I met up with several members of the team at the airport yesterday. The team is largely medical personnel, the majority of whom are doctors and nurses. I've been privy to some very interesting conversations already.
We arrived in San Pedro Sula about 1130 local time. Honduras operates on Central Standard Time. We chilled at the airport for a few hours, exchanging money and renting vehicles. We have five Nissan 4-wheel drive, diesel trucks to transport the team and all the gear to our destinations. I was asked to be a driver to which I was happy to do. The conversation about driving in Honduras was humorous. "Full contact" driving was one reference. I told them I like driving in Brooklyn and Manhattan and I was hired!!
I cannot say that I ever anticipated just how applicable this missions trip will be to my Masters in Public Health (MPH) program at Fort Valley State University. It's as if everything that I've been studying for the past year and a half is being shown to me real world with this trip..
Last evening, over burgers in a Burger King in La Ceiba, I listened to two doctors discussing what to tell patients about the Zika virus and how to treat them if they do, in fact, test positive for Zika.
This morning I listened to discussion about sustaining medical efforts which are put in place by one organization or another. People tend to revert to the ways they have always done life.
How does one sustain an effort in a community such as those we will be visiting. This team previously gave a water filter to a hotel in a small village. When they came back and asked where it was, the response was "Oh, it's protected over here for when the gringos come back." Or the woman who was set up to sell glasses, but all her friends come in and want them for free and pretty soon, she has nothing left.
In consideration of where I am at in my Public Health studies, I am being directly exposed to the challenges of community public health. The discussions include words on surveys, databases, point source water quality, coliform levels in water supplies, test kits, FDA limitations, cultural differences between patients and medical personnel trained in different countries. This is an amazing field experience and I am anxious to learn all I can.
This team is going to a part of Honduras which seldom sees trained medical personnel. The ultimate destination is the village of Las Marias, about 6-8 hours by canoe up the Rio Platano into the rain forest. This is an extremely ambitious undertaking and takes an incredible amount of preparation, to include grocery shopping here in La Ceiba as the villages we are visiting do not have adequate food supplies to feed a group of 20.
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