The Adventures of August

Power Outage

Common occurrences in rural Honduras are our power and water outages. Thanks to the solar panels that were installed a couple years ago, the power outages are less common, but they still occur. At the beginning of August, the Finca was without power for a whole weekend which made for very toasty nights without fans. The Franciscan sisters decided to take the situation into their own hands and pitch a tent on the terrace of their convent in the pitch black of night since the ocean breeze provided some relief from the heat. As I was going on my nightly walk around the Finca, every time I passed by the convent it seemed the Sisters were somehow dismantling their tent more and more. Each lap I made around was a surprise to see how the Sisters had improved, or yet, tangled themselves deeper and deeper into the mess of the tent. About an hour and a half later, movements on the top of the convent finally ceased and the shadow of a lop-sided tent strung on clothes lines remained.  

Time with the Kids

With the transition of the summer volunteers heading home and awaiting the return of my fellow missionaries, Nate and Kenna, from their vacations, I had some special one on one time spent with the kiddos. One of the houses knew I was on my own for the weekend and invited me over to spend the day with them which consisted of good food, games, and a movie night. In the morning, one of the teenage girls and I whipped out a pancake breakfast in record time while dancing and enjoying the morning. Following breakfast, somehow a water fight ensued, both inside and outside of the house. Each house has two pilas (basins of water storage next to the sink) so the pilas were used as our refill and recovery station before running after and drenching one another. As a result of our fun, we were left with a whole laundry list of cleaning which included an assembly line of sweeping the water out (a common Honduras sight) and mopping the floors.

Clinic Days
The month of August was a crazy time for the clinic as we had our normal hours of service for the surrounding communities and we also had to inventory and stock all of our medicines and supplies that were donated. With the school year in full swing, common coughs and colds were passing through in addition to the typical illnesses we see such as parasites, infections, diabetes, and high blood pressure. One of my favorite things about our little clinic is that, while we service a wide range of communities, after time, we start to get to know the names and families of the patients that come in for consults. Since some individuals travel large distances to visit the doctor, it is typical to see a whole family come together for a consult.

Other August shenanigans:

Off to mass!

Maintenance work around the Finca

Sister meets crab, crab meets soup

A typical afternoon playing at the Finca