Sorry for the delay in posting, but the Internet connection at the hotel has been subject to intermittent outages. So this post will be a summary of both Tuesday and Wednesday of our trip. We will have more photos later but cannot add them at the moment.
Tuesday we worked in a community to the northwest of Tegucigalpa called Las Hadras. We worked in an abandoned vocational training center built in 2001 with funds from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. It may have been well-intentioned, but the building is now unused, for reasons we never learned. I would say it was a pretty big waste of money but at least John and Ana get to use it for clinics.
We saw nearly 250 patients who seemed to be in slightly better circumstances than the people we served yesterday. The health problems were similar, but their living conditions were slightly better.
Tuesday night we had a very good meal at a restaurant called Hacienda Real that was practically indistinguishable from a restaurant you might find in Nashville’s Cool Springs area. Many members of the team have been struck by how Tegucigalpa seems to consist of two separate societies. One includes people like those we have been serving, the majority of home are unemployed and living in squalid and dangerous communities. The other consists of a significant number of individuals who are able to eat at nice restaurants and shop at one of four nice shopping malls filled with the same branded merchandise we enjoy. But it is difficult to see where the “haves” live.
Wednesday we served in a community called Carrizal, in northwest Tegucigalpa. The people have been wonderful in all the communities we have served, but we found the people of this community to be especially friendly and gracious. We worked on the second floor of a two story church building and served close to 200 people. We will be back in this community on Thursday. After finishing at Carrizal we returned to the hotel for another round of pill-counting fun.
Our days have generally required leaving the hotel at about 7 AM and turning in for the night at about 9 PM. The long days are leaving us pretty wiped out at the end of the day, but thankfully everyone is in good health. It is a blessing to be able to do this, and we appreciate everyone’s support back home.
Filed under: General
