I spent the day with our medical team at one of HOI's remote medical clinics. This one, at Las Manzanas, has a resident nurse but does not typically have a doctor. Dr German visits the clinic periodically, as he does with all the remote clinics. Having four doctors present, including specialists, doesn't happen often. People were lined up for appointments when we arrived. We carried in some trunks of medical supplies that we had brought from the United States.
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| Tom, Harold, and Yolanda |
This little boy loved being the center of attention.
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| Tamra |
People had arrived by car, by motorcycle, on foot, and on horseback.
Here's our young friend again, with two other boys peering in the window.
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| Lisa, Tamra, Yolanda, and friend |
All of our team was pressed into service, here counting out pills for the doctors' prescriptions.
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| Rick and Tamra |
The porch of the clinic was the check-in station.
What is normally the waiting room became Dr German's examining room.
Melissa, our dermatologist, had the examining room with the most light because she needed it to make diagnoses. The building has electric wiring but no electricity. When the daylight is gone, the clinic is over.
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| Melissa and Yolanda with patients |
Tom, our gastroenterologist, had an examining room at the rear of the clinic. Again, all the light is from the window. I didn't use flash for many of these photos; my presence was intrusive enough without that.
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| Tom |
Harold, our pulmonologist, had an examining room with a window onto the front porch, where patients were waiting to be seen.
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| Lisa and Harold with patients |
This little girl received an inhaler for asthma.
Another patient; many were children. Note the book on the table: Complete Medical Spanish.
Another of Dr German's patients.
More dermatology patients.
This mother brought in two children.
This consultation requires some precise translation of medical terms.
Tom examining by the light from the window. His translator is HOI's accountant at the ranch.
Outside, the number of people waiting doesn't seem to be diminishing. It's a bit hard to tell, though, because often an entire extended family will come, only one or two of whom are patients.
Two more horses. Is there a helmet law for riding horseback?
Dr German with two more patients.
And a few more dermatology patients.
Waiting for someone who's in seeing a doctor.
These two boys came by, riding their horses.
A family poses for one of our team.
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| Tamra taking a photo |
This little girl walks off with her mother's umbrella. Opened, it's so big that she can't see her mother anymore, and she begins to cry. It's all OK when mom picks her up, though.
A couple of houses in the nearby village. These two made up almost all of the village, as far as we could see. Note that the second house has all modern conveniences -- a satellite dish and an outhouse. There's electricity here, but no municipal water or sewer.
The Hondurans make fence posts out of green trees, knowing that the newly-cut trees will root and leaf out. The resulting living posts don't rot and after many years they can form a canopy over the road.
A handsome rooster and a double-wide cow.
A rewarding day, and everyone was tired. The devotional that evening included foot washing.
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| Lindsey, Matt, Stuart, Brian, Mark, Dickie, and Pat |
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| Pat, Emily G., Tamra, Jeri, Emily M., Myrna, Yolanda, Harold, Carol, and Kay |
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| Judy E., Judy M., Yolanda, Lindsey, Cristina, Matt, Stuart, Brian, Mark, and Dickie |
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| Karen |
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| Yolanda, Cristina, Matt, Stuart, Brian, and Judy M. doing the washing |
The night was clear, so I tried a time exposure of the cross, hoping to capture the stars behind it. We could see thousands of stars, and could easily identify the Milky Way. The ranch is so far from any bright city lights that many more stars can be seen than when at home. After considerable Photoshop work, this image emerged.
The technical details: 15mm fish-eye lens, 22 seconds exposure, f/2.8, ISO 200, Nikon D300S. Matt lent the lens, and we mounted it on my camera. That we captured anything at all is surprising, considering that neither of us had really tried time exposures at night before.
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