In May of 2013, I experienced my first medical brigade in the beautiful country of Honduras; and what an experience it was. The lessons I learned from not only assisting with health care in underprivileged communities but from the "paisanos" as well, were beyond my expectations. Helping others in need is something I've always been known to do. It's naturally in my character. I'm currently a sophomore at Hunter College Studying Behavioral Neuropsychology.I embarked on this adventure down to Honduras with the Hunter College Medical Brigades. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I went into this trip with an open mind. I knew I was going into poverty stricken villages. The purpose of the trip was to give los paisanos healthcare that they normally don't receive. As a group, we were under the impression that we would be placed in a Honduras hospital or clinic - boy were we wrong.
This is Tegucigalpa. It's the country's capital. We flew into here from Atlanta International Airport. All the of white squares are houses, bodegas, buildings, anything you can think of that would need a roof. All the brown stuff in between is dirt. I was shocked to see that even roads were made of dirt and not concrete. When we drove from the airport to the compound, we asked our driver if there were any traffic laws; with a confused look he replied, "Que?" We took that as a no. As we drove deeper into the slums of Honduras we started to get a little wary about where we were going to be staying. We initially pulled into what looked like an insane asylum: brick, clay buildings, barred and wood bound windows. I've seen poverty before, but nothing like this.
This home here uses tree branches as a fence and connects them together with barbed wire. This keeps invaders off of their property. Where I come from, the "high-end" southshore of Long Island, we have 6 foot tall PVC fences.
Believe it or not, these homes (above) housed 16 people.
It was a real eye opening experience to see how people really live outside of the United States. You don't realize how spoiled you really are until you see something like this. I've always been appreciative of the roof over my head and the food put before me because growing up I didn't have much.
Hunter College Medical Brigades visited the Lavanderos and Los Liquidambos village. In El Paraiso, Lavanderos Honduras, we set up our own medical "clinic" where we supplied healthcare to over 200 men, women, and children. We provided dental check ups, education workshops, and medications. The most common "diseases" we witnessed were hypertension and parasites. Lots and lots of parasites, even in children. This simply being, their water supply is terrible. The water is so potent that one of our fellow Hunter Hawks became sick after drinking coffee made from the water.
It was a real eye opening experience to see how people really live outside of the United States. You don't realize how spoiled you really are until you see something like this. I've always been appreciative of the roof over my head and the food put before me because growing up I didn't have much.
Hunter College Medical Brigades visited the Lavanderos and Los Liquidambos village. In El Paraiso, Lavanderos Honduras, we set up our own medical "clinic" where we supplied healthcare to over 200 men, women, and children. We provided dental check ups, education workshops, and medications. The most common "diseases" we witnessed were hypertension and parasites. Lots and lots of parasites, even in children. This simply being, their water supply is terrible. The water is so potent that one of our fellow Hunter Hawks became sick after drinking coffee made from the water.
The greatest part of the trip for us all, was this woman 101 years old, that came all three days to us to get healthcare.
Here is where we held our "Charla". An education workshop for the kids where we taught them, "Como limpiar sus dientes!" - How to brush their teeth! This all took place in the Lavanderos Village. We also went to visit a local orphanage, where we were able to play with the kids. I wanted to take all of them home with me.
Being in the Medical Brigades, we had the opportunity to experience other Brigades. Our other options were Public Health, Law, Human Rights, etc... We were assigned to work with the Water Brigades for a day. The Water Brigades main mission is water. They build trenches, lay down pipes, build filtration systems, and hope that they can supply clean water to homes. Our last day in Honduras, we spent digging four feet into the ground to help them lay down their pipes.