Next Stop, Honduras!

Hello folks!

My Guatemala internship wrapped up very nicely with a weekend trip to Lake Atitlan, one of the most beautiful places in the world. I met up with Fernando and Jos at San Pedro, a popular town along the lake where we ate lots of delicious non-Guatemalan food, watched Euro Cup soccer, and did some serious relaxing. It was a wonderful weekend although I was sad to say goodbye to Jos and Fer.

Lake Atitlan

The office threw me a really lovely despedida (going-away party) on my last day of work where everyone brought in some kind of typical Guatemalan food to share for lunch. The highlights were tamales, guacamole, chiles rellenos, taquitos, refried beans and tortillas. I was so touched and surprised by the gesture and their kind words during the lunch. My plan is to stay in touch with the organization’s director to potentially continue working there next summer.

With Sonia, the organization's director (who also kindly housed me during my trip)

I flew home on June 15^th for a nice 10-day respite in North Carolina. I tried to make the most out of my time at home, finishing another draft of my Guatemala paper and getting ready for the Honduras trip, but I still had plenty of time for fun summer things like lying by the pool, eating barbecue, catching up on HBO shows, and sitting on the front porch with Patrick (a lot).

I left yesterday for a three-week trip to Honduras through a UNC organization called the Honduran Health Alliance (HHA). HHA is a student-run organization working to eliminate cervical cancer and create knowledge about and access to family planning resources in the developing world. Here’s the website if you’re curious: www.med.unc.edu/hha/

Each summer, a group of medical students spends three weeks in rural Honduras leading health education workshops for the local women. Supervised by UNC physicians, students also organize and run a week-long clinic for women, providing cervical cancer screening, family planning counseling and resources, and STI screening and treatment. My good friend Erin and I are this year’s public health leaders, and our role is to train the medical students in health education, facilitate educational sessions with Honduran women, help with clinic intake, and lead a training conference with local health promoters at the end of the trip.

I am also really excited because I have the opportunity to lead a qualitative study while I’m here to examine barriers and facilitators to contraceptive use as well as the role of men in reproductive decision-making. Five people on the trip have volunteered to help me with focus groups and interviews, and our plan is to conduct one focus group with men, one with women, and about 18-20 in-depth interviews with both men and women. It’s a lot to take on for a quick trip but hopefully we can pull it off! I will analyze and write about the data through a class I’m taking in the fall.

So far, everything has been going smoothly and I love the group! There are four leaders (two 4^th year med students and me and Erin), six rising 2^nd year med students, and five 4^th year med students. In about a week, we’ll be joined by three attending physicians who will help during our clinic week. We spent last night in Tegucigalpa and in a couple of hours will make the four-hour trip to el Corpus, the town that will be our home-base for the next three weeks. El Corpus is in the Department of Choluteca, close to the Southern border with Nicaragua. We’ll stay with host families there for most of the trip, but later this week, we’ll disperse to six rural communities near el Corpus to spend three days leading health education sessions with women about family planning, STIs, nutrition, and domestic violence. We’ll also help local health promoters publicize the clinic and encourage community members to attend.

I’m not sure what the internet situation will be like in el Corpus but I’ll try to post another couple of times before the trip is over!

Xelajú, how I love you!

Last week was fun-filled with a visit to another gay club (which sells beer for only 50 cents on Wednesdays!) as well as a going-away party for E, who just left Guatemala to study public health in the States (you go guuurl).

My wonderful coworkers at E's going-away party

This past weekend, I met up with Jocelyn and Fernando, two of my closest friends from when I lived in Guatemala in 2008-2009. I hadn’t seen them in almost three years and it was truly wonderful to catch up! I met up with Fernando in Antigua (he had been there for work) where we had a delicious coffee at a place appropriately called Fernando’s and we then set off for the 3-hour drive to Xela (aka Quetzaltenango, Guatemala’s second-biggest city). I had forgotten how beautiful the landscape is along the way, and also how windy the roads are.

Antigua

Despite the fact that I had completely interrupted their moving weekend (they’d just relocated to a second-floor apartment within the same complex), and the fact that they both work demanding full-time jobs and manage a Spanish school together, Jos and Fer were the best of hosts. Over the course of the weekend, they took me to some of my favorite haunts, Bajo la Luna (tapas and wine bar), King and Queen (bar), King and Queen (yes, again), Pool and Beer (another bar), and el Cuartito (coffee shop – see, I did more than just go to bars!). In the past three years a lot has changed. For example, King and Queen installed a mini stage and laser lights, Pool and Beer is more popular than it used to be, el Cuartito has added a new cuartito (room), and beer prices have noticeably gone up. But luckily, the things I most love about Xela have not changed at all! I ran into some of my favorite Xela characters which warmed my heart. I also got to meet some of the new crop of gringos at a potluck, many of whom are volunteers at Primeros Pasos, where I also used to volunteer. 

Jos and I at the rooftop potluck w/ view of Xela

Sunday was a particularly lovely day, as Fer invited me to a family lunch to celebrate his father’s 60^th birthday. I felt incredibly honored to be included in the lovely event along with four generations of the Cojulun family! We ate a delicious lunch, played with some seriously cute children, and enjoyed the piñata more than we’d like to admit.

Love this shot of Fernando's father and the grandkids

The six Cojulun siblings

Aren't they cute?

After the lunch, Jos, Fer and I did some serious relaxing and watched movies and ate cookies all evening.  But all good things must come to an end, and I took the early bus back to the capital on Monday.

On Tuesday, I accompanied one of my coworkers on a site visit to a clinic that participates in the organization’s STI/HIV sentinel surveillance program. The clinic’s mission is to better the lives of those living with and affected by HIV, and it also provides a host of medical and social services to vulnerable populations (female sex workers, people with scare resources, etc.) I spent the afternoon shadowing their lab technician and doctor, both of which were fascinating experiences. Working on the research side of things, it’s easy to feel removed/detached from the people you’re eventually trying to help and the health issues you’re addressing through your research. Even spending a few hours at the clinic was enough to remind me of why I’m working in this field, but also made me realize how much I still have to learn about the realities and lives of the people and health problems I am studying.

I have a few Guatemala-related items to recommend if anyone is interested:

1. Here’s a recent This American Life episode about a 1982 massacre in Dos Erres, Guatemala. It’s truly an amazing and heartbreaking story.
2. A longer, memorable New Yorker piece about a political conspiracy, the beginning of which happened when I was living in Xela. It reads like a thriller, and I totally want to write a screenplay about this story: 
3. Recent New York Times Magazine piece about Lake Atitlan, where I’m planning to spend the upcoming weekend.

Hasta pronto, patojos!