Yesterday was pretty cool - it pretty much summed up why we all came on this trip and the type of people we are hoping to help. Yesterday we were off to a very little group of islands called Cayos Cochinos to set up a makeshift clinic and treat the islanders. It was a very wet 1.5 hr boat ride to the islands due to wind and rain and the lack of a proper boat. We were told the day before we would be on a yacht to get there so were all pretty hyped about the trip. The morning of I had my reservations about the yacht situation and said to Ashley, "do you think a yacht in Canada is the same as a yacht here"?? Well I was right as we were all standing in anticipation of this excellent yacht a lovely fishing boat pulled up. so in the pouring rain we loaded up the boat and climbed on ready for a wet n wild ride.
After we loaded all of our stuff (which was a lot) and loaded ourselves, the boat driver took one look and scratched his chin and said "I don't think we are going to make it in this" so off we got and unloaded our stuff to load it back on to a slightly larger boat with a tarp to cover!! The tarp didn't do much to help us, between the Rain and huge swells splashing over the boat we were all nicely covered in salt water huddled into a corner trying to stay somewhat dry. After the boat driver saw this he kindly brought out a HUGE blue tarp that we could all get underneath
At this point it's all just funny and we laughed the rest of the way to the Island. Well. . . Okay maybe I wasn't laughing that much, but I wasn't grumpy which I was pretty proud of. I think what helped the whole situation was the pod of wild dolphins that came to play along the boat on our journey - it was absolutely amazing. They look like they get so excited to have company and they squeal and jump all around the boat for attention!!
Once we arrived the island was a lot smaller than I thought, it was Basicly a sand bar with some huts on it, there were several of these sand bar islands in a grouping each only inhabiting about 60 - 100 people (and I thought Luseland was small). For those that were at my wedding - it was smaller than paradise island the island that we went snorkeling at.
Once we got there we were swiftly met by a boat of armed men (and by armed I mean very visible and very huge machine guns) who would wanted all of our personal info - for a minute I thought "oh great we are being taken over by Caribbean pirates, and I envisioned the news cast at home and people shaking there heads at it saying - stupid tourist going were they shouldn't be" anyway turned out to be Honduran military phew!! After unloading our gear to a local fisher mans boat we set up clinic. We had a triage area, a dr.s treatment area, a pharmacy area, a dental area, an eye testing area, and an area for aids testing and condom giveaway. Outside the pharmacy we had an area for giveaway of boxes and boxes of donated clothes. We saw quite a few patients, tested for HIV and gave away lots of condoms and clothes, tested for eye problems and then gave people donated glasses until they found a pair that helped them see the eye chart better, Ashley and Dan pulled rotten teeth, and I kinda assisted with what I could. Give credit to your dental people everyone because I now know I am super glad I did not do anything with dentistry - it is sooo oo gross!!
Unloading our gear
Setting up clinic
Ashley getting ready to extract
Giving away clothes and lining up for clinic
Tying out donated glasses
Me giving away toothbrushes and trying to teach the children how to brush there's teet
Our first customer - it took all of us to hold him down while Ashley extracted rotten teeth! And yes she did freeze him first he was just so scared
Dan getting ready for extraction
Me sterilizing equipment in my makeshift dirty service area
Some of the huts
Once we were there for the morning the locals came and told us lunch was ready (even though we had all packed our own lunches) so off we were to have a local lunch, which was a fried whole fish and rice and beans, it was a little scetchy looking but we thought it was going to be rude not to eat it seeing as this was the only way they could show us gratitude. It was good and always interesting to eat a local meal however, once we we're getting back on our boat to leave they came and told us we all owed 150 each for lunch - damn locals scamming us for money.
After we closed up our clinic we had about half and hour to swim and explore then back on the boat. This time loading our stuff from the beach to the boat was an even smaller local fisher mans canoe that was more tippy that is was stable. We all has visions of dental equipment medication and electronics on the bottom of the crystal clear ocean. Those who could swim chose that mode of transport to the boat and those that could not rode in the boat (Dan said it was one of the scariest rides of his life)!!
On the way back home the ride was much sunnier and a little less wet but again included playful wild dolphins.
All in all an amazing and humbling experience!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
