Thu, Feb 26: IRR - and I! - leave Francia for our trip up the Rio Coco (Coconut River) to take clinics into villages that have never had medical care before. We leave early so as to arrive in Waspam early enough to take our boat all the way to Krin Krin, our first stop - but the boat isn´t there. By some mix-up in communication, it is actually hauling lumber on the river today. We have to wait till tomorrow for a boat. We spend the night on the open floor in the city´s community center.
Fri, Feb 27: We spend all day in our boat. Literally. We leave early and don´t get to Krin Krin till almost dark. We´re starving. We set up camp and eat a small supper. The guys set up their tents in the clinic, and we girls set up in the Pastor´s house, and on his porch, too. We´re very cramped for space.
Sat, Feb 28: We go to church in the morning and have clinic in the afternoon in the nearby school. Patients come and come and come . . . we stay open until after dark and still can´t see them all.
Sun, Mar 1: And we do clinic again in Krin Krin today, all day.
Mon, Mar 2 or Tue Mar 3 (I´m a little off on my dates): We take the boat to Krisnak, a little village up the Waspuk, a tributary of the Rio Coco. We set up camp in the old Catholic church building - by old, I mean that there´s light coming through between every board in the walls, and you can see the sheep and pigs below you through the floor. Tarantulas also come up through the cracks, and cochroaches. We hold a clinic in the afternoon.
Wed, Mar 4: Instead of starting clinic first thing this morning, we take a break first, and head up river a little ways to a waterfall. It´s a gorgeous double cascade, one after the other, with a deep pool in between that´s perfect for jumping into and bathing. There´s even a small trickle coming down that forms a perfect shower head. We´ve been bathing in the river every day (despite the threat of alligators), but this is better than anything else yet.
We run clinic in the afternoon.
Thu, Mar 5: Only a few of us head to the waterfall this morning. The group is starting to fall sick - there´s been a cold going around, and now a stomach bug has started. Even those who aren´t throwing up are tired.
We go to a village at the mouth of our tributary, named Waspuk, like the tributary. The people are so happy to see us, especially the children. They crowd around us, jumping excitedly whenever we take out our cameras. We take loads of pictures, just for the pleasure of showing them themselves. Clinic today includes a small tumor removal that I get to help with - I inject the lidocaine before the procedure. Very exciting.
Fri, Mar 6: We do clinic for a few patients in Krisnak in the morning. Except a few turns into a lot, and we don´t leave until almost noon. No matter, our boat ride back is only supposed to take 4 hours, or 6 . . . 8 hours later we finally hit Waspam. Those of us who are sick are completely miserable. I am at least not throwing up, but I am getting a sore throat.
Rusty does not meet us at the dock. We despair, assuming he got tired of waiting and left for Francia without us. We start making plans to spend the night, when the deuce rolls up. That un-naturally loud engine is the sweetest sound in the world.
Sat, Mar 7: We recover.
Sun, Mar 8: Packing day.
Mon, Mar 9: We take IRR to Puerto Cabezas and say goodbye.
Tue, Mar 10 - Thu, Mar 12: We get ready for Union´s nursing group to arrive. I spend a lot of time resting, since I now have a stomach bug on top of my sore throat.
Fri, Mar 13: The Frontier Nursing class from Union College arrives on this night.
Sat, Mar 14: We go to church in the morning, then the group hikes out to the Rio Wawa again in the afternoon. I stay home and rest.
Sun, Mar 15: We organize the supplies Union brought with them, and open the clinic for Francia in the afternoon. I assist Gina Foster, the OB/GYN nurse practitioner, with translating. I translate to Spanish, and Amelia, the local midwife, translates to Miskito for the patients. It´s awkward, but it works.
Mon, Mar 16: Union´s first clinic in Tasba Pain!
Tue, Mar 17: Clinic in Esperanza. I´m helping Gina again when a girl comes in to be seen who´s actually in labor. She´s only 15 years old, so Gina decides to take her to Francia Sirpi for the birth, because we have more resources there. I assist Gina and Amelia all afternoon with translating and helping the girl through labor. In the evening, she starts pushing, but it takes a long time, partly because it´s her first birth, partly because she´s worked up emotionally. Her mom is in another village and we have no way to contact her. The poor girl keeps crying for her mom and saying how tired she is - she doesn´t think she can do it. But she can, and she does, to a little girl, which they name . . . Katie. Seriously. It was Amelia´s idea. I´m very honored, but I kind of feel bad for the kid. Imagine growing up with a name no one in your village can pronounce.
Wed, Mar 18: The deuce goes to Kapri again! Rusty tries to take it all the way into the village again! And gets stuck again! I´m so glad I stayed home on this day. They actually did make it all the way in, but got stuck again on the way out, on the same steep hill as last time. They had to hike out to Miguel Bikan again, but this time, Jeremy was there with the second deuce to meet them. They didn´t all get back until 3am, tho.
Thu, Mar 19: Rest day.
Fri, Mar 20: Last mobile clinic in Tikamp.
Sat, Mar 21: The nursing students leave. :( Now I´m even more homesick, because I had my friends here for a while, and now they´re gone. But, only one more month and I´ll be home.
Sun, Mar 22: Dr. Rafael Lacayo, a local doc, Janet, Amelia, and Ruth´s mother, who´s a nurse, go with us on a small mobile clinic to Wisconsin. Union had planned on hitting Wisconsin, but had to miss because of the truck getting stuck.
Mon, Mar 23 and Tue, Mar 24: Rest and clean-up from the groups.
Wed, Mar 25: Come to Port - and here I am. And tired. Aren´t you proud of me for staying up so late to tell you what I´ve been doing? ;)
I love and miss you all, and I´ll be home soon! May 3, Lord willing and the crick don´t rise. Pray for our last month to be productive and happy.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A very muddy tale
Well, I´ve been absent from my blog for almost two months now, and I´m almost afraid to try to catch you all up to speed on everything that´s happened since. But I can try, at least a little bit.
Wed, Feb 11: I go with Rusty and Jenny on the deuce to Port to pick up supplies for the groups coming in.
Thur, Feb 12: I go with Rusty and Jeremy on two deuces (yes, we have two that work now). We head to Leymus to pick up IRR (International Rescue and Relief from Union College), who are supposed to be crossing the river around noon there to leave Honduras and enter Nicaragua. We wait by the river all afternoon, from 1pm on. Finally after dark, at 6:30 we leave to spend the night in nearby Waspam. We check email there to see if they sent us anything, but no. We sleep in a sparsely furnishing hotel of questionable cleanliness. The barrel of water that I am supposed to use to clean myself has mosquito larvae in it. I entertain serious questions about whether this ¨shower¨ is worth it.
Fri, Feb 13: We go back to Leymus and get IRR. Apparently they reached the river about 20 minutes after we left. Oops. :P We load up and head back to Francia Sirpi.
Sat, Feb 14: Valentine´s Day! We take IRR to church. Then in the afternoon, we hike to the Wawa river. It takes about an hour through the jungle. It´s still muddy, but not nearly as bad as the first time I hiked it last August. And the rapids are totally worth it - cold and fast and fun. After showering, we spend the evening eating candy hearts and giving each other back rubs. :)
Sun, Feb 15: IRR sits in lecture, and Jenny, Mindy, and I get to organize their pharmacy! Apparently all the hours we spent organizing our clinic´s pharmacy were meant to prepare us for something. :) We get faster every time we do it.
Mon, Feb 16: IRR´s first mobile clinic in Tasba Pain. Some of the students treat a little baby with bad pneumonia. Everyone´s worried about it - Dr. Duehrssen especially thinks it needs to go to the hospital. We´ll send someone back tomorrow to check on him.
Tue, Feb 17: Mobile clinic in Kwiwi Tingni. We get back late, and then Mrs. Brown comes up on the hill to tell us that her daughter, Dexli, who´s almost ready to have a baby, is having pains. Several of us head down to check on her, but it turns out she is not having contractions, but pain in the area of her liver, maybe gallstones. By the time we figure that out and get her pain medicine, it´s past midnight.
Wed, Feb 18: Break from clinics. I go with Rusty, Mindy, and Jeremy to Port to buy groceries. We leave at 4am or some such ungodly hour so we can pick up the baby and his family from Tasba Pain and get them out to the main road where they can catch a bus to Waspam. We also send Dexli to Waspam. We get back from our grocery trip around 10pm, very tired.
Thu, Feb 19: Back to clinics again! Today we go to Kapri, a town down the road past Miguel Bikan. But I´m using the term ¨road¨ very loosely. It has huge mud puddles at the bottom of each hill, and after a while it cease to be a road for vehicles and turns into a footpath for horses and muddy humans. Rusty says he got the truck all the way to Kapri last year, so he can do it again this year. But it´s been rainier this year . . . Rusty tries to take the deuce through one too many mud puddles, and it gets stuck. Very stuck. The men of IRR start trying to pull it out while Rusty jumps on the motorcycle to go back to Francia and get the other truck. The problem is, the second truck has no brakes. It gets stuck too, without doing the first truck any good.
Meanwhile, we girls have hiked a small amount of medicines into Kapri and are setting up a limited clinic. Some of the guys join us, and we go until early afternoon. We hike back to the two deuces - by now they are both unstuck. But it´s rained while we´ve been in clinic, and we still have several steep hills to go up. Here ensues the great battle with the mud. Our pack of IRR guys gets the trucks up one hill, two hills - but not three. The third hill is much too steep. But we don´t realize that until we´ve tried for two hours or so. First all the guys push at the back. Then we load all the girls onto the truck for extra weight to create traction, and all the guys push again. The tires spin mud up into their faces, and many of them are soon coated. (I promise to post the picture of Jeremy after I get back - he was the best monster.) Then all the girls jump up and down in unison while the guys push, again to create more traction. It helps, but not enough, and we decide the danger of us falling off the truck is greater than the benefits. So all the girls go in front of the truck and pull with the chain while the guys continue to push. We still only make it to halfway up the hill.
So when it gets dark, we start walking, and Jeremy and Ryan Veness take off faster than us. They get to Miguel Bikan first and borrow bikes so they can get back to Francia and ask Mike Halverson to come get us on his truck. We get to Miguel Bikan a little later and settle down to wait for Mike to come. We bunk down on the wood floors of a church. After a while, it gets cold, and, prepared IRR souls that we are, we have metal matches, so we build a fire outside. Cow poop covers the ground all around us, but we try to avoid it when we lie next to our fire. Between the fire and the Space blankets, everyone manages to get warm, some inside the church, some out. And we sleep. Mike never comes.
Fri, Feb 20: We wake up at dawn and start walking. None of us have eaten since, at best, late afternoon yesterday. None of us have water left. We don´t talk much - walking takes a lot of concentration right now. When we´re getting close to Francia, Clint Hanley, another local missionary, comes along with his pick-up truck and takes some of us the rest of the way in to Francia. He explains that Mike didn´t come last night because one of the axles on his truck was broken. When we´re finally home, food and water have never been so sweet before.
Sat, Feb 21: We rest our beaten bodies.
Sun, Feb 22: Mobile clinic in Esperanza.
Mon, Feb 23: Off day.
Tue, Feb 24: We go back to Kapri, scene of the disaster. Wiser this time, we stop the truck in Miguel Bikan and hike in. We split our group in Kapri, and half of us go into Polo, a village even further back. We make it back to Francia on the same day. :)
Wed, Feb 25: We pack for the river trip.
You´ll notice the above account of the truck getting stuck in mud is different in some details from the story Union College´s Clocktower published about the event. The date, for instance, is incorrect in the CT, as is the statement that we were back in mobile clinics the next day. (No way did we want to do that). Just thought I´d set the record straight...
Wed, Feb 11: I go with Rusty and Jenny on the deuce to Port to pick up supplies for the groups coming in.
Thur, Feb 12: I go with Rusty and Jeremy on two deuces (yes, we have two that work now). We head to Leymus to pick up IRR (International Rescue and Relief from Union College), who are supposed to be crossing the river around noon there to leave Honduras and enter Nicaragua. We wait by the river all afternoon, from 1pm on. Finally after dark, at 6:30 we leave to spend the night in nearby Waspam. We check email there to see if they sent us anything, but no. We sleep in a sparsely furnishing hotel of questionable cleanliness. The barrel of water that I am supposed to use to clean myself has mosquito larvae in it. I entertain serious questions about whether this ¨shower¨ is worth it.
Fri, Feb 13: We go back to Leymus and get IRR. Apparently they reached the river about 20 minutes after we left. Oops. :P We load up and head back to Francia Sirpi.
Sat, Feb 14: Valentine´s Day! We take IRR to church. Then in the afternoon, we hike to the Wawa river. It takes about an hour through the jungle. It´s still muddy, but not nearly as bad as the first time I hiked it last August. And the rapids are totally worth it - cold and fast and fun. After showering, we spend the evening eating candy hearts and giving each other back rubs. :)
Sun, Feb 15: IRR sits in lecture, and Jenny, Mindy, and I get to organize their pharmacy! Apparently all the hours we spent organizing our clinic´s pharmacy were meant to prepare us for something. :) We get faster every time we do it.
Mon, Feb 16: IRR´s first mobile clinic in Tasba Pain. Some of the students treat a little baby with bad pneumonia. Everyone´s worried about it - Dr. Duehrssen especially thinks it needs to go to the hospital. We´ll send someone back tomorrow to check on him.
Tue, Feb 17: Mobile clinic in Kwiwi Tingni. We get back late, and then Mrs. Brown comes up on the hill to tell us that her daughter, Dexli, who´s almost ready to have a baby, is having pains. Several of us head down to check on her, but it turns out she is not having contractions, but pain in the area of her liver, maybe gallstones. By the time we figure that out and get her pain medicine, it´s past midnight.
Wed, Feb 18: Break from clinics. I go with Rusty, Mindy, and Jeremy to Port to buy groceries. We leave at 4am or some such ungodly hour so we can pick up the baby and his family from Tasba Pain and get them out to the main road where they can catch a bus to Waspam. We also send Dexli to Waspam. We get back from our grocery trip around 10pm, very tired.
Thu, Feb 19: Back to clinics again! Today we go to Kapri, a town down the road past Miguel Bikan. But I´m using the term ¨road¨ very loosely. It has huge mud puddles at the bottom of each hill, and after a while it cease to be a road for vehicles and turns into a footpath for horses and muddy humans. Rusty says he got the truck all the way to Kapri last year, so he can do it again this year. But it´s been rainier this year . . . Rusty tries to take the deuce through one too many mud puddles, and it gets stuck. Very stuck. The men of IRR start trying to pull it out while Rusty jumps on the motorcycle to go back to Francia and get the other truck. The problem is, the second truck has no brakes. It gets stuck too, without doing the first truck any good.
Meanwhile, we girls have hiked a small amount of medicines into Kapri and are setting up a limited clinic. Some of the guys join us, and we go until early afternoon. We hike back to the two deuces - by now they are both unstuck. But it´s rained while we´ve been in clinic, and we still have several steep hills to go up. Here ensues the great battle with the mud. Our pack of IRR guys gets the trucks up one hill, two hills - but not three. The third hill is much too steep. But we don´t realize that until we´ve tried for two hours or so. First all the guys push at the back. Then we load all the girls onto the truck for extra weight to create traction, and all the guys push again. The tires spin mud up into their faces, and many of them are soon coated. (I promise to post the picture of Jeremy after I get back - he was the best monster.) Then all the girls jump up and down in unison while the guys push, again to create more traction. It helps, but not enough, and we decide the danger of us falling off the truck is greater than the benefits. So all the girls go in front of the truck and pull with the chain while the guys continue to push. We still only make it to halfway up the hill.
So when it gets dark, we start walking, and Jeremy and Ryan Veness take off faster than us. They get to Miguel Bikan first and borrow bikes so they can get back to Francia and ask Mike Halverson to come get us on his truck. We get to Miguel Bikan a little later and settle down to wait for Mike to come. We bunk down on the wood floors of a church. After a while, it gets cold, and, prepared IRR souls that we are, we have metal matches, so we build a fire outside. Cow poop covers the ground all around us, but we try to avoid it when we lie next to our fire. Between the fire and the Space blankets, everyone manages to get warm, some inside the church, some out. And we sleep. Mike never comes.
Fri, Feb 20: We wake up at dawn and start walking. None of us have eaten since, at best, late afternoon yesterday. None of us have water left. We don´t talk much - walking takes a lot of concentration right now. When we´re getting close to Francia, Clint Hanley, another local missionary, comes along with his pick-up truck and takes some of us the rest of the way in to Francia. He explains that Mike didn´t come last night because one of the axles on his truck was broken. When we´re finally home, food and water have never been so sweet before.
Sat, Feb 21: We rest our beaten bodies.
Sun, Feb 22: Mobile clinic in Esperanza.
Mon, Feb 23: Off day.
Tue, Feb 24: We go back to Kapri, scene of the disaster. Wiser this time, we stop the truck in Miguel Bikan and hike in. We split our group in Kapri, and half of us go into Polo, a village even further back. We make it back to Francia on the same day. :)
Wed, Feb 25: We pack for the river trip.
You´ll notice the above account of the truck getting stuck in mud is different in some details from the story Union College´s Clocktower published about the event. The date, for instance, is incorrect in the CT, as is the statement that we were back in mobile clinics the next day. (No way did we want to do that). Just thought I´d set the record straight...
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