Semana Santa

Whew! What a busy last month it has been (yep, all my blog posts start this way). During the month of March Steffi and I pulled off our first Diabetes Day and Hypertension Day all by ourselves! The previous ones we had done with Melissa who was still training us at the time. On Diabetes Day we had four patients who needed IV fluids – if a patients blood glucose level is 300mg/dL or higher they get a liter of normal saline (yes, I realize this is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound but it's all we have). The point of this story is that I did one of them because I was anticipating a hard stick (she wasn’t) and I had Steffi do the others. Prior to coming to Honduras Steffi had never done an IV and had only learned how to do them in theory in nursing school so it’s a skill she’s been working on since being here and that we’ve practiced a lot together. She got all three of our patients IVs on the first try! I was so proud!

The end of March also brought Semana Santa (Holy Week). Semana Santa, for you non-Christian/Catholic folk, is the week following Palm Sunday and leading up to Easter Sunday. It’s a really fun and laid back time on the Ranch (for most people) because there’s no school, all the tios, tias, and employees leave for vacation time and the Ranch is taken over and run by the university students, high school students, and volunteers. However, prior to this mass exodus of adults, many of the children get the opportunity to go home and see their families. Sidebar – I should clarify a common misconception: I do not actually work at an “orphanage.” Some of the kids here are truly orphans and have no one else to care for them. However, many of these kids live at the ranch because they come from severe poverty and their families are not able to care and provide for them. Circumstances can vary greatly from child to child and family to family but the fact remains that many of them have families that they can go to visit.

During this time the ranch dwindles to about half it’s normal size and the kids that are left behind (either because they have no families or their family is too far away) get to go on an excursion. I got to go with my girls (11 of them anyway) on their excursion with the rest of Talita Kumi (the girls hogars). We went to a place that had man-made pool with waterfalls and waterslides that were created with water from a diverted river. It was really fun and the girls had a blast (this will be a picture heavy blog post because of this trip – too many smiles not to share them)! The first day it was cold and rainy. I had brought a warm fleece jacket and a hat to wear at night because people who went last year that it got really cold at night had told me and to bring warm clothes. I was very glad that I did! I remembered thinking, “with my Patagonia fleece, Arc’Teryx beanie, and Chacos I look like a Seattle REI add…in Honduras.” The cold and rain didn’t stop the girls (or the volunteers or the tias or the directors, Stefan and Ross) from getting in the water though. That night it rained so hard that Seattle would have been proud. Luckily we had a big room to sleep in so we stayed dry – felt just like a Girl Scout overnighter. The next day it was much nicer – sunny and warm! I was a good girl and wore my sunscreen and reapplied it 3 times during the day…and I still got sunburned. Supremely sunburned. I have never been so burnt in my life. My shins and chest both blistered over. Now that all my skin has peeled off it looks much better though.

Semana Santa also brought two more firsts for me – turnos! Wednesday night I did turno in hogar, which means I stayed the night with my girls. It was a really laid back night, we were all still tired from the excursion. We all watched a movie and then to bed we went. I think I got lucky though because I didn’t have to be the one to wake them up. I had to be in the clinic to work on Thursday at 7:30 and they didn’t have to be up till 8 so I got to sneak out and leave the waking up to someone else.

Friday night during Semana Santa I did my first turno in the clinic (essentially night shift). This was not nearly as much fun as turno in hogar. I am definitely the black cloud of the clinic. Just 3 hours into my turno I get a phone call and 30 seconds later a girl is brought in who fell out of a tree and is still unconscious. I think they’re trying to make me into an ER nurse. Luckily she started waking up and seemed neurologically intact. The nurse on call (not me, my backup) took her to the hospital while I stayed in the clinic. She spent the rest of the weekend at the clinic on observation but was completely fine. The rest of my night in the clinic was pretty uneventful. Mostly I just tortured myself looking at food on Pinterest.

Special shout-out to my mom and Patsy for sending me the best packages EVER!! I got them both yesterday and it was like Christmas in April. One of my coworkers recommended a book that she has called Where There is no Doctor (although her version is in German). I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s planning to practice nursing or medicine in a rural or primitive area or anywhere where medical resources are limited and you may have to make medical decisions. Anyway, when she recommended me this book I immediately found it on Amazon, took a screenshot of it and sent it to my mom. A month later – voila! So exciting!!

This place really is incredible absolutely incredible.

Enjoy the pictures! There's a lot this time...

Group of siblings from proyecto familiar a few weeks ago.

Show me your happy face! Making tortillas for baleadas.

I have no idea why she's making this face but it's definitely a Melissa face.

The trail I walk up to get to the internal clinic.

Norma and Salchicha (Sausage) at the external clinic.

Steffi and I making gauze to be sterilized.

Work weekend in hogar.

Working hard or hardly working?

My girls really like stealing my phone and taking pictures...

One of the youngest in my hogar.

Sonrie! Smile!

Sometimes...you just need some private time...in the bathroom...

Waiting for mass to start.

6am on the bus to the waterpark!

Our bus driver is ready. Just kidding she's only 16!

Loving the water :)

Thank goodness for waterproof cameras.

Claire going down the water slide.

Playing the dunking game.

Melissa, me, Allison, and Claire - 4 of the 5 volunteers on the excursion.

I love being in the water!

The nurses of the trip.

Sisters!

The floaty toys got a lot of use.

So pretty the second day when the sun came out!

Hanging out after a long day in the water.

Sleepover!

Exhausted girls.

Where we had dinner on the way home - Lago de Yojoa

So yummy!

Kiss the fishy!