Tuesday, October 16th 2018
Today we rode nearly 2 hours to the village of Corinto in Meambar. This is a mountain community that has no electricity and a potable water system. All food is cooked with firewood stoves. The kindergarten has about 8 students and the elementary school has about 55 students. There is no high school. There is also no health center in this community. Some of the most common illnesses seen in this area are respiratory, stomach, skin and eye infections.
Several team members commented that the "flow" of patients in this village seemed to move more smoothly. It's not that our village yesterday was too chaotic or anything, but the layout of the school buildings here lent itself to better organization.
Our general clinic served 228 people today. The dentist pulled 31 teeth. It is still such a strange idea to me that there are people now, in 2018, who don't have access to basic healthcare. FOB is making a huge difference in Honduras, but it is a process. Katie, one of our nurses today, had a women come to her station who was pregnant. The woman was experiencing abdominal pain, but didn't really understand that it was an alarming symptom during pregnancy. She was just used to having the pain. It was a part of her life. This patient was referred to Dra. Moncada for more care.
The FOB staff and volunteers developed a great camaraderie with the villagers, especially the children. Pictures were a big hit in Corinto. We constantly had kids tugging on our pants or arms requesting to have their picture taken.
It was an overcast day and the rain settled in starting in the late morning. This was somewhat of a cause for concern, as heavy rains can wash out roads and render them impassable. Thankfully, even though it rained for several hours, we were able to return to Casa de Alfredo safely. We enjoyed another awesome dinner and had a short devotion on humility. Tomorrow morning, we will share breakfast with the rest of the FOB staff that resides here in Honduras.
~Molly Rhodes
I'm personally very excited to get started tomorrow, and I think everyone else feels the same. Stay tuned for more updat
