la vida

new blog site

2008-09-14T11:23:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I've created a new blog site. Please start checking in at www.anniekautza.blogspot.com for new posts. I from now on will be using that one.

Thanks, and happy reading.

annie

An Escape

2008-09-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

I decided to escape from the Ranch this morning for a little bit – I needed to get away. Any volunteer would agree that if you spend an extended amount of time on the Ranch, without even getting away into the city for an evening, you will eventually go crazy. I find it difficult when I can’t get out of the Tegucigalpa area. It’s the feeling of being trapped, and never truly being able to get away from work. Living and working in the same place wears a person out. I have had a rough couple of weeks – the last several days have been exceptionally difficult. So, I decided to go into the city today to get a nice cup of coffee, hit up the grocery store, and try to forget about the worries that have been bringing me down.

I was really looking forward to some oh-so-badly-needed alone time, time when I didn’t have to think about anybody else – just myself; didn’t have to talk to anybody else – just be alone. I haven’t had that for a long time. It’s often hard to find a place here where you can really escape, and just be alone, and I’m a person that really needs that for my own sanity (unless you climb up into the mountains, which is a great option every once in a while).

So, I’m in the city and on my way to get coffee at Espresso Americano, the Starbucks of Central America, and there’s a marching band in the central park. September 15th is Independence Day here, so today there were parades all over the place. Junior highs and high schools get really into it, and there are bands and drum lines ALL over the place – marching down highways and everything. It’s fantastic! So, I decided to get my coffee and pastry to go, and went to sit in the park to watch the band. Oh, what hilarious memories it brought back of our high school marching band.

So much for alone time though – completely unaware of the fact before I sat down, I parked myself right next to a young homeless woman on the steps in Parque Central. The whole time I sat there she stared at me, and asked me for money. So, I handed over a couple Lemps. She continued to ask for my coffee, for my pastry, for more money. It becomes draining when every time you turn around, there is somebody asking for something, and it’s just simply impossible to constantly give to anyone that asks. At least for me. I know there are people out there that can, but I am not one of them. When on the Ranch, it’s the kids asking for simple things like sugar (they eat it straight up, right out of their palms), salt and hot sauce to put on their green, non-ripened mangoes, asking for a soda, or asking for your food as you’re walking away from the kitchen with your dinner in hand (although they’re scheduled to eat their own dinner in about 10 minutes). When I’m in the hospital, countless people ask for money so they can pay for medications, or pay for tests, or purchase food because they’ve been living in the hospital for months with their ill child and therefore unable to work (which includes them sleeping on a hard, cold, insect-ridden floor), or asking for money in order to pay the fee for not being able to donate enough blood before having surgery (surgery in the public hospital is free, you just have to find typically three people to donate blood prior to the operation). When in the central park, it’s homeless people asking for money, food or drink. It’s having to guard your backpack at every moment so nobody sneaks into it to steal money - and us foreigners are great targets for that. You know, one person can only give so much…

I had finally just had about enough of being pestered while sitting outside, that and the sun had started to burn my skin, that I was about two seconds from standing up to walk back to the coffee shop, where I could sit in peace and get a little reading done. Where I knew that I’d be able to just be alone, where I wouldn’t have to worry about anybody but me (that sounds kind of selfish, no? whatever.) Well some guy comes up to me and asks if I know where the immigration office is. His passport was stolen and needed to fill out paperwork to get a new one. Well, that very simple conversation turned into him sharing his whole life story with me – about growing up in Beirut, about being taken away from his parents due to physical abuse, about living in orphanages. About being a genius and finishing his bachelor’s degree at 15 years old, and self-teaching himself calculus and Latin. About his diagnosis of autism. About his friend that is working at an orphanage and cries herself to sleep every night. About how he was in a casino in San Pedro Sula, and since he’s amazing at blackjack, he was eventually kicked out of the casino after winning something crazy like $40,000. And just in case I didn’t believe him, he pulls out his blackberry to show me a photo of the wads of lempira he had won. And just in case I didn’t believe that, he pulls out his laptop from his backpack (not smart to do in central park, especially after just having been mugged in San Pedro). I warned him he probably shouldn’t pull that out, but he insisted, and showed me more photos of the $100 bills he had deposited to his newly created bank account.

He then goes on to tell me of his account in the US Embassy yesterday. So he walks in, says he needs to get a new passport. I forget the exact details of what went down, but in the end, he said he was being treated horribly by the folks at the embassy, since his roots are from the middle east, and it was September 11th. The woman asked him how he knew English so well, and his response was, “Well, underneath the mud huts we live in in Beirut, we have an underground network where we all learn English”. He went on about how he told her they also have to ride camels around the city, since they have no cars. Hilarious.

So, unfortunately, today was not the peaceful, relaxing day I was hoping for. The day when I could forget about all the cares in the world. The day I could forget about the widespread poverty in developing countries, the poverty that so many people don’t know about. When I could forget about the tragedies our children have faced before coming to NPH. A day when I could get away from the daily struggle of having to prove myself, a foreign nurse, to certain physicians here. Having to constantly defend myself and my knowledge of caring for HIV positive children. When I could wipe from my mind the inequalities in health care in developing countries – forgetting about the lack of access the poor have to even basic health care services. And when they do have access, the hospitals are so overcrowded with patients, and understaffed in highly educated health care professionals, making it an extremely slow process to even diagnose patients and get them adequate treatment – as we’ve experienced recently with our child that finally just got out of the hospital after being admitted for just five days shy of two months.

To touch on the comment of having to defend myself and my knowledge of treating HIV positive children…I just finished reading the book Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder, an amazing tale of Dr. Paul Farmer and his mission to treat infectious diseases in impoverished and underserved areas. In the final pages there was a great statement, which really struck me, and relates to my work here over the past weeks. “If you spend all your time arguing about that stuff, defending yourself, you don’t get your work done”. Amen. Especially within this past week, this has been a huge struggle for me. Starting back before I came back down to Honduras for my second year as a volunteer, I began reading up on HIV treatment, especially for children. I read a lot about holistic care for HIV positive kids and adolescents. I knew that I was in for an incredibly tough year, as I would take on the challenge of being the “health care manager” if you will, for our, at that time 23 positive children. I had no actual training in taking care of them before I got down here. What I knew was what I read, and from the minimal experience and interactions I had with them my first year. So, I really pushed myself into figuring it all out on my own, piecing things together by asking several doctors with incredible experience in the area for input on topics as they came up. I’m by no means and expert in HIV, but I’ve at least got a great base. And, I’d be the first to admit I didn’t know something if I truly didn’t have the answer. It’s frustrating when I’m working with another physician, with very minimal experience in treating positive kids, and my input is just not welcome because the physician can’t accept that yes, maybe I am competent. When I spend all of my energy trying to defend my own knowledge and experience, in order to assure that the children receive the best care possible, and I still fail, it takes time away from getting anything productive done. And that’s hard for me to accept.

So then, on a brighter note, I did enjoy some time watching and listening to the band in central park (although I got a nice sunburn after sitting there for another 45 minutes listening to that guy's story). They were pretty impressive. Not only did they march in small formations (there were probably only about 30 of them), but they also were dancing, Latino style, while playing their instruments. I mean, I can’t even dance like that when I’m not playing an instrument. I can’t imagine how ridiculous I’d look if I were trying.

I finally felt some peace and relief when I was back on the Ranch in the evening, for a fantastic thunderstorm. It was even more calming when we lost power, and all I had to do was just sit and read by candlelight and listen to the rain pounding on the roof. Ahh, I miss these storms.

Medical Frustrations

2008-09-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

You’re wondering where the photos are from my vacation? Well, unfortunately, they don’t exist. My vacation was canceled due to a ridiculous amount of work that needed to be accomplished in a short amount of time. I’m over it.

The child I mentioned in the last post, remains hospitalized. Going on week number seven now. Just within the past week they have finally come up with a diagnosis, and have started a pretty intensive treatment for him. He’ll remain in the hospital for at least another two weeks, as he requires some pretty serious IV medications. The poor kid has had just about enough of the hospital by now, and all of our nurses from our clinic that have been going in to care for him day and night are drained. The nurses from the hospital are wiped as well. I’ve been pretty much living in the hospital with him for the past several weeks – just to be around to talk to the doctors and take care of sending different tests to different labs. Unfortunately they have had to do several tests for him that they are unable to perform right there in the hospital. So that leaves us running all over the city in taxis and buses with blood work and other types of samples, to find labs that are able to do them for us.

Being the one responsible for coordinating his case on our end, has proven to be both physically and emotionally draining. He obviously is pretty sick, and it’s been difficult watching him deteriorate. You can also tell he’s 13-years-old by the way he acts. To put it nicely – he’s a punk. Often times won’t listen to what anybody tells him. Gets mad when the nurses have to put IVs in him. Then once they’re in, he pulls them out. One might say it seems as though he enjoys making life difficult for others – more than likely stemming from inner anger. So, as we all fight for his life, he fights against us. He says he doesn’t want to die, yet won’t cooperate with the medical tests and treatments. The thing is that he usually gives in after some time of resisting. It’s draining for us to keep on insisting to get him to do even the simplest of things, example – to take his medications. Everything has to be explained 100% correctly to him before he’ll agree to anything. Whenever he arrived to do whatever type of exam, and just one little thing hadn’t been explained, he’d refuse to have it done. We’d take him to tests up to three times before he’d agree. I know, sounds ridiculous, right? There were many moments when we just wanted to give up – just tired of fighting with him. But, we knew what giving up meant. They had to take him to the OR to do some more tests – oh, he didn’t like that. After I spent much time explaining to him what they would do and why they had to do it, and what the consequences were if he didn’t let them do it, he finally agreed – until about 10 minutes before they were ready to take him. He wigged out big time – we ended up having to pin him down to give him IV valium to relax him enough to get him to surgery.

It gets better. Just after I gave him the valium (while he has a look of terror on his face, telling me to stop shooting him up because he doesn’t want to die – that broke my heart into about 1000 pieces), the surgeon tells me that we’ll have to wait to be last to enter the OR, because the child has a blood-borne disease and they don’t want to infect the OR. Fine. But I had already broken down once after I shot him up with Valium, I wasn’t looking forward to doing that again (I was beyond exhausted – this all happened at 8pm, and I’d been up since 4am with him). So we sit around for 3 hours, and finally we’re told that they aren’t going to operate on him at all. Well que bella. There were a couple possible reasons running through my head – 1) Surgical team is afraid of contracting HIV during surgery, or 2) Surgeon wants to make more money on the surgery, and for that reason offered to operate the following morning at a private hospital. Really, either could be true. However, the surgeons excuse was excuse #1. We didn’t leave the hospital that night until midnight.

So, we take him to the private hospital in the morning, the surgery went fine. He was in recovery, waking up. The surgeon comes in and tells me that he hadn’t, until this very moment as he was flipping through the chart, seen the CT results. The surgeon was aware, prior to surgery that he was operating because of the results we had gotten back from that CT. Then, as he hands me the tissues samples he retrieved during surgery (not even the correct samples that were supposed to be retrieved based on those CT results), I notice the samples weren’t put into the correct solution. This meant that the pathologist in the lab was not going to be able to perform half of the tests that were ordered by the specialists in the hospital. Due to a prior error of the same nature with another one of our children, I had spoken directly to the pathologist at the lab, and he told me step by step what needed to be done with the samples. I had explained that to the surgeon in complete detail. It really was not that complicated. I guess it went in one ear, and right out the other. The specialists were NOT pleased with that news.

What a long and complicated history for this poor kid…he’ll be hospitalized for at least another 2 weeks.

About a week and a half ago, we heard news of a pretty serious car accident that three volunteers and a teacher from our school had been in. They were on their way to Danli for the weekend, as the town prepared for its Festival de Maiz. They were hitchhiking, as volunteers here tend to do (it’s quite common in Honduras for people to travel in the back of pickup trucks). They were all thrown out of the back, as the driver lost control going around a mountain curve. Everybody pulled through – nobody came out with extremely serious injuries. Lots of broken bones, large abrasions, broken tendons and ligaments and gashes. Luckily, another driver that passed just after the accident picked them up and brought them into the city, about a 45-minute drive. Good thing one of the volunteers is a nurse from our clinic, a dear friend of mine, therefore she’s somewhat familiar with the hospitals in Tegucigalpa. She overheard somebody in the truck say “bring them to Hospital Escuela” which is the underfunded, under equipped public teaching hospital. She quickly responded negatively to that, and insisted they be brought to a private hospital. All are now either back at the Ranch, or at home with their families, recovering.

Hello all.

2008-07-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

It’s been a relaxing weekend here on the Ranch. Following a pretty intense week, this tranquillo weekend was just what I needed. One of our HIV children was admitted to the hospital last Thursday. I spent a good thirteen hours at Hospital Escuela (public hospital in Teguc) with him that day, going to various consults, and then waiting hours in the ER with him, just waiting for a bed to open up for him upstairs. Finally, at 6:00pm, they took us up. We didn’t get out of the hospital that night until 6:40, and the last bus we can catch to get back to our home passes around 7pm. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the point to catch that bus until 7:20, so obviously we missed our chance for the bus. Thanks to a friendly ambulance driver who happened to pass us on the side of the road, we ended up hitchhiking back home in the back of an ambulance – lights on and everything. It was fantastic. Friday morning, bright and early, I was back at it again – went back to the hospital to take care of the kid during the day. (At the hospitals here, they don’t allow family members to stay overnight with the children. Everybody is kicked out, and then required to come back early in the morning.)

As much as I don’t enjoy being in the public hospitals in the city, it is good to be able to go every once in a while. It really brings me back to the reality of where I am. Sometimes while I’m on the Ranch, so isolated from the real Honduran life, I often forget about the life that the majority of the people in this country live.

Friday night, all of the volunteers were going out for dinner and dancing in Teguc, as a welcoming party for the new group of volunteers that came just two weeks ago. Earlier in the week I was really looking forward to going out, however, when the time came, I was just too wiped to even think of going out. I ended up coming back to the Ranch, and fell asleep by 8:00. Lame. In bed by 8:00 on a Friday night…

One of my jobs while I’m back is to help get the support groups we started last year for our HIV positive children up and running again. Since I left in March, a couple of the groups haven’t been meeting on a regular basis. A couple weeks ago we started meeting with our oldest group, and are working on developing their program a little more. The young adults that partake in the group have shown a lot of interest in getting it going again, and a lot of motivation for taking more responsibility for the groups. This is a huge success for us, since a couple of them have been our most difficult children over the years, in terms of getting them to take their meds, and in terms of their overall behavior. Some of them had been pretty closed off before we started the groups, but we’ve seen huge changes in their attitudes lately. It means the world to me to see these kids opening up like they are. I miss working so closely with them like you can’t believe. These kids have really become the motivation for the work I do.

In just a short two weeks, I’ll be taking off for vacation with a good friend, Tara, the current volunteer nurse in the clinic. We’ll be traveling to Cayos Cochinos, a group of little Garifuna islands on the northern coast. I’ve never been more excited for such a badly needed vacation before in my life!! I’ll make sure to post some photos upon our return!

Where else but here?

2008-07-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

It all starts with the closing of the Tegucigalpa airport following a plane crash a couple weeks ago. This airport closing leads all of the incoming international flights to San Pedro Sula, a large city about 4.5 hours north of the Ranch. The flights typically get in after sunset, making it too dangerous to drive all the way to our home that same night.

I had made reservations at a nice bed and breakfast for just $25. Looked nice on the internet, and comes with breakfast. Perfect. They originally had written to me promising to pick me up at the airport, especially since I was getting in late. Very nice of them. The day before I left home, I received the disappointing news that their son was having his birthday party that evening, so they would no longer be at the airport. Ok, shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll just get a cab from the airport. It’s definitely not favorable for a white girl to get into a cab by herself after dark, but I was confident it would be fine.

Once we boarded the plane in Miami, we were informed that it would be at least half an hour until take-off, as the inspection revealed that one of their tires was below regulation on the treads. Ok, fine…what could a half an hour hurt? It turned into about a 1 hour 15 minute wait, making us land in San Pedro at the same time three other planes landed. Now, this airport is by no means equipped to handle this increased flow of travelers, as it generally is not the main point of entry into the country. So it took a good hour to get through customs, making it pretty late by the time I was ready to take off for the hotel.

I get outside the airport, a man asks if I need a taxi, we settle on a price, and off we go to find his taxi. We come upon a tinted window SUV – his own personal vehicle, by no means a taxi. However after hauling 125+ lbs of luggage all the way to that car, there was no way I was going to turn around and go look for a different taxi. Lazy, I know. So I hop in, and try to direct this guy to the hotel. It also was not a bonus for me that the airport in San Pedro is in the middle of nowhere – a ways out of the city. So we turn down a rather dark street, and I start praying like I’ve never prayed before that I was actually en route to my hotel. I made small talk with the driver, as I somehow tried to get him on my side. I found out he’s actually been to Iowa, and from that moment on I had high hopes that he was a well-intentioned man, just trying to make a living using his personal vehicle as a taxi. My prayers had been answered when we were coming closer to the lights of the city, and I saw some familiar sights.

The hotel was nice, the couple really sweet. They had A/C and hot water – so one last night of living in “luxury”. The amazing breakfast that was advertised turned out to be toast and cream cheese, but it was good enough. I wasn’t going to be picky. The owner of the hotel and I then jumped in the car to head to the bus terminal to ship me in the way of NPH. After trying to get his car started for several minutes, it finally purred like a lion and shook like nobody’s business, and off we went.

All goes well on the bus, until we get within 30 minutes of Teguc, and I wake up to the attendant informing everybody that they do not know what the problem was with the bus, however it was clear to them that they could not continue driving the bus under those circumstances. I was happy I was completely oblivious to what was going on since I was so knocked out from the previous day of travel. They had called for another bus that should arrive within the next hour to take us into the city. I was relieved to know that they were smart enough to stop driving knowing something was wrong. That last half hour into the city is a pretty curvy one, with some pretty steep drops off the mountain side. Not the place I’d want the bus to break down at. So, we sat there for approximately 20 minutes, and all of a sudden we start moving again. Either they figured out what the problem was and were able to take care of it, or decided they just didn’t care anymore and wanted to risk it and just get to Teguc already. Collectively, the majority of bus passengers do the sign of the cross, and pray for the best. Ahh, we finally arrived in one piece.

As I prepared for my return to Honduras, there was quite the mix of emotions running through my system. I was beyond excited to be returning to my second family here at NPH, whom I have missed dearly for the past couple months…looking forward to that moment when I step into the home of the children I have worked with over the past three years, and get to see all of their smiling faces, and I willingly have to accept the fact that I soon will be mauled by fifty children with sticky fingers and dirt covered clothes from a long afternoon of playing outside. There’s nothing in the world more satisfying than seeing those beautiful eyes light up when they see that an ex-volunteer has returned to spend some time with them. Then come the hugs and kisses, and shortly they’re off playing again.

So, there’s that excitement, but also the realization of just how much work needs to get in such a short amount of time. I think I could live here year round, and not even make it half way through my “to dos”. As life goes, you start one large project, and 20 smaller ones develop out of that, and then there are those urgent cases that just need to be dealt with as they pop up.

When I finally made it to the Ranch after two long travel days, as we pulled up to the gate, a feeling of pure joy rushed through me, and a smile came upon my face, knowing I was “home” once again. It has been raining quite frequently down here lately, so the entire country side is all shades of greens, and just beyond beautiful. As we live in the woods in the mountains, you could imagine just how incredible it is.

It didn’t fail, just a short three hours after arriving I had already been sucked into work in the clinic. The health care coordinator here wanted to jump right into our meeting we had planned to have at some point during my first week. I managed to at least put that off until my brain was in a functioning state.

We currently have some pretty serious things happening with some of our children, and some organizational frustrations within the clinic (nothing too out of the ordinary). So, it sure has been a busy and stressful week already. Thirty five hours in three days. Not too bad.

I have spent the past two days in the city at the public hospitals with one of our youth. Oh, how I missed them! They really have become my second home. It was nice though to get to see some of the doctors and nurses that I’ve worked with over the past year and a half in the hospitals.

So, there you have it. I’ll do my best to keep this updated with the latest.
Miss you all.
Lots of love,
Annie

Off to Honduras and El Salvador

2008-06-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

The time has come for me to take off for Central America again. I leave tomorrow morning, and will be in Honduras for two months, and El Salvador for another month. At this point, my plans are to return home mid-October.

I have an incredible amount of work ahead of me, as I try to assist the clinics in the implementation of the NPHI Health Policy. This includes working on updating all of the vaccinations for all of the children, collecting data on growth of the children to do nutritional/health assessments, and working on other organizational tasks, and some public health issues. In Honduras I'll be working extensively with the nurse that took over the health management for the HIV positive children, as we try to strengthen the support groups, and make them more sustainable.

So, please do keep in touch. I'll do my best to respond to all emails. My cell number while down there is (if calling from the States) 011.504.33.18.88.73. This number will work until the beginning of September, which is when I leave for El Salvador. I'll have to get a new phone that will work once I am there. Feel free to call any time! I'd love to hear from you.

Peace - Annie

An overview of the rest...

2008-06-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

As a result of time restraints, unfortunately I haven't been able to get all that I want to post here about the immigration raid in Postville. So, I've decided to finally just make a final post on this matter for now.

Thursday and Friday evenings, I went to Postville to assist with the families that had congregated at St. Bridget's Catholic Church. The first night I was there, as soon as we arrived I was directed to assist in a telephone call, where I was to take down all of the names of the men, women, and young adults. At this point, all of the detainees were being shipped out of Waterloo to county jails across the state. My job was to take the names and birthdates of those that had been sent to Dubuque - about 20 individuals, one of them just 16 years old.

The team of volunteers that I was working with was trying to establish a list of all detainees, and to figure out where everybody had been sent to, so they would be able to let family members at least know what had happened to their loved one that had been taken away from them.

That evening I also was assisting in the free clinic they had running out of the church. We saw several women that had been detained, and then released on "humanitarian grounds" - one woman who was breastfeeding her baby, and other woman that were released because their husbands had also been detained, and nobody was left to take care of their children back at home. One woman's case stuck out to me - she was a known diabetic, who hadn't been using her insulin for quite some time because she had run out. She came in with blood sugars off the charts, and a developing wound on her ankle from the tracker bracelet that had been placed on her foot when she was released. It was frustrating and disappointing to see that ICE has been saying they are taking care of all needs for these people, including health care, and then to see cases like this. It is obvious this woman's case had been neglected. Foot wounds for diabetics can turn into pretty serious things, especially if your blood sugars are so out of control, like that woman's were, and I'm sure will continue to be when her insulin runs out the next time.

Friday night when I went back, my task was to work with the family member/friend that was looking for a detainee, go through the database to figure out where they had been sent, to let them know when their first court date was, what the charges were, when their second court appearance would be, who the judge is, and the name of their lawyer. We also spent time with families updating the database we had with their personal info - names, contact numbers, etc - which would then help the people at the church contact their family if something came up. We also worked with the people to help them fill out the necessary paperwork, in the event that they be detained as well, they would at least have the chance to be represented by an immigration lawyer. We also helped them to fill out paperwork to allow the families to get passports for the children who were born in the US, therefore legal citizens. They assisted with this so their children would be allowed to travel across the borders.

My sister and I were able to participate in several of the different prayer services and demonstrations, if you will, that took place that week in Waterloo. We attended a prayer service at Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Waterloo, which was followed by a procession out to the National Cattle Congress. This service and procession was to raise national awareness of what had taken place, and to let people speak out and share their story.

We heard several very touching stories from women that had been detained, as they stood beside their children, scared of what the future had in store for their families.

Postville is expecting to lose half of their community due to this raid. One-third of the children will be taken out of the school system. Several stores around town will be closed. Many other community members will become unemployed due to the decreased number of community members.

This is all I have time for. I could go on and on. But I'll end it here. Keep these people in your thoughts and prayers. The Catholic Church in Postville is still looking for financial assistance for these families, as well as for donations of all sorts, if anybody has the desire to get involved and provide some assistance for these people.

Day Two - At the National Cattle Congress

2008-05-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning, we arrived at 9am at the Cattle Congress, to meet up with the immigration lawyers to assist with the initial consultations with the detainees. There we sat until 10:30 just inside the gate, as ICE was trying to figure out what to do with us. Our team consisted of 16 individuals – six immigration lawyers and ten others who were there for assisting in interpreting and filling out legal paperwork. My brother-in-law's sister and I were the only ones present who had never been involved with anything like this before – most of the others work closely with immigrants and immigration policy on a daily basis, and were just amazing people all around. So, we felt a little out of place, but we survived and a lot of learning took place.

The first part of our morning was spent filling out the legal paperwork for the attorneys, but after that, things were quite slow. We were just waiting around for the ICE officials to let us begin seeing the clients. The attorney for ICE was in and out of our trailer several times that morning, and at one point had told the lead immigration attorney that the detainees were already being interrogated inside, trying to get them to confess and incriminate themselves, without the chance to be represented. The immigration lawyers were pretty agitated that the rights of the detainees to have access to their lawyers prior to the questioning had been denied.

One woman that was also present as an interpreter, came back from a bathroom break, looking rather shocked, and on the verge of tears. While she was exiting the building, the guards instructed her to stop moving, as she had to wait for a group of detainees to be marched in. They walked in with handcuffs and shackles on their feet - hands and feet chained together. All of the men were chained to one another. Looks of terror, despair, fear, and confusion on their faces.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, the lead attorney that we were working with told us the investigation had taken an unexpected turn, and that the detainees were now being turned over to the feds, as they were being charged for federal crimes (identity theft), and they were no longer being charged for immigration violations. The immigration lawyers were not going to be given access to the detainees, so we packed up and headed home. As we were leaving, the FBI was heading into the hall that had been set up for questioning, located just across from the trailer we had been working out of all morning.

During the time we were there that morning, not once did I see a detainee myself. It was easier emotionally for me this way I suppose - as I didn't have to actually see the faces of those fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives, who are ready to lose everything. However, I woke up that morning with a drive inside me to do some good - to be able to be the voice for these people who at that moment were voiceless, and we ended up not being able to do anything. We met some amazing people that day, who have fought for the rights of immigrants for years. When we arrived that morning, they were going over with us the questions we should ask the detainees - things about how they've been treated, any medical issues they have, how they came to the states, if anybody helped them - if they had to pay somebody money to bring them across the border, and if they were still paying off that debt.

The attorneys and others present explained to us that there were many signs pointing to illegal human trafficking that had been going on - the fact that this plant used to be mainly Mexican, and within the past 3-4 years, the population of workers changed drastically, and that the plant's workforce was now 67% Guatemalan. We were told that obviously these changes happen - but for it to happen that rapidly just wasn't natural. Generally it would take much longer for the workforce to turn over like that.

We were also informed of several other worker's rights violations at the plant, and that they were employing under aged worker (ages 13-17 year olds).

So, at this point, 390 immigrants have been detained, and the plant continues to run. How you ask? The day after the raid, bus loads of other workers were driven in from Nebraska and New York (I found today online - http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008805180309 - that the Agriprocessors plant in NY has had previous experience with undocumented workers, as they employed them until the workers tried to join a workers union. The plant then turned over lists of the undocumented workers names to the government, and fired all of the workers.) fishy?

Day One : The Day of the Raid

2008-05-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

On the afternoon of Monday, May 12, my sister received an email from the Peace and Justice Center of the Cedar Valley, with information of an immigration raid that had taken place earlier that morning in Postville, Iowa, just about an hour and a half drive from her home in Waterloo. The raid took place at Agriprocessors, Inc., the nation’s largest kosher meat-packing plant. It stated that around 300 undocumented workers had been detained, and that they were all to be transferred to the National Cattle Congress (NCC) in Waterloo, and that Catholic Charities was looking for assistance from bilingual Spanish speakers, to assist with their initial consultation with immigration lawyers. So, my brother-in-law’s sister (who also speaks Spanish) and I (we both just happened to be in town visiting our siblings) decided to give them a call to see if we could be of any assistance. We were told to go to the NCC in the morning, and that we would meet up with the lawyers there, to help with the initial interviews, and filling out paperwork, etc.

Our Monday afternoon was spent watching news reports, and reading internet news articles, trying to figure out exactly what had taken place. Turns out that there were arrest warrants for 697 undocumented workers of the plant, and that only 390 of them (40% of employees of the plant - 314 men and 76 women) had been detained, leaving another 300 workers unaccounted for. The video we saw on the evening news was quite disturbing – in all honesty, the footage we saw looked like it had been shot at a concentration camp. Lines of hundreds of people, handcuffed, shackled, and chained together, marching together, heads hanging low in despair. It was quite the scene.

Monday afternoon, all of the detainees were transferred to the NCC, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had set up a temporary detention center, where these people were to be kept for at least four days. Monday night, a prayer vigil was scheduled to take place outside the gates of the NCC, so the two of us went, along with my sister and one of her friends. In the end, there was no candlelight vigil that actually took place – it was more of a protest than anything. However, we were standing outside the gates when the large buses from Homeland Security pulled in, bringing in who knows how many more detainees. It really was quite an emotional time – tears were shed by some of those present, others shouting and waving signs, showing their support for those being detained.

While all of this is going on in Waterloo, family members and friends back in Postville, of those taken away were scrambling in fear and confusion. Many went into hiding, in fear of being taken themselves. Many of the members of this small community of 2000 something residents, would not come out of their homes. The ones that did would only go as far as St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, where camp was being set up, to help take care of the basic needs of these people, and to provide a safe haven for them.

Families have been torn apart - children left without their parents. Wives without their husbands and husbands swiped away from their wives. Brothers, sisters and friends separated. Families will be without income this week and for weeks to come...no way to put food on the table. No way to pay for rent and utilities. If you're able to help in any way (no matter what your take is on immigration - there are hundreds of families in dire need of help), monetary donations are badly needed, and are being accepted at those programs I mentioned on my first post of the raid.

Immigration Raid – 390 People Detained in Postville, Iowa

2008-05-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

Before I get too detailed on how this all went down, I just wanted to give a brief intro. I plan to put up several different posts about this – so keep checking back if you’re into it.

After seeing and experiencing so much of this myself, knowing that there was nothing major that I was going to be able to do personally to help these people, I knew that my role in this tragedy would be to share those experiences with others who haven’t been present through it all. It is one thing to hear about this on the news – but it’s a whole different deal when it’s all happening right in your backyard, and you’re caught up in the middle of it. It became apparent to me that our role in sharing this story was so important, after watching the nightly national news, and never seeing even a short story about it. The story of these people needs to be shared – change needs to take place in immigration law, or people will continue to be forced to come into our country illegally, as they sometimes have no other option to survive. If no action is taken, these raids will continue to happen, and families will continue to be torn apart. If these stories aren’t shared, the rest of the nation will not be able to see how urgent the need is for policy change. Please help in sharing their stories…

If there's anybody interested in giving monetary assistance, checks and cash may be mailed to any of the following. They will get the money to the families affected in Postville. The money will help with basic personal items, food and bills.

Veridian Credit Union
P.O. Box 6000
Waterloo, IA 50701

If making a donation via credit card, please call

1-800-235-3228

*** Please include Account Number for the Postville fund when sending either form of payment to Veridian Credit Union. The account number-- 5830490

Saint Bridget's Hispanic Ministry (Catholic Church in Postville that was home to these families for the entire week)

Att'n. Paul Real
PO BOX 369
Postville, IA. 52162

El Centro's LatinoAmericano
500 E. 4th Street, Suite 321
Waterloo, Iowa 50703
319-287-6400
elcentrola@yahoo.com

Good bye Rancho, Hello Iowa

2008-03-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

Well, after pleas for me to update my blog site so you all no longer have to see my ugly feet every time you log in, I've decided to finally make time to do it.

So much to say...life has been busy but wonderful this last month. I traveled to Mexico for the NPH International Board Meeting in Feb, where we had medical team meetings all week long. Lots of developing goals for us this year, and trying to figure out how we can achieve them. Also spent a fair amount of time planning our NPH international medical workshop, which will take place in El Salvador in April.

A week after returning from Mexico, I took one of our kids to Guatemala for a medical consult in the city. It was fun getting to take him to see another NPH home (we stayed in the clinic at NPH Guatemala). We were in Guatemala city 2 days, once for his consult, and then another time we went in with some kids from their home that go in weekly for a photography workshop. We also spent a day in Antigua. The week got to be a little long by the end...I've never spend every waking moment with a 13 yr old boy before. Wow, that can be draining!! But we loved it, and hope to be able to go again sometime to visit our family at NPH Guate. (photo above is of some friends we made at the home in guatemala)

This past week and a half, the new executive director of medical services for NPHI, aka my boss, has been here in Honduras, meeting the people and visiting our clinics. It was great having her here before I left...we were constantly on the go (between working with her, and taking care of my last minute things in the clinic) which was draining, but man we got a lot of work done!

Last weekend we had my going away party with kids I've been working with this year. Love them all to pieces.

So, now, it's time to pack My flight leaves Teguc at 5:20pm tomorrow, March 16th. I will only be home until April 1st, when I come back to Honduras for a week or so, with the brigade doctors to go to Olanchito to do some planning for the brigade in June. I then will be in El Salvador for a little over a month. Will be back state side in late May (but tine, don't worry...i'll be back in plenty of time for your party!!!).

K, gotta run.
love to all!
can't wait to see you all.
annie

my ugly famous feet

2008-01-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of december, a few of us volunteers took off to the beach with several young adults (13 years - 17 years), as part of a photo project. We went with the goal of taking some great photos of the gaurifuna villages, and the life on the beach, to put into a photo exhibition that was planned for January, in the national art gallery in Tegucigalpa.

So, one of the kids was taking photos of my feet as i was walking along the coast (we all know how excited i am about feet...so it was painful for me to let him do it, but you know, i'd do anything for him...).

I show up at the art exhibition, and look across the hallway...and there you have it. A massive photo of my feet. Embarrassing to have my ugly feet on display in the national art gallery? yes.

Several days later, we were reading the national newspaper of honduras, and there they are again!! I mean, seriously, out of all the beautiful photos the kids took, they choose that photo to put in the paper? A beautiful article, just minus the photo. (see above) that's also me (the larger of them all) walking along the beach, on the right side of the article.

A couple days later, I get an email leading me to the following website.

http://www.heraldohn.com/nota.php?nid=91735&sec=8&fecha=2008-01-12

saying good bye

2008-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon, one of our special needs girls passed away in Hospital Escuela. She had been admitted a couple days before, for aspiration pneumonia. The sad truth of the public hospital, is that she didn’t receive treatment until her second day in the hospital. By that time, it was too late. Please keep Doris, her caregivers, friends and family in your prayers.

A couple months ago, a good friend of mine, an interno, brought his father to the Ranch to receive medical care (he lives in San Marcos de Colon, located on the border of Nicaragua). He has been here on and off this whole year, for GI problems. When he arrived this time, we were finally able to get him into the hospital to do some tests, after which he was diagnosed with cancer, already in the advanced stages. He’s stayed here since then, to receive care from our clinics, as the doctors attempted to get his pain and discomfort under control.

His dying wish was to be able to pass away peacefully in his own home, back in San Marcos. These past couple weeks have been pretty rough on him, and he was commenting on his desires to go home, because he was feeling so badly.

The doctors decided that there wasn’t much else they could do for him here, so we arranged transport from NPH to bring him home. So, Saturday I took a trip to with several great friends of mine… this man and his two sons, and three others…to bring him home. He was so happy to be able to go home to be with his family there, and to be in the comfort of his own home. It was difficult leaving him there, and having to say good bye, knowing that’s the last time I’ll be able to see him. His sons are having difficulties adjusting to his fairly new diagnosis, especially now that he is going to be so far away (a five hour drive from here). They stayed there with him, but shortly will have to return to classes here in Tegucigalpa. How difficult for them to have to leave him there…please keep them all in your prayers as well.

what the future has in store...

2008-01-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

Well friends, my time here in Honduras is coming to an end. I was scheduled to take off with the volunteer group that leaves February 9, however, I have decided to stay until the end of February/early March, to wrap up a few things, and to help train in the nurse that will be taking over the care for our HIV positive kids.

I have just accepted a position with NPH International (NPHI), working with their medical team. It’s actually two part-time jobs. On Feb 1, I begin (officially) working as the medical coordinator for the medical team. This job pretty much just consists of being in charge of communication with the international medical team and the NPH clinics. I am also going to be helping to organize the annual NPHI medical workshop, which will take place in Abril, most likely in El Salvador.

The other half of the job is working as a “regional medical coordinator”, which is working directly with the clinics of Honduras and El Salvador, on things such as disease prevention (working a lot with vaccine programs), rational use of medication, health education, education for the local nurses, ect. This job begins the first of March. With this job, I’ll be traveling to the two homes for a total of four months out of the year. For the remaining part of the year, I’ll be working from home (wherever that may be in the States…).

This second job is a brand new position, just developed by the medical team, so it’s still in the developmental stages. I’m excited about the opportunity to continue my work with NPHI, while still being able to be home with family and friends for the majority of the year.

The reality of it all..

2008-01-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

Last week...interconsulta (bringing the HIV kids in for their monthly appointments at the hospital in Tegucigalpa)...

As we start heading down the road (the road that has been under construction for months, trying to rebuild a bridge that collapsed) from Cerro Grande into the center of Teguc, we realized it was going to be more difficult than expected. It had been raining for several days, and as the road is just dirt, it has now turned to mud, and for those of you who don’t know the road, it's pretty steep. Even more so now that it's been re-routed. As we begin to slide through the mud down the mountain side, I’m thinking of all of you at home driving in the snow.

We sit there at a standstill, waiting for a pickup and taxi that had collided, to clear the road. As we're waiting, a bulldozer passes us, and when he began to slide down the mountain, straight for the edge of the cliff, I was just waiting for him to jump out. Luckily, he got himself under control, and continued on his way. So, we eventually worked our way down the road, also sliding towards the cliff. The kids thought it was all pretty fun and exciting. I do admit that I was quite nervous.

So, after the consults, our driver headed straight back for that same hill. I tried to convince him to take another route, but it had stopped raining, and he thought by that time it would've been dried up. However, that was not the case. As we headed towards it, people were standing along the sides of the road, directing traffic, telling us to take a different route. I think to myself, "thank god". However, after it was all over, I would have preferred that one.

We turned around, and took off through "barrio el chile" (those who are familiar, that neighborhood right before you get on "puente el chile", going off into the mountain on the right side of the road). That afternoon, I saw people living like no person should ever have to live. After not having been off into marginalized villages for quite some time, I was brought back to reality of life in Honduras for so many people…the life that so many of our children have lived and survived.

We couldn’t go much more than two minutes on the muddy, rocky road without having to avoid hitting a drunken man stumbling in the way, without seeing a homeless man or child digging through garbage, just looking for something to eat. We passed families outside their homes, trying to repair the walls, made of plastic, boxes, tin, anything, trying to keep the cold wind and rain out.

Upon arrival to the Ranch, home sweet home, I start to think of our children here at NPH, and to know that they are so lucky to have been taken in by this family. That is the reality our kids would be fighting if they hadn’t come here.

That night, I was hanging out with several of my really good friends here, some of the older “internos” who are now studying in university. They told me so many stories about their lives before coming to NPH…about having been beaten by family members, about being abandoned by their parents, about being sent out with their fathers to the bars because nobody else would take care of them at night when he went to drink, about sleeping on dirt floors. About finding money laying in the road one day, and making an escape plan to get away from their family, only to have their uncle find the money the day before they were going to run away, and the girls getting beaten because he thought they had stolen the money.

Often times, being here on the Ranch, and only being in the “nice” parts of the city, you forget about the histories of these kids, forget about the things they have had to face, where they come from.

So, just to throw this out there, for anybody interested in supporting NPH and it’s mission to these children, check out the website www.nph.org. There are several ways to support our children…general donations, supporting a project, purchasing books online, or becoming a godparent for $30/month.

Happy New Years!

2008-01-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

Isaac, Carlos, myself and Luis Fernando
at the New Year's celebration

New Year's tradition here at NPH Honduras consists of a dance party and enormous bonfire, which lasts until somewhere around 4am. At this party, it is apparent that we all forget anything we ever learned about safety, when children and fire are mixed. While sitting around the bonfire, children are given sparklers, which normally would be fine, but when there are a total of 600 kids and young adults in one small area with sparklers, it can get a little messy. So, the sparklers are chucked in every which direction, with no regard as to who might be sitting right in your line of fire. So, most sparklers either land in trees, or just feet away from innocent bystanders.

Once midnight strikes, the music stops, the lights go on, and everybody wishes each other a happy new year. Shortly thereafter, the "muneca" is lit (doll made of old clothes, stuffed with newspaper and a ridiculous amount of fireworks). This is a tradition to say good bye to the old year, and to welcome in the new year. After the poor doll has fully exploded, the "torro" comes out. This is a wooden box loaded with fireworks that is placed on some poor souls head, and they trot through the crowd of people, as fireworks shoot off. Everybody runs like mad, so as not to get hit by one. Safe? No, not really, but really invigorating to experience. Please do not be disturbed by the photo of the doll. It IS just a doll, not a human, as it may appear.

The volunteers generally take off from the party around 1am or so, and head back to our house to have a little fiesta of our own until the sun comes up. So, here's a pic of some of us girls hanging by the bonfire in our garden.

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas, and I wish you all a wonderful 2008!

Within the next week I'm going to try to get a post up about Christmas...so keep your eyes out.

the daily things...

2007-12-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, those are my clothes hanging out to dry, while I sit inside, worrying that yet another person will come along and yank another one of my t-shirts off my line, right from underneath my nose. So far this year, approximitely ten shirts have "disappeared" into the lockers of the Ranch girls. A couple months ago, when it was really chilly (60s maybe??), i lost a pair of jeans and one of my two decent fleeces. Luckily, after a little investigating, the jeans and fleece were recovered.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one whose inventory is decreasing as time ticks by. Tias, other volunteers, employees...losing not only clothes, but ipods and cameras.

The camera I bought when I went home to visit was stolen a few weeks ago when we took a trip to the north coast with some of the young adults that I work with, who take part in a photo project with another volunteer from Austria.. We were staying in a Gaurifuna village right on the beach, in a decent hotel. We left for the day Saturday to go to some other villages nearby to take some photos. Sunday morning, a gal that works for the hotel came up to me and had a camera bag in her hand. She asks, "is this one of yours?". My mouth drops open as I realize it's my camera pouch, just minus the camera. She said the owner had found it on the beach the night before.

Well, I had never taken my camera out of our room, as the battery had died while we were in El Salvador, and I didn't have my charger with me, and didn't have a chance between the two trips to get back to the Ranch to grab it. My camera was useless to me on the beach trip, which is why it was just left in the room. Looks like somebody got in while we were out on Saturday, and found themselves a nice $300 camera. If they were only smart enough, they would've grabbed my passport that was right next to it...could've sold that for big bucks here.

So, after losing my camera, and some t-shirts i had left out drying after that trip, two days later I'm in Teguc (the capital), walking through the center, and i feel somebody open my backpack. Me, already hating the fact that you have to be on your toes at all times, knowing somebody wants to steal something from you, I turned around, probably gave him a pretty hilarious glare, and not thinking, but just acting on pure emotion, pushed the 18ish year old dude off the curb and said "disculpe?" (excuse me) in an angry tone. Luckily for him (and me) there were no cars or motorcycles coming. Luckily for me, the kid didn't have a knife or anything else on him.

Ok, so a couple weeks ago we had our Christmas dinner in the clinic. I had run back to my room to grab some ingredients to make my dish, and when i returned to the clinic, i had just thrown my keys on one of the benches. When I went back to grab them, ta dah!!! they were missing. Imagine...keys to my room, casa personal (volunteer house), the clinic, the internet shack, ect ect...in the hands of an "interno". So, the following day I ran around like crazy trying to get a new lock put on my door, to give me some sense of safety for my things (mainly ipod, laptop, and new camera that was shipped for a christmas gift). So, for now, my room has a padlock on it, until we're able to put a new doorknob on. Pretty classy.

Well, a couple days later, a volunteer had his bike stolen out of their house, and another volunteer had the tire stolen off of his.

A visiting priest several days later found my keys thrown at the base of the altar in our church. Apparently somebody felt bad enough about what they had done, had gone to a little personal confession at the church, and left me keys as a little peace offering? Who knows...

Well, all of these things over the course of the year have worn me out. I hate the feeling of always being paranoid that somebody is going to steal something from you. What i would do to be able to walk around the central park, without having to be thinking about my bag constantly, without people constantly staring like they've never seen a white girl before, without the creepy men whispering nastyness into your ears as you pass. It's also wearing on me that even while here on the Ranch, you are just expected to give, and give, and give, until you have nothing more to give. Not only in your job, but with the kids, and even employees, asking you for things, as though we're made of money. They are just so used to visitors and volunteers giving them gifts, it's just EXPECTED now. It's especially bad now that the end of our year draws near. A common thing you hear on the ranch, "cuando te vayas, que me regalas tu sweater, tus jeans, tu carterra, tu laptop, tu ipod, tu....cualquier cosa!!!" (when you leave, give me your sweater, your jeans, your purse, your laptop, your ipod...anything!!) Haha, does it occur to them that we can't go home naked??

El Salvador

2007-12-12T16:45:00.002-08:00

Last week I finally decided to take some vacation days, and traveled with some of our young adults to NPH El Salvador, for the first Annual International NPH Soccer Tournament.

The age of the kids was supposed to be around 15-17 years old, however, our kids weren't able to get their papers together to get permission to cross the border, so we ended up traveling with only those older than 21 (no longer minors, therefore didn't need passports). It was a real shame the selected teams weren't able to travel, because they have been practicing for months, and had put together a dance presentation for the cultural night, where each country was supposed to present a traditional dance.

In any case, it was a great week with those that were able to go. Actually several of them are good friends of mine, so it was wonderful getting to spend some down time with them.

Five different NPH homes were represented for the tournament: Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Each house, except for Mexico due to lack of funds, brought 2 teams, one mens and one womens. They played both on the field, and cement court. Since our teams were just thrown together last minute, they had never played together before, actually, some of them don't really even play soccer. So, much to our surprise both teams came in third place!!! They were such good sports, even when they were getting tromped on, especially since we were short players.

It was a neat experience being with our youth, hanging out with their "brothers and sisters" from our other NPH Homes, seeing them interact with each other.

(photo - Honduras guys and Mexico guys became great friends over the course of the week)

Words from Fr. Phil Cleary, at the closing of the games...

" The First Annual NPHI International Soccer Tournament is over. Who won? (The crowd yelled back different answers... mainly, “Guatemala – the boys’ winner, and Nicaragua – the girls’ winner”).

No! Who won?! (Again, different answers roared back from the crowd.)

No! You want to know who won?! NPH won! NPH wins because of this experience that all of you have had of being a part of the larger NPH family. NPH will continue to win if all of you go back to your respective countries and homes and tell the rest of your brothers and sisters about your experience here, and if you help them see that when we talk about being a “family” of brothers and sisters in 9 homes and countries, that that is more than just a pretty image, but rather is the reality!

I am so grateful to everyone who had a part in organizing this tremendous event. I am so grateful to God for allowing me to be a part of your lives, and for having you be a part of mine!

I am so proud of every one of you, for what you have accomplished and experienced this week. I am even more proud of you, as I see you living day after day as a family of hundreds and hundreds of brothers and sisters in your own homes, and in this larger NPH family!

May God bless us our family and every one of us, today and every day – and keep us well and happy until we meet again: in December... of 2008... at NPH GUATEMALA!!!" --taken from NPH website www.nph.org

Quinceaneros

2007-12-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

November 30 was a big day for many of our young adults here at Rancho Sante Fe. Quinceaneros is a latino tradition, to celebrate a young woman's passing to adulthood, which is generally celebrated on their 15th birthday. Here at NPH, it is celebrated in November, for all young adults, both guys and girls. It is one of the biggest celebrations of the year.

Each Quinceanero asks a member of the opposite sex to be their sponsor for the evening (which includes buying them a special gift, accompanying them to mass, dinner, being their escort for the presentation of all the Quinceaneros, and to be with them at the beginning of the grand fiesta in the evening). Two nights before the big day, another volunteer told me that there was a guy that decided to not take part, because he was too shy to ask somebody to be his sponsor. So she asked if I would be willing to do it, and of course, I happily accepted. It's quite an honor to be a part of this special night for these kids.

It all begins early morning in the older girls homes as they want to make sure this day turns out just perfect for them. They spend nearly the entire day preparing themselves for the evening.

Mass began at 5pm, and when it became time to process in, my ahijado (godson), had still not shown up (he currently is living in Tegucigalpa, doing his internship). I was a little disappointed, thinking he had just decided not to come. About 10 minutes later, I was summoned to go down to boys' homes, as he finally had shown up. He was late because he couldn't get out of work. And so, the night began.

(photo - the godsons of myself and 2 other volunteers)

Following mass, we headed down to the school, and had a delicious dinner of kabobs, rice, ect. The dance followed. Although I don't know the kid (Jesus is his name) very well, I am friends with his brother, and it was fun that night getting to know him a little better. Hilarious kid.

Dia de Gracias

2007-12-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

Don't know about you, but this is the first turkey I've ever seen being carted around in a wheelbarrow! It sure was tasty! Thanksgiving here on the Ranch was amazing, nothing like being at home with family, however, it was the next best thing. All of the volunteers got together, and everybody made some traditional thanksgiving dish, or a traditional food from their country. I've never seen so much amazingly delicious food on a table before. My contribution was the mass production of potato dumplings, made with 2 other volunteers. I've never made so many at one time, but i was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out (not quite as mushy as they usually end up)! However, according to the photo, they were a little too firm to be eaten with plastic cutlery. Something like 40 people gathered around, and shared a special meal, and later, hours were spent hanging around a bonfire in our courtyard.

And, instead of the traditional American thing to do on Thanksgiving, watching football on TV, I went into Teguc with an ex-volunteer that was back visiting, and we watched some of our boys play indoor futbol (soccer). Poor guys, they had been undefeated until we showed up to a game! But, the team they played was also undefeated, and a great team, and we only lost by a couple goals, so it wasn't all that bad. It was a good game. It was fun getting to see them play off the Ranch, competing against other teams. They are in a league at the Villa Olimpica, which is a huge sports complex in the city. I never knew it existed until that day. It's quite the place...

So, thanksgiving here in Honduras was a great day all around. Hope you all enjoyed yours!

graduation

2007-12-12T14:30:00.001-08:00

Well, it's no surprise to any of us that I've been lost in life here for the past couple months. I'm terrible at this blogging stuff!! So, I'll try to give you all a quick run down of what's been happening.

November is the end of the school year here in Honduras, which means graduation for so many of our kids and young adults. Below is a photo of some of the guys that graduated from our workshops, which is no easy task, and have gone off on their own into Tegucigalpa, and other areas of the country, to do internships. The majority of them will return to the Ranch for Christmas, others not until January.

Ok, so, not the greatest picture, but to the right are my little loves that graduated from kinder, and will begin first grade next year. Oh, they're so proud, and rightfully so.

2007-10-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

natural disasters

2007-10-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

Many of you have been asking about Hurricane Felix, and the damage it caused here. We were lucky enough to have escaped its destruction. Everything near where we are was safe. The majority of Honduras ended up fine, with the exception the northeastern tip, La Mosquita, which boarders with Nicaragua, where the damage took place.

However, within days and weeks following the hurricane, we saw days on end of heavy rains. As the people in Tegucigalpa, and surrounding areas, were no longer on "hurricane warning", the extreme flooding that took place was rather unexpected. Several markets in the city were swept away, one destroyed just after half an hour of rain. This flooding resulted in several deaths, and others devastated by losing their market stands.

On September 15, about 60km north of the Ranch, the earth shook... scale of 5.2. Morales, the area that was shaken by the quake, is a rural area, where nearly all inhabitants were left without homes. We're working with the Catholic Medical Mission Board in Tegucigalpa, trying to set up some type of aid for these people. Hopefully sometime within the next couple weeks, we'll be making a trip there.

--the photo above is a tree on the Ranch, that was uprooted by all of the rain that we've had over the past couple weeks. due to the heavy rains, several trees around here have fallen. one in front of the volunteer house actually fell on top of one of the new volunteers as she was passing by. luckily, the tree got caught on the house, so it was only the smaller branches that actually hit her. but man, what a surprise to be walking back to your house, in the dark, and out of nowhere a tree falls on you...--

Medical Brigade Planning

2007-10-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Each year, a team of physicians, nurses, and med students, comes down from Virginia, and together with the clinic of NPH, we travel 6 hours on a bumpy, dirt road in a school bus, to Olanchito, Yoro, and set up a medical brigade for a week. We were last there in the beginning of June. Each year, once we arrive to Olanchito, the priest there sets up the site for the medical brigade, which is generally in a remote, mountain village, where the people have no continuous access to medical care. This past June we were located in Carbajal. We had clinic every day from about 8am, until whenever we finished, which was generally late afternoon.

After having worked with this brigade for the past 3 years, and seeing what works, and what doesn't, we decided to try to organize the brigade a little better in advance, and make some changes with how the brigade runs. Over the past several years, it has become obvious that there is not a whole lot you can accomplish in a week, if you just drop into the village once a year, without having any lasting contact with the local people (priests, doctors, nurses, ect.)

The majority of the patients we see come for consults, because they want their yearly parasite medications, multivitamins, and pain medications. We also see several patients with severe, chronic cases of hypertension, diabetes, etc. This area also has high rates of malaria, chargas, and tuburculosis. So many of the main health problems these people are facing can be prevented. And since prevention is more effective than treatment for everybody, our goal for next year's brigade will be more focused on education and prevention, as we begin to develop lasting health projects with these communities.

The past couple years, after leaving the villages, you begin to evaluate what kind of impact you actually had on those people. Giving people a month's supply of ibuprofen for the back pain they've had for years, and will have their whole life, from the physical labor they do day in and day out, doesn't do them a whole lot of good. Giving children medication once a year for the parasites they continuously have, doesn't do a whole lot of good either. You can't initiate treatment for blood pressure or diabetes, if there is no nurse or doctor around to monitor the results of the medications.

The doctor in charge of the brigade, and his nurse practicioner, came down last week, and we trecked off to the mountains, to plan for next year. The priest from Olanchito that we have been working with for the past three years, took us around to meet the physicians and nurses of the different areas. We got to see the health centers and clinics that are in the areas. It was interesting to see all of the facilities, but the lack of staff and equipment. In most of the areas, they have the buildings, just no doctor or nurse to work there. And, if they do have a doctor or nurse, they have minimal medications, and minimal medical supplies.

After talking with the people of the area, and saw the numbers of people with different diseases and health problems, we came to the conclusion that one of the most effective things we can do there is a water treatment project, to decrease the number of deaths caused by intestinal bacterias and parasites. We're looking into a couple different water treatment systems, which we're hoping to get donated so we can bring them with us, to dispurse within the communities.

Our trip up last week was very effective, and I'm really excited about next year's brigade. It has been difficult going there, and working so hard, and then not really being able to see outcomes. I has been more just "putting the bandaid on the problems", and treating acute illnesses. I'm excited to be able to help in the development of a more long-term project, which will actually make a difference in the long-run.

--the picture is of me and this old man from the village, that was just trotting around on his donkey all day long while we were there. cute man, that had lots to say. you'll see in the background, that our pickup had broken down. so, us women made friends with this man while waiting for the men to fix the car--

the way it goes...

2007-08-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

no, i haven't disappeared off the face of the earth...i'm just way behind on updating my blog.

after 2 months of going to interconsulta (appointments in the hospital in teguc) at least twice a week, i just thought it would be interesting to give you all an idea of the typical happenings of our adventures while in the city...

i went in one day with one of our HIV kids, to have a biopsy done. we had to go in on public transport, which wasn't a huge deal (we generally have transport from the ranch, but since it was just one kid going in, we had to travel on our own). so, we show up to the hospital at 6:30am (left the Ranch at 5am), so we would be there in plenty of time for his 7am appointment. the doctor shows up at 7:30, and then decides that this child has to wait to be the last of all surgeries, because he has a skin condition (just fyi, it's NOT contagious by any means). the surgeon tells me that he has to wait to be the last patient because they have to FUMIGATE the OR after this child enters. what?!? totally not necessary, but ok, whatever. however, the most annoying thing was that they said this right in front of the kid. way to have tact.

so, we wait until 10am. they refused to let me into the OR with him, although they had been letting every other parent in with the kid, at least until they receive their anesthesia. five minutes later, they call me back inside, and tell me that we have to return another day, because the child was refusing the surgery. allow me to explain: we had already been for one attempt on this biopsy at a different hospital, where they did it by needle aspiration. after 1.5 months of waiting for the results (because the hospital was on strike), turns out that the specimen was bad, so it would have to be redone. we were all under the impression that the second time around it would be performed the same way. when the kid went into the OR, they put a mask on him, and from that moment on, he freaked out.

so, i go in to talk to him, and finally came to the conclusion he was just scared, because they hadn't explained to him what they were going to do. (please keep in mind this kid is 12 years old) rightfully so, he got scared when they told him they were putting him to sleep so they could cut out his lymph node. umm, i would've been scared too. so, he told me he would allow them to do it, just if i could go in with him while they put him to sleep. great, no problem. so i tell the nurses and the surgeon this, and they start giving me a hard time that this kid is being so uncooperative, and that they don't have time for these games. (what?!? he's 12!! and they're mad that he was scared??) they told me again that we would just have to come back some other day.

ok, the next week we go again, this time with a ranch vehicle, but only after having to fight with the director of transport. he told me there was no way i could get a driver. here's the deal, i had to first go to Hospital Escuela at 7am (public hospital where we go with the HIV kids for their monthly appointments in the infectious disease department), because i was waiting for urgent papers from the doctors that they promised they would have that morning, that i had to get to our social worker that day, because she was going to the court to speak with the judge about a few of our kids. i needed to then drop these papers off at our house in Teguc, and then get this boy to surgery by 8:30am at a different hospital. there was no way this was possible if I would have gone on public transport. so, the director finally gives in.

we arrive at Hospital Escuela for the papers. the doctors show up late, and oops!! they don't have the documents ready. they tell me i have to come back later that morning to pick them up (the doctors leave there at 11:30am) so, i tell my driver that, he FLIPS out, and starts yelling at me that i'm not the only one that needs transport, and that i'm asking too much of him, and on and on and on (this is not by any means the first time we've had problems with this guy - it's been ongoing for over a month. every time you ask him to go to a lab, or hospital, or whatever, while we're in the city for appointments, it's like you're asking the world of him. it's like he thinks we're just asking these things of him to make him angry, but everything we ask of him is necessary for the work we do.) ok.

we get this kid to the other hospital at 8am, and the surgeon sends me to a pharmacy outside of the hospital to buy a pill to knock the kid out before his surgery. the pharmacy doesn't open until 9am, so we sit there and wait. the woman shows up to open, and oops!! she doesn't have her keys. she goes back to her house, and gets back at 9:45. i finally am able to give them our prescription, which clearly states we only need one pill of 5mg. well, they only have 7.5mg or 15mg pills. i ask for a 7.5mg. she comes back with a box of 30 pills. i remind her we just need one. she comes back, gives me the pill, i go to pay, then look more closely at the pill, and it was a 15mg pill, not the 7.5mg. i eventually get the right dose.

we get back, and i tell the surgeon i had a 7.5mg pill, and we decide to just give him half of it. the doctor then tells me he wants the other half of the pill for himself!! haha, ok. i'm not sure if that's really ok, but i just gave it to him. odd.

the kid gets knocked out cold. i get him on the operating table, they put him under even further. i watch his oxygen saturation drop from 100% where it should be, number by number, all the way down to 74%, which is not good. as the numbers go down, machines start beeping, red lights flashing, and nobody notices. finally at 74%, i ask one of the nurses, what those numbers are. one is 74, the other is 108. she tells me both numbers are his heart rate. huh, i never knew your heart rate could be 74 and 108 at the same time. finally, the other nurse looks at it, and says "hmm, yes, his sats are dropping". YA THINK? so, they start to bag him. i was sure i was going to lose that kid right then and there.

ok, they finally get him all taken care of, he starts waking up, i go outside to change, and my phone rings. it's the driver, all upset that we're not done yet. (he had called 10 times while we were in surgery) he tells me to tell the doctors to hurry up, because he is waiting. ok, sure, right, i'm sure the doctors would really hurry up, just because our ride is waiting. the driver tells me i need to meet him at the airport, because he was going there to pick up a visitor. i told him there was no way i was getting this kid on a bus in his state. i mean, the kid couldn't even stand up with help at that point. driver gets mad, and hangs up on me, for the 3rd time already that day. so, he finally shows up, i met him out in the front of the hospital, and tell him we need to drive around to the other side, to pick the kid up outside of surgery, because he couldn't walk out to the front. gets mad again, floors it, he nearly hits a man crossing the street (the visitor he had just picked up is a 60 or 70 year old man in a wheelchair, who is sitting in the front seat, probably scared out of his mind). i go to help the kid walk out to the car, the driver telling me to hurry up because we're late getting back to the ranch.

we finally make it out of there alive, and go to the lab to leave the lymph node for biopsy, etc. the microbiologist there tells me that they can't do all of the tests ordered, because the surgeon put the lymph node in the wrong preserving solution. haha, sweet!! way to top off the day.

i ask the driver to stop at a grocery store that was right on our way out of the city, because the kid had to use the bathroom, and i needed to grab him something to eat, because he wasn't allowed to eat anything all day before his biopsy (and at this point it is 1pm). he gets mad again, saying i'm asking too much of him. but we stop briefly, and head back to the ranch.

the next day, the general director of the ranch, comes to me with a complaint from the driver. the driver had told him that i made him stop at the grocery store for the visitor, because he was hungry. (remember, that we stopped at the store for the kid in the first place. i offered to buy something for the visitor as well, because we were going to miss lunch on the ranch, and he had been traveling all day, so i was sure he was hungry) but, funny, because during the rest of the day the driver seemed so worried about this visitor, about getting him to the ranch quickly so he wouldn't be uncomfortable. and then he complains that i wanted to stop to get him something to eat. ugh.

so, that's where the adventures for the day end. it just seems like each time we go to interconsulta, it's one joke after another, whether it be with doctors telling me the wrong dosages of medications the kids are supposed to be taking, just because of their lack of checking their notes well, or prescribing medications that shouldn't be used together, or eye doctor offices not having a contact lens that we had paid for 4 months ago that still hasn't arrived, or labs being out of reactant to do the simplest of blood tests, etc. it can be very frustrating work...

sorry for ranting.

and the fire roars on

2007-05-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

last evening, just when we thought it was all over and done with, the wind picked up, sparks flew, and flames roared. the entire line of mountains behind our homes lit up, and due to the heat, and incredibly dry grass and trees, the fire grew quite quickly, and was approaching our homes. the oldest groups of boys took off yet again with their machetes, shovels, and rubber fire flappers (obviously i have no idea what these things are called, but they use them to put out fires). once they get to the fire, they cut down tree branches, which they use to swat at the fire. they lit a contra fire to burn up the mountain side, to keep it from reaching the houses again. they say this is the largest fire ever seen on the ranch.

groups were called out of bed around midnight to go up and help fight the fire, as it picked up yet again. it has continued throughout the day, with groups in two separate areas...one group up in our cemetery, and the others up the mountain near our boys' homes. they say it is more or less under control now...since the majority of it is already burned.

other issues...we seem to have a diarrhea/vomit epidemic taking over the ranch. kids, tios, volunteers, employees, we're all sick. the clinic has been flooded the past several days with these GI issues, and now after all the fires, kids have been coming in with asthma, itchy eyes, stuffiness, etc. we have resorted to purchasing purified water for the entire ranch, creating a special GI friendly diet for the next several days, and distributing extra soap to all the homes to make sure kids are washing their hands well to attempt to put an end to this madness.

Fire season

2007-05-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

well, the Ranch made it through nearly the entire dry season without having a single fire...until last night. around 8pm last night, as i was leaving my room, i ran into herds of our older boys charging up the mountain behind my house. naturally i asked them what they were doing, because generally they are not allowed up near our houses. they were off to fight a fire. i looked off in the distance, and large flames appeared up near where our cemetery is (which is about an hour hike up the mountain, so quite far away from any of our buildings or farms).

this morning i woke up to smoke surrounding my house, and a huge army truck, full of soldiers from the army base in la venta, a nearby village. apparently the fire carried on through the night, and was getting closer and closer to our homes.

the only fires i have seen here haven't been too intense, and have not posed a serious danger to the Ranch. so, assuming things were under control, i left around 7am to go into the city for work. when we were returning around 2pm, from the highway we could see the fire had spread to much of the mountainside, and the entire area was covered by smoke. walking up the road on the ranch from the highway, i was beginning to get a feel for what damage had been done. the smoke was coming from the direction of my room, so naturally i got a little worried.

by the time i got to my room, the children and employees were just heading out, after a long day of firefighting. all of the flames had been put out, but smoke was still going strong. at least an entire crop field was destroyed, and the fire reached the tia housing, which is just behind where i live. fortunately, nothing happened to our homes, they are just currently filled with smoke and ashes.

a team of firefighters just arrived, just for monitoring purposes. there are still a few trees that look a little threatening, so hopefully they'll get everything under control. typical honduras...the firefighters arrive after all of our children have been out all day stopping the flames. and, there goes right now the, what appears to be the entire honduran army, who have been here helping us. although they can be machista pigs, they are at least good for putting out fires.

** photo is a view just outside my room

Yet another alacran

2007-05-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I tried to close my door, and it wouldn't close tight. I opened it up to see what was keeping it from shutting. Out runs yet another scorpion. Number 11, squished and put to rest.

I then go into my closet, only to find a large bug carcass (not sure how it died), covered in those darn tiny ants. The more I searched through my closet and food shelves, I found them all over in my clothes, and in my plastic food containers. Fumigation, here I come

Oh, and let us not forget...our water test in the lab came back positive for parasites (yes, the water that is supposed to be drinkable). Maybe that's why I've been so sick the past 2 days. The water in the shower and sinks has been coming out looking like coffee.

Como me encanta la vida en Honduras!

Mother's Day

2007-05-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day is always a slightly awkward holiday on the Ranch. They had a celebration on Thursday in the school for all of the tias (that take care of the kids - as their parents), volunteers, and teachers. All women on the Ranch are treated as mothers. The children sang, danced, and recited poems...one poor little boy had a pretty difficult time getting through his song because he was crying. We were served a special lunch by some of the men on the Ranch, and given small gifts made by the kids.

It must be so hard for these kids to celebrate a day for mothers...some of them have lost their mothers to cancer, AIDS, murder. Others have been abused by their mothers, their aunts. Others were abandoned at young ages...they don't even know their mothers.

Tonight the girls are having a candle-light vigil, and rosary, for all of their mothers that have passed away.

To all you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. To all of us daughters and sons, don't take your mothers for granted. Mom, can't wait to see you next week!! Love you.

soldiers take the streets

2007-05-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

Monday I took one of our HIV kids to the hospital for an emergency appointment. Over the weekend he developed a good case of pneumonia. As we drove into the city, we passed herds of Honduran soldiers, complete with riot gear, tanks and all, preparing for another day of taxi and bus drivers taking over the streets of Tegucigalpa. Luckily the day remained calm.

Please keep Mainor in your prayers.

Honduras Strikes Again

2007-04-27T09:13:00.001-07:00

Last week, the story running around the country was that all major cities were going to be closed down today, for a supposed heat wave that was coming. Apparently the risk for heat exhaustion and skin cancer was so high, just for this one day, that all cities were going to be shut down, and power in the entire country was going to be cut. Two days ago we were informed this "shut down" had been canceled. Interesting how this country works sometimes.

Last night at 10:30, a knock on my door tells me that we will be unable to go into the city today for our appointments in the infectious disease department because the bus and taxi drivers are going on strike. These strikes aren't taken lightly, by any means. It doesn't just mean that these people don't work, but buses and taxis, tires and large rocks block off all roads going down into the city, and major roads throughout the city, making it impossible for you to get anywhere. If you try to pass these roads, even on bike, you're sure to get pelted by rocks or get water thrown on you (from what I'm told...I luckily have never actually been present for one of these strikes). We decided it wasn't safe to even attempt to bring these kids in, even at ridiculously early hours before the strikes start. Down side to this being, we were unsure if we were going to be able to get them their HIV medications for this weekend. The doctor just told me, "Well, if we (meaning the doctors) are unable to get to the hospital tomorrow, we'll just have to wait until Monday. There's nothing we can do." Well now there's a happy thought...leaving us short on some of our meds. Luckily, a girl that grew up on the ranch, is now in med school, and lives near the hospital. She was willing to walk there for us today, to go at least pick up the prescriptions. She thinks by evening the madness will be over, and she'll be able to leave with no problem
.

2007-04-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

so many bugs!!!

2007-03-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

although i love having my own room, outside of the volunteer house...it comes with it's down sides as well. the main one being the infestation of bugs i have encountered in my new living quarters. there have been mornings that i've woken up to my floor being covered in ants. this usually only happens when there are other, larger, dead bug carcasses left behind from the day/night before. i have tried to remedy this by sweeping every night before i go to bed. this helped, to an extent. however, over the past couple weeks, a smaller, more annoying species of ants has taken over my room. at first they were just in my bathroom, crawling in and out of the outlet place near my sink. smashing them with my sandals twice daily was getting rather old.

after leaving my brother and sister at the airport, i broke down and bought Raid in the city. so, upon thoroughly cleaning my room, to attack my ant problem, i encountered a scorpion in my bathroom. judging by the fact that it didn't move when i dropped something out of my shower about a foot away from it, i assumed it was dead. but, we all know what assuming does...i began to sweep it up. haha, then it darted right for me. so there i was, chasing it around my bathroom with my broom, trying to kill the darn thing. i finally nailed it (more like speared it because i broke the head off of my broom trying to smash it), and out scattered 6 tiny babies (see the not-so-high-quality photo). good think i had just bought that Raid in the city that very day, it at least killed the babies before they could hide themselves inside the walls of my room.

continuing to clean, i decided to get rid of one of the beds in my room that had been completely eaten away by termites (not to mention, it was one of the most uncomfortable beds in the world). i flipped up the mattress, and hello! out comes another scorpion. running total...8 scorpions in one day. i've been trying to put off calling in the "bug squad" on the ranch to come and fumigate, because that just scares me...all those chemicals...i think i might give in this week, and see what they can do about it.

i've contacted the workshops here on the ranch, to see if they could come in and seal off my door, because between the wood and bricks, there are gaping holes, which allows the bugs to enter rather freely. i also asked them about fixing my bathroom door, because it is ready to fall off the wall, thanks also to termites. it's so bad that the screws are actually falling out already. well, i'm number 23 on the "to do" list for the wood workshop. looks like i have to wait until may for them to even come and LOOK at these things. how perfect.

anybody want to come and visit me??? =) it all sounds to tempting, doesn't it?

a visit from the siblings

2007-03-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

My brother and sister came down a couple weeks ago for a visit...and a great time we had! It just went by way too fast. Their first day here, we painted a room in the clinic, that I'm sure hasn't been painted since the building was built. We were a little skeptical of the watery paint we were using, but it all turned out very nicely in the end. Everybody in the clinic was begging us to repaint every room. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough paint, time, or energy.

Trying to avoid a stressful visit, we didn't travel too far from home this time around (we were all looking for a somewhat relaxing vacation). They got to see the fancier side of Teguc this time around. We treated ourselves to staying in Hotel Excelsior, aka Honduran version of a Best Western. It was fully equipped with hot water, swimming pool, air conditioning, 3 double beds, and cable TV (which provided us with episode after episode of Law and Order). Oh, we were happy.

We were back on the Ranch for the weekend, just in time to have a movie and popcorn night with my kids in Casa Suyapa. Thanks to Phil, a man from my parents' church, the kids got to enjoy some donated, locally and organically grown, Iowan popcorn. They loved it! (so did I!)

Their visit ended by attending a soccer game at the national futbol stadium in Teguc. We hitched a ride on the bus from the Ranch, that was going in with an ex-volunteer who was back visiting, that treated all of the kids she worked with last year, to the game between Motagua (team from Teguc) and Olanchano (a team from the state just to our north). Following that game, was the Honduras vs. Costa Rica game, which we would have loved to stay for, however we had to head back to the Ranch. The next day, we ran into the entire national Honduras soccer team in the airport, when I sadly had to leave Heidi and Ben. They were actually on the same plane to Miami.

My defined position in the clinic

2007-03-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, I discovered what my main responsibility is going to be this year...working with our 20 HIV positive children. Somebody from the clinic brings these children monthly to their appointments in the infectious disease program in the public hospital in the capital city. Over the past year or so, the doctors there have refused to write in our charts from the Ranch, therefore, leaving this responsibility up to our clinic staff. None of the girls in the clinic are actual nurses, but are the equivalent to nurse assistants at home, as far as their schooling goes. They have had on-the-job training, which gives them the ability to do IVs, injections, and such. However, due to their lack of actual nursing education, this has caused many problems when they are left with the responsibility of attending consults, asking appropriate questions, and writing notes from the hospital appointments. This leaves us with problems of information and medication doses getting written down incorrectly, which leads to obvious problems in their treatments. So, between Nora (the clinic coordinator), our doctor from the Ranch, the international medical director of NPH, 2 volunteer doctors here from Germany, and myself, we have decided it is best for continuity of care for these kids, if just one nurse from the clinic is responsible for going with the kids to their monthly appointments (before it would rotate through everybody in the clinic, a different nurse going every week, leaving nobody that really knew each child's case). So, over the past several weeks, I have taken on that responsibility, and have been going with them to their appointments, organizing their charts, and developing a system in which it is easier to control their treatments. One of the German volunteer doctors, has had experience working with HIV positive patients in Africa, so we will be working closely together on this project. I'm happy to have been given this opportunity, to work more with these children, and learn more of the aspects of health care for this population, as it is an area I have considered going into at home, someday.

However, as you can imagine, this isn't a task that is so easy. Other than the frustrations of having to deal with the disorganized medical system of the country, lack of reliable lab tests, and the lack of well-educated doctors we deal with occasionally (I just found out the doctors that work in the infectious disease department aren't even trained in infectious disease...there are only something like 5 of them in the entire country), it's emotionally draining as well, seeing these kids that I have grown to love, and having to accept the fact that there is health care available in this world that they don't have access to, and having to accept the fact that some of them will die before they have been able to live a full life. We have a few kids that are progressing faster than others...one of them even that the doctors are talking about just treating now with palliative care. He has developed resistance to all anti-retrovirals, and his immune system is down. He's only 12...sweet, cute kid. Keep him, and all of our other children in your prayers. This week we are going to work on developing a type of "support group" (i use that only for a lack of a better term) for our HIV kids. One of the German doctors and myself will be in charge of organizing it. I think it will be difficult in the beginning, but hopefully it will get better with time. Several of our kids, especially the older ones, have had bouts of depression and aggression, so we're hoping this group gives them an outlet.

bringing life into the world

2007-02-16T07:42:00.000-08:00

Outside of our routine clinic duties, we are always on call for whatever emergency may be thrown our way. Keeping in mind that we are located an hour outside of the city if traveling by bus, when emergencies happen in any of the villages on the road into the capital, people tend to stop by our clinic, because we are the only clinic in the area that is staffed 24 hours a day. Luckily, emergencies don’t happen too incredibly often, but we have seen our fair share just within my first month and a half.

January 24^th…I was just finishing cleaning up after consults in the external clinic (doctor had already left), and a pickup truck pulls in. Judging by the look on the guy’s face, and the speed at which he was running, I knew we were in for a treat. Says his wife (16-year-old) is having a baby in the back of the pickup. After yelling to the others I was working with to grab some supplies, I hop in the back of the truck, and sure enough, there the baby is. He was born en route to the hospital, in the back of a pickup truck. We got them up to the internal clinic, where we have better supplies, and luckily, we were able to get ahold of one of the volunteer German doctors. Since she had already taken care of the hard part on her own, all that was left was cutting the cord, delivering the placenta, cleaning them up, and keeping them in observation overnight. We got a bag of fluids into the mom, and her and baby were both fine.

January 25^th…I’m sitting in Casa Personal (the volunteer house), eating breakfast, when we get a call on the radio. Another woman is coming up to the internal clinic in labor. Seriously…2 babies in 2 days? This was and interesting week. She gave birth to an adorable baby boy about an hour and a half after arriving. Once again, mom and baby were both fine. They stayed in our clinic overnight, and went home the next day, with a reference to a health center near where they lived in 10 days to have a checkup, and to get the baby set up on a vaccination schedule.

After these couple days, it has become obvious to us that we need to put together an emergency birthing set. Our clinic is not exactly equipped to be delivering babies, so thankfully these two births were uncomplicated cases, and everything turned out fine. We’ve joked about setting up a labor ward down at the external clinic. I don’t know how these women do it…no drugs, delivering babies in the back of pickups, going at unknown speeds down the good and bumpy highways into the city. They are truly amazing.

Trying to catch up!

2007-02-13T10:16:00.000-08:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to update my blog…many apologizes. Life here on the Ranch is typically pretty busy during the months of January and February, with the changing of volunteer groups, getting settled in, and all that jazz. I’ve been keeping busy in the clinics, trying to define my role, responsibilities, and goals for this year. Nora, the coordinator of the clinics, has decided to continue working here, which is a relief for the clinic staff. Therefore, I have taken on the position of co-coordinator of the clinics, and have picked up some of Nora’s responsibilities, to divide up the work load a little bit.

Just to give a run-down of our clinics, for those of you who aren’t familiar. We have an internal clinic, which provides health care for the children of NPH as well as to the volunteers. Our external clinic is located at the entrance of the Ranch, and provides health care to poor people from surrounding villages. People from all over take advantage of the relatively inexpensive health care we are able to provide at this clinic. Just last week we had a patient that traveled for two days by bus to get here for a consult with our doctor. Other people walk for hours. A consult at this clinic costs around $1.50, and medications for a month cost about $0.50.

Our clinic staff right now consists of four Honduran nurses, two volunteer nurses (a German nurse that arrived in January, and myself), a pre-med student volunteer from the States, two volunteer German doctors, and four año familiares (young adults that grew up on the Ranch, and are now doing their year of service in repayment to the Ranch for supporting them through high school). There is somebody in the internal clinic 24 hours a day. The staff doctor and a volunteer doctor do consults in the afternoon for a couple hours on weekdays. Our external clinic is open every morning on weekdays. Typically we see about twenty patients there daily, but recently we’ve been seeing up to about 50 patients in just four hours. The numbers always seem to rise a little bit once word gets out that there are foreign doctors working there.

Outside of just providing consults for the children, there are several projects we are constantly working on. One of our major responsibilities is taking care of our twenty HIV positive children. My major project last year was developing a system that would help us control the medications for these children. They all currently receive anti-retroviral medications, which is a major undertaking for our clinics, and the tios (the adults responsible for the children in the homes). There was a recent turnover in the majority of the clinic staff, and throughout all of the shuffling, the system I developed last year has fallen through the cracks. This year I will continue to work with these children to keep track of their health care needs.

We are also currently trying to develop a system to provide ongoing monitoring of our children for certain health problems. A major health care concern here is intestinal parasites. There has never been a strict system on testing and treating the children for this, so we are trying to get that under control.

We also just recently started an educational exchange program within the clinic staff. Every couple weeks the health care team gets together, and we discuss a certain health-related topic, or teach a particular skill. Examples of these are how to apply injections, how to do stitches (this comes in handy with all of the cuts we see, caused by machetes), basic first aid, mock emergency situations, etc. I have dreams of teaching basic CPR this year to the interested adults that care for the kids in the homes, and in the school.

My typical work schedule in the clinic is 7am – 5pm. Each volunteer here is assigned to a specific “hogar”, or home where children live according to age and developmental level. Last year my hogar was Casa Suyapa, which is the home for the youngest children here (through 8-9 year olds). I have decided to stay with this hogar again this year. The volunteers go to their hogar every night for a couple hours, to eat dinner with the children, to help them with homework, and get them ready for bed. After working in the clinic the entire day, I am usually pretty drained, but it’s so great to be able to spend some time with the kids at the end of it all. Seeing them every day reminds me of why I’m here.

This year I will also be more involved with “Interconsulta”, which is when we bring children into the public hospital in Tegucigalpa, generally two times weekly, for appointments with specialists as needed. On these days, we leave the Ranch at 5am to make it to the hospital by 6:30. These days are generally long, and stressful. You’ll read more about the hospitals in Teguc in a later entry. Another project I will take on this year is trying to develop a system which will help Interconsulta run a little more smoothly, and that will help us to control the treatment of these children a little more closely.

You get the idea. Lots of work, and only another year to do it =)

ringing in 2007 with a bang

2007-01-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

Ohh, the things I missed most about life in Honduras...all of the bug bites, stomach problems, hand washing your clothes, and showering in cold water. On the up side, we had crystal clear drinking water until just a couple of days ago. Now it's beginning to have that brown tinge to it. Thank God for Aguazul bottled water.

On New Year's Eve, I was reminded of the horrible lack of sense of safety here in Honduras. There is a tradition of stuffing an old pair of clothes with newspaper and fireworks to light on fire at midnight, to leave the past year behind, and to welcome in the new. 12:00 comes around, and everybody is encouraged to crowd around this doll, to watch it go up in flames. So, there are children of all ages huddling around this thing, I mean, down to the smallest children. The second it is lit, it explodes into flames, and people start running from it. It looked and sounded like people were running away from some sort of invasion. I'm surprised nobody ended up with severe burns, or broken bones from being trampled over. Ha, the lack of safety never ceases to amaze me. With that being said, New Years was a blast. The kids all had a great time at the dance, and the volunteers continued our New Years festivities after the children were put to bed at 3am.

This week I began my work in the clinics. I met with the coordinator, and we discussed our plan in a nutshell, as to what we want to do this year. At this point in time, I will be co-coordinator of the clinics, which gives me hope to help a lot of good things happen. We have high hopes, so we'll see how far we will actually be able to carry them through. The clinic staff has a lot of potential, but due to unfortunate problems with communication and personality conflicts, the functioning ability of the clinic has taken a turn for the worst. My exact position for this year is still up in the air, as the coordinator is wanting a break from her position. There is another Honduran candidate being considered, but it is also a possibility I would be put into that position. We were supposed to find out this week what the plan is, but as all things go here in Honduras, that date has been postponed.

A couple stories to stimulate your minds...

A couple nights ago, we had chicken part soup for the second time since I arrived. This soup includes chicken feet, necks, and all the other deliciously nutritious chicken parts we would never even imagine eating. One of the kids in Casa Suyapa (where kids through 8 years old live), said to me as he was gnawing on chicken toes, "oh poor volunteers. you are all dying of hunger tonight". It is pretty well known on the ranch that volunteers do not take part in this meal, so the kids enjoy giving us a hard time about it. I just like to think of it as leaving more food for the kids to eat, because they actually enjoy it.

Another night, as we were preparing for dinner, I was sitting on the ground with one of my girls laying across my lap, staring up at the stars. She looked up at me and said, "I don't have any parents." This beautiful girl is only 7 years old. So, I asked her where her parents are, and she told me there were in heaven. Her mother passed away from cancer, and her father passed away from some unknown cause. She pointed to two stars up in the sky, and said "look, they are right there watching over me, and praying for me".

As I was running around playing with the kids the other day, one of them stopped me just to talk. He was asking me what country I was from, and all that other small talk that the kids love so much. He then started asking me if there were bad people that lived there, and if people do bad things to each other. He wanted to know if there were gangs like there are here, and wanted to know if people kill each other where I come from. The kids on the Ranch here come from so many backgrounds. Some from abusive families, others have seen their parents killed right in front of them. Violence has become a reality, a norm to them. Hearing a small child ask me questions like that just brought back their stories, and opened my eyes to their reality again.

i´m here!

2006-12-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

just wanted to leave a quick note to let everybody know i´ve arrived safely, and am loving being back on the ranch. it´s been so great getting to hang out with the kids during christmas break over the past couple days. i will begin working next week probably, after taking a little time to just relax. a ton of ex-volunteers are here visiting. it´s been awesome getting to see them all as well.

just so you all know, the internet on the ranch isn´t working, so my emails won´t be as often as they were last time(which wasn´t very often either). hopefully they´ll get it fixed soon, but we´ll have to wait and see.

i hope you are all doing well, and enjoying the christmas season!
happy new year,
annie

a new direction

2006-12-04T21:35:00.001-08:00

Today at 0800, I skipped out of Allen hospital, unemployed, and happy to start off in a different direction. As many of you know, my last six months were spent working on the medical oncology floor as an RN. It's true, it is one of the most stressful jobs I've ever had, and I am beyond ready to return to the relaxed, slower-paced Latino way of life.

Although I'm happy to have the stress of 4 Tower behind me, it was hard to leave all of the amazing people I met during my short period of employment. We had a great team of nurses, and I learned a lot from the patients I provided care for. Some of them facing the end of life, even at young ages, the patients and families were able to bring out the positives, and still had smiles on their faces.

Who knows, some day maybe I will be called back to providing care for cancer patients, or hospice patients. But for now, it's off to Honduras for another year. I am returning to NPH, the home for orphaned and abandoned children that I volunteered at last year. My role this time around has changed slightly. I will have more of a management/coordinator position, working closely with the girl who is in charge of the clinics, who is from Honduras. She never received actual nursing education, but has had years of experience working in clinics, and is quite knowledgeable.

I am looking forward to getting back to the children and my friends in Honduras, especially during the Christmas season. Several other volunteers that were down there with me will be returning for visits over New Year's, so there are many good times ahead.

You will find my mailing address off to the left. I always love receiving letters and packages! I will have access to the internet, so emails as well are always welcome! They keep the volunteers pretty busy down there, so if I'm slow with responses, my apologies in advance!

Enjoy the holiday season.
Peace,
A.K.