First off, "cheque" may be the most frequently used word in Honduras. It can mean a combination of "okay," "done," or "yes," so basically, you can say it at the end of most sentences. Meaning it's very much caught on among our group and we say it incessantly because it's just so fun to say (pronounced check-ay).
I meant to write more frequently but haven’t had great
internet access and have been busier than I thought! Here are some updates from
the trip so far.
The first week of the trip flew by. The first couple of days
were spent traveling to el Corpus (our home base for three weeks), setting up
our clinic, and practicing our charlas (health education sessions). We then
divided into pairs or trios to spend three days in six different rural
communities. I went with Amy (4th year med student) and Adam (2nd
year med student) to Los Terreros, a small community a two-hour bus ride and then
a 1-2 hour hike from el Corpus. I was wondering
how I would deal with using latrines, taking bucket showers, and having spotty
electricity, but the rural life was pleasant, fun, and slower paced in a good
way. Don Alonzo, a local health promoter in his 60s kindly hosted us, and his
daughter cooked all of our meals, which were usually a combination of beans,
tortillas, cheese, plantains, and sometimes meat (except for one dinner when we
had spaghetti with ketchup-tasting sauce and tortillas… let’s just say the diet
here is NOT low carb).
 |
| Amy on the hike to Los Terreros |
Our first afternoon in Los Terreros, Amy, Adam and I walked
around town with Don Alonzo inviting women to our charlas. Every time we walked
up to a house, someone would pull out plastic chairs, instruct us to have a seat,
and chat for a while before eventually inviting them to charlas. This meant
that it took about three hours to talk to about 15 families, so I was a little
nervous that no one would show up to our charlas. But word travels fast in Los
Terreros, and about 60 women came to our charla sessions over the next two
days! We talked with them about nutrition, STIs, cervical cancer, family
planning, and domestic violence. One of the highlights was our condom demo, in
which we showed how to put a condom on an oversized plantain in front of a
group of giggling women. Overall, the women seemed interested and engaged in
the material, and asked good questions. HHA requires women to attend at least
two charlas in order to visit the clinic, so the charlas are a great way to talk
about health behavior and disease prevention before they actually receive
clinical services (yay public health!). I also conducted two interviews and a
focus group for my research project with women from the area which went well,
but were a bit shorter than I anticipated.
 |
| Don Alonzo's son-in-law Luis with his horse, Bonito |
 |
| Teaching a family planning charlas in Los Terreros |
We started our 6-day clinic the day after everyone got back
from their community stays, and our first day ended up being pretty intense but
in a good way. We had invited a smaller community to our first clinic day
expecting about 30 women, which would have given the second-year med students
more time to get used to medical interviews and doing pap smears. But when we
pulled up to the clinic in our chicken truck, over 80 women were lined up waiting
to be seen. From 8am to 7pm, we somehow managed to see everyone and by the end
of the day the second years were pap smear pros. As public health leaders, Erin
and my role during clinic week was to run the intake station and lead daily charlas
with patients who weren’t able to attend before coming to clinic. This job
ended up being pretty interesting because we got to interact with every
patient, learned to decipher and spell a lot of names we had never heard before
(when asked what their name is, Hondurans tend to say all four of their names together
really quickly and softly), and even learned how to take vitals. Wearing a
stethoscope is quite the power trip. Cleaning used specula (which we also learned
to do) is not. When we had downtime at the clinic, I was also able to squeeze
in a few interviews and one focus group with patients. Over the course of the
week, we saw about 300 women from eight different communities, a lot of whom
walked long distances in the heat to make it to the clinic. I’m so impressed that
so many women make time to take care of their health despite the fact that many
of them have a long way to travel, few resources, and are often taking care of
lots of small children.
 |
| The HHA group after day 2 of clinic |
After finishing the clinic, the group spent a couple of well-deserved
relaxing days in Amapala, an island off the Pacific coast of Honduras. For two
days, we ate seafood, played cards, laid in hammocks, swam, and enjoyed rum and
cokes and our Honduran beers of choice (Barena and Port Royal are my
favorites). We also hired a guide to take us to the top of the island, which
ended up being a pretty decent hike with an amazing pay-off at the top.
 |
| View from the top of Amapala |
Tomorrow and Friday, our small groups will return to our
communities to deliver results from pap smears and STI tests. I’m looking
forward to spending more time with our host family in Los Terreros, and am
hoping that most of the women will come to receive their results. On Saturday,
we’ll pack up all of our clinic supplies and will hold a meeting with the local
health promoters to talk about how the charlas and clinic went. Then Sunday, we’re
heading back to the States. The trip has flown by in some ways, but it also
feels a lot like a time warp because we’ve squeezed so much into a short amount
of time.
Many thanks to Amy for letting me use her pictures for this
blogpost! I accidentally left my camera battery in Corpus so wasn’t able to
upload mine. Also, if you have a chance, check out the official HHA blog, which Olivia has done an awesome job of updating frequently:
this was the opposite of my week
ReplyDelete