Medical Brigades and Medical Tests

Blog by Jessica

What’s up and what’s new? As usual – not too much!

October was a busy month! First, Brian went to La Esperanza to help out with a medical brigade. I stayed in town and taught my Educatodos classes everyday (that was a bit too much for me!! The kids stress me out!!). I was lonely without him, but I went to La Esp shortly after to help with the same brigade the next week. Brian went off to Tegucigalpa for his yearly medical exams (Peace Corps required). He checked out fine – no parasites, his very first cavity and he got a new pair of glasses! He returned to Colomoncagua, while I then went to Teguc for my checkups! There was a small issue on my way to Teguc – a bridge was flooded and I had to stay the night in Siguatepeque with some friends before we could all cross the bridge the next day to Teguc (this sounds so simple, but it was really a complicated affair while it was happening. I was on a bus on my way to Teguc and got stuck for a couple of hours in the city where the bridge was. I was told that I could walk across the bridge and wait for another bus there, but PC called me and told me that I should absolutely not cross the bridge by foot nor bus that day! Several calls – and hours - later between myself, Peace Corps and other volunteers I finally found myself in Siguat at Wendy’s enjoying a very large cheeseburger!) Back to the health news - I, too, am healthy – no parasites and two small cavities.

Since the rainy season is winding down – it just couldn’t go away without a BANG! We have been getting a lot of rain – La Esperanza was muddy and gross and sometimes flooded, bridges and levies couldn’t handle all the water, one Peace Corps volunteer was evacuated from her site, there are mudslides galore, and travel is restricted for us PCVs. Honduras was in a ‘state of emergency’ because of all the water and damage, but now I think the rain is done (or almost done, thank goodness) and we will enter the dry season. In March, I will start complaining about the heat and all the dust! The joke in town is that you wish for the rainy season when it’s dry and wish for the dry season when it’s wet!

The last week of October brought a medical brigade to our town. We helped out almost every day and went to several communities around our site.

Get this – I am living in a third world country, but we are currently sitting in a hotel in Tegucigalpa watching CNN American election news, eating Dominos pizza, while I am working on my laptop, and using wireless internet – amazing!