Trip #2

Being the second part of our trip. Btw this is an event only version. The theology will be discussed more later.

Also forgive the grammar errors. All of this was written on site and I was not worried about grammar.


H-Trip
March 24 2012
I woke up at 2:57 to dad trying to make the clock near our bed snooze, though it hadn't gone off. Turns out he heard my iPod and thought it was that clock. We got to the airport and checked in before I realized that I had forgotten my carry-on bag in the hotel. Fortunately I had taken my wallet, my iPod, and some headphones from it right before we left. We ate at burger king before we took off. The flight lasted 2 1/2 hours. We landed, ate at mcdonalds, and got ready for the next flight. The plane was really nice and they fed us so we got three breakfasts today xD. After we landed we met up with the BMDMI head dude for the hospital and his wife, along with three interpreters. We waited at the airport for 3 hours or so as other team members arrived. This took that long because one of the flights was delayed by two hours due to a very strange occourance. After boarding the plane they were told that there was some problem with the nose cap. After two hours of waiting the were finally alerted that the problem had been solved with, of course, duc tape. The nose of their plane was held together with duc tape! Anyway, during the time we waited we got lunch at McDonald's. As soon as everyone had arrived we went over to pizza hut and ate another lunch (yes that is 5 meals so far). After that everyone loaded on the buss and we navigated streets that made New York look tame. There appeared to be no traffic signals, but somehow we got out into the country and drove three hours to our final destination. Once there we unpacked and settled in. Then, after a dinner of some rice and meat thing, we got briefed and took a quick tour of the hospital. Bed shortly followed.

March 25 2012
Not much happening today. Got up at 6:45 and spent a while after breakfast trying to work the tech. We went to church this morning and listened to a Spanish sermon, but they had a translator. Today we see no patients because it's Sunday. After a lunch of nachos we started pumping some pills. We sorted, counted, bagged, and bottled medicines from 12:30-20:30 at night with a break for dinner that lasted about an hour and a half. We played some frisbee during that time and it rained while we stood on a little watch tower thing. From then on we just chillaxed. It's 22:13 right now. Oh, one other thing, someone saw a coral snake today! They are very poisonous and can kill with a single bite so I hope I don't run into one xD.

March 26 2012
We woke up at the regular time (6:45) and took a bus, after breakfast, to Talanga nearby and set up a hospital. I worked as a pharmacist and distributed like 500 packs of pills. xD after about 8 hours we stopped for the day. I'll give you the basic thing that happens to the patients. First they fill out "una tarjeta," which means a card. Each card has the patients height, weight, age, and stuff like that for the doctors on the front, and on the back is a list of all out medicines with check boxes next to the name. Ok, back to the patient's experience... They get their blood pressure taken and sent to the doctors. After the doctor sees them and checks the correct medicines they take their tarjeta to me and the farmicia crew. Basically I take their card, grab the medicines that are checked, and say something like "esto es para usted" or "estos son tuyos". The first version is more polite. You would be surprised at how many patients don't say thanks after they get their medicine. We finished and ate dinner and played some frisbee and games. Then we cooked some utensils to sterilize them.

March 27 2012
Woke up again at the regular time. Again I went to telanga to work as a pharmacist. It's pretty awesome, now that I have been doing it for two days I started to be able to check other people's trays and give my own out with out having to check it with the head honcho. We got back and ate a dinner of enchiladas. After dinner we talked for a while and went to bed at about 23:00.

March 28 2012
Got up and ate breakfast. Then we talked about the day and other stuff. Today I am gonna go to Telanga (surprise, surprise) and be a pharmacist again. The trip out is always interesting. We will pass these little shacks with shingles falling off and stuff and on top of EVERY shack is a "claro" wifi dish. It's humorous. We distributed medicines until lunch. After lunch we went out on a house visit and bought a lot of EXTREMELY MEGA SOUR candies which we fed to a bunch of people off the street to see their reaction xD it was hilarious, one started to do some sorta dance from the mega sour part, a lot of people tried to be polite and not freak out and pretended like they liked it. After we got back we just hung out till dinner, and after dinner we chilled till bed.

March 29 2012
We went to a different place today; a small school near by. We saw patients till lunch and ate a picnic at a marble mine. To get to the mine you must go on a trail that would be easy for a jeep, but for a school bus it was nearly impossible. Actually we had to get out an walk for one section to take some weight from the bus. After lunch we went back to the hospital and played four square and dodgeball until diner.

March 30 2012
We are headed to the valley of angels today. There we did some shopping. After that we went to a orphan's home run by BMDMI. All the kids were lacking attention and basically mobbed us. It started out nice, then we started to play soccer. NOT A GOOD IDEA!! They were wild and played by crazy rules. I told the girls on the sideline my name when they asked and they started chants and stuff with it. For some reason they kept telling me that I had to hit the ball with my feet instead of my hands... xD All the kids loved my accent and especially how I said "benjamin" and "soy americano". The kids all lacked attention and were very wild. One little fellow just ran up and slugged me in the gut. Another was testing out his water balloon throwing abilities. The game ended 1-1. After we left the kids place we went to a mission home. The place was really nice. After a dinner of beef and potatoes we watched some videos of BMDMI and our trip slideshow. When we finished that we went up to a balcony and talked for a while. People were trying to figure out all sorts of questions like if short-term mission trips are useful and what if what we just did is only a temporary bandage and not fixing any problem. During one of the prayers suddenly God told me something to say and apparently knew I wouldn't do it on my own so after the prayer was over the guy kinda running it pointed right at me and said something to the effect that I have been pretty quiet so far. It was pretty cool. After we finished the talk I looked at all 2111 pictures that were taken and went to bed.

March 31 2012
We fly out today. Breakfast was at 7:00 and I had five omelets that tasted really good. When breakfast was over we drove out to the airport. At one point the road disappeared over the edge of a cliff where an avalanche had ripped out a hole. We avoided the pit. The trip took a few hours and we got to the airport at 9:30 or so. My bag almost was left behind but fortunately was put into the ambulance and showed up. The runway that we will be leaving from is one of the most dangerous in the world so hopefully we survive... We took off by going to the very end of the runway (and I mean the VERY end) then they turned the jets on and kept the brakes on until the engines were going fast. They released the brakes and we shot away! It still took almost all the runway to take off but it was very fun xD. We arrived in Houston at about 4:00 and prepared for our next flight which left at 7:30, 25 minutes late. Got into Minneapolis and eventually got to our hotel where we quickly realized that I was more sick then anyone else had thought. We went to McDonald's for a midnight snack at 12:05 and went to bed at 12:30. The major difference between Honduras and USA can be summed up by two sentences: I saw only two stop signs in Honduras. No one stopped for either.

Trip stats:

1337 total patients

4119 prescriptions total

I probably filled somewhere between 40-60% of the prescriptions.

Total miles traveled: a large number