DAY 19 - 21/1/10 (finally got the dates correct)

Another day out on the mobiles, this time we rode about an hour and fifteen minutes out to Barranco. It's a smaller village with approximately 200 people. We pulled into the village, honking of course to let everyone know the doctors had arrived, and there were people waiting for us at the clinic grounds. Our team saw patients non-stop until 1:00pm in a very small, 3-room, sticky sweet aka HOT clinic! It was a lot of fun actually despite sweating through our scrubs. We saw children with colds and conjunctivitis, men with prostatitis and dizziness, and women who were pregnant, sick, or just needed some Ibuprofen, as well as the usual hypertensives and diabetics. Afterwards, one of the local homes made us a traditional Garifuna meal which consisted of (surprise, surprise) rice and beans plus chicken, fish and this dish called hudut - mashed up plantains that have been formed into a dough-like material served with coconut milk. Another tasty lunch. [Note... the Garifuna are one type of people that live down here in the villages. We've met Mayans, East Indians, Creoles, Menonites, and the Spanish.] The day was topped off by driving down to the coast off Barranco where the water was crystal clean and you could see all the way out to Guatemala. We had to grab a quick photo shoot and then piled back in the van for a rocky ride home. Another night of cooking together and the girls took over the living room and danced the night away to the Dirty Dancing movie... "Nobody puts Baby in the corner"!!

Yesterday was a blast of a day as well. The clinic was busier than ever and the afternoon was a special treat for me! Nurse Betty asked me anyone would go on a home visit with her to check out one of the elderly women who they thought might have "rectal bleeding". I jumped on the opportunity since the last home visit I ventured out on was a blessing in disguise! Directions to this lady's home went as follows: Go to the "Cool Spot (the name of any bar in town is called "so-and-so's cool spot" like Roy's Cool Spot or Carlos' Cool Spot or Wanda's Cool Spot), turn left at the first road after the cool spot. Turn right at the first road and she's across from the futbol field. Let me tell you there are four houses down that last little dirt road so we drove along hanging out the window and asking the locals if Miss Camella lived there or not. We found her though and she was not in good shape. Thankfully for me, she did NOT have rectal bleeding but she did have a pretty nasty urinary tract infection that might have attacked her kidneys this far in the game. So I equipped her with some antibiotics, changed her regular medications to proper dosages and eliminated the ones that I didn't think she really needed. We ran back to the pharmacy, loaded up the drugs, and headed back over. I'm not going to lie.. it was a little nerve racking to have full responsibility for this little old frail lady and have Nurse Betty just nodding her head to whatever I said. I'll head back over next week and in the meantime, cross your fingers that she gets better every day until then!! :) After the home visit, I headed to one of the schools and since most of the physicals were already completed, I just played with the kids and taught them how to use a stethescope to listen to their own hearts. JOY!

Here are the Kodak moments!