Honduras Day 6: Quebrada Honda

Wednesday 4 June, afternoon

Susan in the street outside Comipronil office. "You are not taking a picture of me in scrubs!" In addition to the hard work, we had time to hang out a little with Maira and with Christino, the tech trainer for Comipronil. While we worked Don Tim our fearless guide and guardian angel, spent the morning on his cell phone with Heifer's Tegucigalpa office, trying to get our travel nightmare unscrambled. At this point Toncontin airport was still closed, and we didn't know how we'd get home.

After lunch in La Esperanza we headed back up the mountain road one more time, to the church at Quebrada Honda (which I think means "broken water," eg whitewater?) where Comipronil has built what is essentially a public health office on land donated by the church. In the absence of government services the co-op is doing what it can to provide basic health programs like vaccination and prenatal checkups. The building has three rooms and a porch, which is a fourth room --the waiting room.

The first room is a little pulperia, the equivalent of a convenience store. The other two rooms are used for storage or whatever is needed. We did intake in the pulperia, dispensing in room 2, and the third room was the dentist's surgery.

There was no electricity.

Here's the natural light we were working in:

Here's the same room with flash exposure.

Again, low-tech works just fine.

Honduras Day 6 continued

[Photos (mostly) recovered from multiple sources, hallelujah]

More from the morning at Comipronil officeson Wednesday:
There's a patient's eye view of Susan yes that's a needle, move along squeamish people, and on the right is Loren's dispensing "window," two crates stacked in the doorway of Maira's office. The improvised yet entirely effective setups were a constant reminder that so much of what we consider minimum necessities are nothing of the sort.

Susan treated over 200 patients, many of them needing multiple extractions, with the following equipment: a lawn chair, a set of dental tools (all manual, no power), two plastic basins for the bleach bath, and novocaine. Oh and the high-powered flashlight. Meds for dental patients were ibuprophen and acetominophen, and occasionally a 7-day supply of antibiotics. (less than 10 of the latter were needed.)

Honduras Day 6: La Esperanza

[Until I recompile my photographs I can't upload anymore pictures, a hard drive has been sent to the hospital. No word yet on what can be recovered. The 'thousand words' will have to do.]

We spent the morning at the Comipronil offices in La Esperanza. Two tiny rooms: the door to Maira's office became Loren's dispensing window, and the other room became the dental surgery. we put the chair up on a couple of crates (we're learning) facing the doorway to the courtyard for a little extra light. This office had more or less reliable electricity so Susan tried the little irrigation pump she'd brought, but no go. Insufficient something.

We saw some astounding dental work today. People up the mountain have little access to any dental care -- the bus ride is over an hour and costs the equivalent of a week's wages - but folks here in town theoretically can go to the government clinics. We did see more fillings and fewer gaps. But from the expressions on people's faces, especially parents, I gather that the Clinic is not a nice place, nor are its practitioners schooled in reassuring patients. But they can do some fancy grillwork. One guy in his late twenties had gold stars inlaid in 6 of his top front teeth. Susan raised her eyebrows at that. When she complimented him he popped out the whole row, it was a plate. He told us that the clinic pulled all of his teeth. He seemed philosophical about it, but definitely not interested in going back there.

Honduras Day 5: Rio Colorado

Tuesday 3 June
We improved our customer service by Tuesday. Chair up on two benches so Susan didn't break her back, and I got to stand on the platform with the patient to hold the light. This was our longest day: Susan did over 60 extractions, I think. Whole families waited patiently for hours and hours.






Members of the agricultural cooperative made lunch for us in the church kitchen, a tiny wooden outbuilding across the road. This meal was extravagantly good: everything very fresh, hot off the stove, and delicious. Piping hot tortillas with fresh honey; a wonderful soup with potatos, platanos, squash, and chicken; and a hot drink made from crushed rasperries.
The stove they are using (the white plastered platform) is an eco-stove, a technology fostered by Heifer and now in use throughout its Latin American networks. This stove uses a fraction of the fuel needed by a traditional hogar (beehive oven), so it reduces deforestation, and labor - the women have to cut and haul all of the fuel -- and it heats better and is less dangerous than the traditional stoves, too.
Heifer is an amazing organization, projects and collaborations springing up everywhere. It really is driven from the bottom up. Its all about listening BEFORE asking questions. They don't walk into a place and "Identify The Need," they just show up and hang out, and listen. And people tell them what is needed. And Heifer helps them figure out how to do it.
Incidentally, I turned 44 on Tuesday. My colleagues gave me a package of chewable vitamins as a birthday present, so the "Old Lady" can keep her strength up.