For those of you not in the know, last week I spent a week in Honduras participating in a medical and dental brigade, where we set up free mobile clinics at a different village each day. Among the various stations we set up there, on different days I was involved with taking the blood pressure of incoming patients, aiding a public health demonstration to the villagers, assisting a dentist with extractions, shadowing a doctor, and preparing prescription orders in our makeshift pharmacy.
The biggest question that remained lodged in my head over the course of the trip was the same question I kept asking myself when I was in Taiwan last summer. What, if circumstances had been different, would my life have been like if I had grown up here? ("Here" refers to the villages, not the cities -- BIG DIFFERENCE.)
1. I would already be married -- with children. One of the most striking things I noticed, especially on the first day when I had access to patient information as I recorded their blood pressure, was the discrepancy between how old I perceived the women to be and how old they actually were. I'd see a mother struggling to control two rowdy kids while nursing a child, and my mind would automatically place her in the mid-twenties. But then I'd check her papers and realize that she was only two years older than me. It makes me wonder if my aversion to romance would have manifested if I'd grown up in a place where I'd be expected to bear children as a teenager.
2. I would have many cavities -- and most likely require multiple tooth extractions. One of my favorite jobs during the week was assisting with extractions in the dental clinic. The dentist who mentored me was a good-humored Honduran whose face structure reminded me of Eric Bana -- except add maybe ten years.
No, this isn't why I liked assisting with extractions. I swear. Oh, shut up.I'd always regarded brushing your teeth every morning and night as obvious and unavoidable as peeing after you wake up each morning, but that notion was soon dispelled after I noticed that every mouth I was peering into was inevitably riddled with cavities. Some were so bad that the tooth infections were oozing nasty-smelling pus.
I had a lot of fun playing the assistant, which included handing him all of the tools (flag elevators, straight elevators, different numbered pliers, syringes of Novocaine) and preparing gauze. But of course, I felt the patients pain -- I had four molars and part of my gum removed for braces and two wisdom teeth removed last year. I've had my share of dental experiences, and let me tell you that the worst part is when the anesthesia wears off and you're bedridden in pain. Those days, I would lie on the couch all day watching movies while my mother would switch my ice pack every so often and make me soup that I didn't feel like eating. After watching twenty or so patients come and go during my shift, I had little doubt that they would not be doing the same when they returned home.
3. I would have a minimal concept of hygiene. My brigade was fortunate enough to stay in one of the former Presidential homes -- a beautiful place in the middle of nowhere with plenty of mosquitoes and, lucky for us, indoor plumbing. I will never complain about dorm bathrooms again -- not when I've been to a place where I would dread going to the bathrooms, which were swarming with all sorts of critter crawlers. I'd learned after my trip to Taiwan last summer that the United States can proudly boast of having the most powerful toilets in the world, and so in Honduras I'd typically find myself walking into a bathroom to find the toilet either filled with poop that wouldn't flush down or toilet paper that a fellow brigader had forgotten to throw in the wastebasket instead of the toilet. Apparently, we were also extremely lucky to have hot water in the showers -- so I will refrain from complaining about how I stripped for dozens of crickets and moths each night.
Another thing I'd picked up last year in Taiwan was that Northern California has the best tap water. My area has always been very proud of that fact -- I'd learned in elementary school that we get our water from rainwater that has been naturally filtered through the earth and collected underground. Honduras, on the other hand, has a problem with parasites in the water; in fact, many of the villagers complained about parasites in their stomach. We were warned ahead of time not to sing in the shower, lest we swallow a mouthful of water and come up with a nasty case of diarrhea.
The other thing I noticed from working in the villages was the difference in cleanliness compared to the States, particularly as I observed the children. I witnessed one child picking a Cheeto out of the trash can when he thought none of us were looking. There was trash everywhere, as littering was quite commonplace.
4. I would not have a pet dog -- in the sense that I have in the States. I don't know how much I've talked about my dog on this blog, but Matisse is well-known in the neighborhood for being the pampered "youngest child" of my parents. Matisse sleeps in my parents' bed and is very finicky about his food (many times he will not eat unless he is hand-fed by my mother, and even then he wants to eat the same meat that we eat). Occasionally, my brother and I like to wonder how our "little brother" would have been like if he had been a human (probably a sweet little Mama's boy that all the older women love).
There were stray dogs EVERYWHERE in Honduras. Starved to the point that you could see the protrusion of their rib cages through their skin, these dogs would wander around looking for food and all were visibly frightened by humans. I'd heard from others that the children would abuse the dogs, and it was obvious that many of the dogs suffered various parasites and diseases. I distinctly recall one dog whose appearance made everyone recoil in disgust -- one of its eyes was an opaque pink and incredibly swollen. I felt so sorry for these dogs, but I was afraid to touch them -- and then I'd recall Matisse at home napping on blankets like a prince and realize that he's living even better than some of the villagers themselves.
5. I would not enjoy the luxury of creating art. Life in the village is centered around family, and as a female, I would have most likely been expected to bear children and raise them to adulthood. As much as I complain about studying and grades, I would have none of that if I had been raising children since I was thirteen. So much of my self-confidence stems from my ability to write, but what would I be if I didn't have that skill? The villagers have little use for literature and cinema -- as someone bluntly put it, sex is a main source of entertainment for the men, who deliberately get their wives pregnant before they leave the village for long-term work so that their wives don't have affairs while they're gone.
All in all, I am now even more acutely aware of how fortunate I am to have been born to the family that I have, and how I gripe and complain about some of the most trivial things. I don't know if I'll go back again next summer -- if I do, I should probably learn some more Spanish (it is REALLY difficult not being able to speak the language there) -- but Honduras, though less wealthy than the States, is really a beautiful place.
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