Today (Sunday) began with pancakes in the dining room of our
hotel. Normally, I’m not a huge panqueque
fan, but these seemed different. Mine were much thinner than the ones my dad
makes, almost like crepes. After that, half of us went to church and the other
half went to the Sunday morning markets. I’ve only been to a Catholic church
service once or twice in my entire life, so the service here was unfamiliar,
but interesting anyway. I was able to follow along fairly well with the flow of
the service, except for when to sit down and stand up. It was a kids’ service,
so there was a kids’ choir and upper elementary-aged kids led the liturgies and
some of the prayers. That was neat to see. They were so cute.
After church, we hustled over to the clinic to begin working
for the day. It was pretty much the same as yesterday in terms of the process,
but in addition, we had a handful of clients from yesterday that needed
custom-made glasses and returned today to pick them up. We give those that need
to return a slip with a day and time that they can come back and we allow them
to come in through the back door so they don’t have to wait in the regular line
to pick up their glasses. I think they really appreciate that. I know I would.
I got to meet so many great Hondurans (both adults and kids)
today. Yesterday was more hectic, but today I had some time to sit with people
and talk to them. I even got to hold a few babies!! I miss Tyler (my little hombrecito that I take care of during
the week) and he’s not so little anymore! He doesn’t always want to sit and
cuddle with me anymore, so I absolutely loved holding the little 5- and 6-month
old babies that came through with their parents. It seemed like there were a
lot more kids today too, and I got to have a lot of fun with them. While Jefa Sandy and Aunt Penny would find the
right glasses for them, I would help them pick out some sunglasses. We try to
give sunglasses to everyone here because the sun is much more powerful here,
closer to the equator. When I have boys picking out sunglasses, I always show
them the pink Barbie pairs first, and they all say “Nooo! Aquellas son para chicas!” (Those are for girls!) Then we all
have a good laugh.
One of my little bebecitos,
Isaac, a little boy who turned 1 yesterday, had pinkeye. I felt so bad for him.
His parents came through for vision tests and glasses, and when they got to the
dispensary, they asked me to look at his eyes and tell them what was wrong. I
told them that I would get a doctor for them, but even I could see that the
little guy’s eyes were all bloodshot. Dr. Bob came by and explained through me
about pinkeye, how contagious it was, how important it was to keep the eyes and
eyelashes clean and wash hands often, and how the drops worked and how often to
use them. The little guy was a champ. He didn’t cry or squirm when Dr. Bob had to
shine the light in his eyes or when he put the drops in. One of the other team
members got a great picture of him and me, so I’ll have to post that one when
she emails it to me. It sucks that he has pinkeye, but that means he has to
come back, so I’ll get to see him and his parents again! P.S. to Rob and Susie - Isaac does the "how old are you" hold-up-one-finger better than Tyler does. I couldn't get him to clap, though, which seems to be T's speciality. :)
My Spanish is doing pretty well too. I’ve gotten lots of
compliments, both from team members and from clients, about how fluid I am with
the two languages. I feel so affirmed by that. My Spanish professors would be
absolutely horrified by how sloppy I’ve been with my pronunciation, but I’ve
found that trying to mimic the accent that my client has helps me to
communicate better with them. For example, the older generation has very thick
accents – they tend to leave the ‘s’ off of their words, they say “pah” instead
of “para,” and they tend to just garble their words a bit. Like they have rocks
in their mouths. The younger generations, especially the kids, speak more clearly,
so I try to match accents with the client. Today also went better because I
found a little stool on wheels that I sat and rolled around on. Since the
patients were sitting down, I sat down too, and then I was eye-to-eye with
them. It helped a LOT. I could see their mouths, I could hear them better, and
it was just easier to talk. I hate looming over people. I’d rather sit with
them on the same level to talk. Hopefully that wheelie stool doesn’t disappear.
I think that’s all for now. We’re supposed to have a “night
off” from organized dinner and entertainment, so hopefully I’ll be able to get
some homework done and relax with some books. Or maybe I’ll just go to sleep. I’ve
been waking up at 6am here, even with earplugs and a white noise app on my Kindle.
Oh well. When in Honduras…
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