Third World Cream

My jobs at Emmanuel so far have included a lot of time in the clinic. The kids come after breakfast and again after dinner to get medicine. I've done everything from bandaging a cut to holding a little boy down while Karelia (the nurse) gave him stitches. At the beginning of last week, I started noticing some funny red bumps on my hands. They would come and go throughout the day and sometimes itched a little bit. Then I noticed that I had a lot of blisters all over my toes. Most of them were small, but there were a few big ones and they hurt! After several days of the rash and blisters worsening, I asked Karelia to have a look at it. The first time she looked at it, she thought it was an allergic reaction to my sunscreen, but after a few more days, she gave me a special cream to put on it... it's called Third World Cream! And the best part is that it was made in Gainesville! I had seen it in the clinic before and always wondered what kind of awful rash would require the use of that... now I know! Luckily the medicine is doing it's job and my little rash is somewhat disappearing. Thank you Third World Cream!

My trip to Tegucigalpa last week turned out to be quite the adventure. It was sprinkling a little bit in the morning as we headed to the city, but there was no traffic so we made it there in an hour. We passed tons of banana trees, cows, people on bicycles, and drove over several mountains. Once there, we toured the best art museum in Honduras, shopped for souvenirs, went to several churches, and ate a typical Honduran meal. It was great! However, the rain continued to get harder throughout the day so by the time we left at 4, it was pouring. To add to that, there was quite a bit of traffic so it took 2.5 hours to get back to Emmanuel. Gitte, my Danish roommate, and I sat in the back of the truck, wrapped up in plastic bags and rain coats, huddled together to keep warm. After that experience, I must say that riding in the back of a truck through a country is one of the best ways to experience life there. On a different note, I've also learned where all of the old school buses from the U.S. go... to Central America where they become public transportation known as "chicken buses," either for the fact that they crowd people on them like chickens or because they actually carry chickens along with the people. We even passed one that said DeKalb County!

Life at Emmanuel is never the same from day to day. We currently have a mission team here from Chattanooga, TN so I've been working a lot with them in the dental office, assisting the dentist, helping with files, calming the kids down, and even translating a little! The team brought some amazing cooks along with them so we've had some great food! It's a nice change from the ramen noodles, beans, and rice. And the team will be here for 3 weeks!

Whether it be through listening to the children sing songs of praise to God, watching a child's face light up as he/she gets to pick out a toy after having his/her teeth cleaned in the dental clinic, or watching the sunset over the mountains, while I am here, I am constantly reminded of God's greatness and love.

A Typical Day at Emmanuel?

One of the biggest things that I've learned so far during my time at Emmanuel is that I'm not entirely in control of my day. Most often when I try to make plans, something comes up to alter them entirely. It's taken a little bit of getting used to since I like to make my To Do List for the day and stick to it. I see now why a former volunteer told me that the biggest thing I can do to prepare is just to be flexible.

There is a big team of 100 people (including the director of the board, who happens to be a dentist) coming on Friday. They have been preparing for them here for months, fixing things up and so on. We've also been doing quite a bit of prepping since I've been here too. This week, Katie (from Tennessee), Gitte (my Danish roommate), and I were asked to drop everything and paint a wooden playground train that someone from the team donated. The sun has been scorching hot for the past week so this was not really our choice of projects, but we finished it, thank goodness! We've also been putting together some photo directories of the kids for the clinic and volunteers, preparing the dental clinic, and cutting hair (I'm going to become quite the beautician). There's no telling what project we'll undertake next ;)

If there is such a thing as a typical day here, it usually begins around 6:45 AM (6:15 AM on Fridays) with Circle Time where the kids gather in several small (or one big on Friday) circles to sing praise songs and have a devotion. Afterwards, I eat breakfast at the volunteer house and then go to the clinic where I clean and bandage cuts and give out medicine with the nurse, Karelia. After that, it's time to take the toddlers on a walk, usually to the farm where we pet horses and cows. They're so cute, but they're definitely a handful! 

Next it's time to play! My favorite kids to play with are the middle and small boys (5-12, but they all look extremely small for their ages because they didn't receive proper nutrition as babies) and the middle and small girls. The boys are much more chill than the girls and fight less (surprisingly). One of my favorite boys is Ronald. He's actually 13, but so young in looks and actions.

Around 11:45 AM I eat lunch (usually with the middle boys or the small girls... the toddler house supposedly has the best food, but I'm taking a break from it after the last time when they kept putting their beans and who knows what else into my bowl). Lunch is usually ramen noodles with vegetables (corn, green beans, and carrots) or rice and veggies, especially cabbage and corn. Sometimes we get lucky and find a piece of chicken ;)

After lunch, if we don't have any projects, I play some more. Sometimes I join the older girls in the kitchen to help make tortillas, which is a fun (and delicious) job! Dinner is around 3:30 PM (because the kids go to sleep around 6 or 7) and is usually some combination of beans and either rice or tortillas. After that, it's clinic time again, and then off to the volunteer house to play games, watch movies, read, etc. With the early mornings and all of the activity, I find myself going to sleep earlier and earlier :)

Tomorrow me and my roomies will be taking a short trip to Tegucigalpa (the capital) for a little sightseeing because Gitte has to buy an extra month on her visa. We're going with a staff family here and will be riding in the back of their pick-up truck, which is totally illegal and also totally done everywhere anyway... you've got to love Honduran laws ;)

P.S. The water problem is solved and we have plenty of water once again. Thank you for your prayers :)