a lot of the kids thought this was potentially the best game that had ever been created in the history of games, and we ended up raking in quite a bit of money for the clinic while they all kept competing against one another to beat each others' scores.

Once the fundraiser was over, Eric and I were able to play to beach volleyball, snorkel, and enjoy the "American-style BBQ" which consisted of hamburgers, beans, and french fries :) (note the mound of food Eric is holding in the picture below). There were even fireworks set off over the ocean that we got to enjoy! Below are a few pictures of the day:

I also wanted to quickly show you some pictures of our day in Coxen Hole Saturday. Eric and I go to Coxen Hole every other Saturday (or at least we have this past month) to get whatever supplies we need in town and go grocery shopping. Coxen Hole is an interesting place. It is the largest city on the island - it's where most of the local commerce takes place, the cruise ships dock, and many of the locals live and work. It's the closest thing to a shanty town I have personally ever seen. Some stores are made of cement, but many are made out of wood and covered with corrugated tin roofs. Most of them are completely falling apart and there is generally trash everywhere. The stores and the town in general are in pretty bad condition, but many vendors will sell things at good prices.

When going down the main road from West End, you have to take a right to get into Coxen Hole. Ironically, if you go left, you will find the largest grocery store on the island. Keep in mind that none of the locals can afford to shop here. The shelves are stocked with predominantly American style food and brands. For example, I noticed this past trip that a jar of JIF peanut butter is almost $8.00! There is some Honduran style food there, but the store is clearly intended for tourists and the rich expats who call Roatan home. Below you will see some pictures of Coxen Hole and then the grocery store that Eric and I are lucky enough to get to go to every other week (and spend a small fortune). I just think it's an interesting way to show you the incredible range that you can find here between wealth and poverty, 1st and 3rd world.

Pictures of the main road in Coxen Hole:

 Below is a picture of Eric buying a fan at one of the stores in Coxen Hole. So far this fan is our most prized possession - it is a life saver!

And then, up the street a bit you will find Eldons, a grocery store that you may find anywhere in the USA. It's the longest I've ever been able get Eric to shop with me because he can cool down in the amazing air conditioning :)

Our first trip to West Bay

This past weekend Eric and I had an absolute blast! On Saturday we joined the Director of Development, Kelly, for lunch along with her husband, Luiz, and their son, Justin. Their house is beautiful - a small 2-bedroom cottage overlooking the ocean in Sandy Bay. Kelly cooked us a wonderful island style lunch with chicken, yams, and spinach. Afterwards we went for a walk on the beach and watched the dolphins jump and train at Anthoney's Key.

Saturday afternoon we took a water taxi over to West Bay. It's a beautiful area full of resorts - very much like Maui or any Hawaii resorts. We had dinner at a restaurant called Thirsty Turtle and listened to some great live music. We had a wonderful time until we tried to go home and found out a taxi back was going to cost $20! It didn't dissuade us too much though, we went back the next day because volunteers get to use the facilities there for free on Sundays. We can use the beach chairs as well as the pool (which, I must note, as a swim up bar). It's pretty nice - one day a week we get to feel like we are actually on vacation!

Otherwise, I don't have a lot of new information to update everyone with. Eric was feeling a bit sick on Sunday and did not go to work Monday, but he is now feeling much better and returned to work today. It's going to be a busy week for him - the other pediatrician took the week off for vacation so Eric will be running the show!

I don't have much else to fill you all in on right now. We have the day off at the clinic on Thursday, July 4th, so we are going to help at a carnival to raise money for the clinic. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures!