Honduras ’09: Day 19-22
The Asylum is an amazing bar/restaurant in the island’s east end. You’ll have to listen to find out how we ended up there.
Our time in Honduras is nearing a close, but the audio logs keep on coming. In this exciting edition, we travel to the eastern end of the island which is, of course, where The Others live. Luckily, most of our party makes it back to The Swan Alive.
This watery table is one of The Asylum’s coolest features.
It’s an OK view, if you like that sort of thing. Again, I’m doing the “Welcome … to Jurassic Park!” to illustrate the spectacle.
Honduras ’09: Day 17-18 audio update
So for the foreseeable future it looks like we’ll be doing audio updates rather than text updates. We’d appreciate it if your ears could make the appropriate apologies to your eyes for us.
Honduras ’09: Day 6 – 16 audio recap
As we’ve been a little lax in our posting over the past week, we’ve wrapped 10 days of updates into one big audio update for you to enjoy. If you don’t have 35 minutes to kill we’ve got some new pics for you.
Otherwise, click here to listen.
This is my temporary office. Yes, it’s a dentist’s chair.
Canadian Thanksgiving at the Blue Bahia.
Syd walks home.
Justin at the Church of God.
Syd eats Rotisserie Chicken with Peggie and Liz.
Justin pulls his classic “Welcome to Jurassic Park!” move at the West End.
Honduras ’09: Day 5
Justin: Another lovely day, though warmer than over the past couple we’ve had. After a long crawling shift at the ‘Stiq I treated myself to a quick dip in the ocean. Before I could finish my shower, Syd showed up and we had another lunch at Arma’s. Syd went with another comida tipico, I added a pastele to my usual baleada. Unsurprisingly delicious. Syd enjoyed her pre-natal class, watching the women learn about their bodies and open up about their fears. The teacher, Carla, is an example of what every teacher in every venue should be.
Later, we hitched a ride with Miss Peggy to West End (along with a few other little hitchhikers.)
The West End was so lovely that we even treated ourselves to a touristy picture.
After browsing a few of the stores, we had dinner at a restaurant on a pier called Eagle Ray’s. Syd went with coconut grouper, I got a fish fillet with shrimp. It was as good as you’d expect seafood from a restaurant built in the sea to be.
A taxi took us to clinica esperanza. During our short walk balk we the fortune/misfortune of coming upon an outdoor Wednesday night church service. The attendees were very nice about letting us slip past.
Honduras ’09: Day 4
Sydnee: A fairly uneventful day today, though I had a load of patients at the clinic. As someone who’s been confronted with how poor our ability to deal with mental illness is in the states, I’m even more disheartened at the lack of facilities for psychiatric patients here. It was hard to see someone who due to both her psychiatric illness and her unfortunate life circumstances has very few options for her future. We just try to do the best with what we have.
For lunch today we went to Arna’s, a local restaurant. In addition to more wonderful baleadas, we tried comida tipico. This is a plate that consists of rice, beans, plantains, cole slaw and an entire fish battered and fried. Justin was completely freaked out by the fish. For some reason, he doesn’t like food that’s looking at him. Needless to say it was delicious.
We spent the rest of our evening relaxing and watching American Network. This is a sad mixture of American talk shows, reality shows, game shows and soap operas. If this is how our country is represented to the rest of the world, it’s no wonder nobody likes us. Here’s a bonus picture of a Honduran speed bump. Yes, it’s a giant rope.
Honduras ’09: Day 1 through 3
Now that we’re good and settled, we thought we’d combine our first three days and get the travel diary on the road.
Day 1 (10/3/09):
We woke up unconscionably early and had Griffin drive us to the Cincinnati airport. After a pretty uneventful trip, we had a final American meal in Houston of breakfast burritos from Wendy’s. Also, a dude was drinking a beer. At 9 a.m. For serious.
From there, it was another 2 and 1/2 hour flight to Roatan, which is an island off the coast of Honduras. We were picked up by Dr. Crespo and Miss Peggy, who runs Clinica Esperanza where Sydnee’s working. They took us to the supermarket, Plaza Mar, which stocked a pretty even split of Honduran and American goods. For some reason, that disturbed Justin all the more. Sydnee thought she’d never seen someone look so lost in a supermarket.
We took our few groceries (including: beer, red beans, plantain chips, coookies and Coke Light. Apparently in Honduras, we’re committing to eating like a worldly frat guy) to our apartment under Peggy’s place.
Cute, right? Here’s our view:
For our first meal, we ate with Peggy, Dr. Crespo and some other volunteers for a really wonderful meal at a restaurant in the West End. Sydnee had some out of control fish cakes that she thinks MIGHT be the best meal she’s ever had. We went to sleep pretty early after struggling with jet lag. It was hot, especially after the power killed our fans for a few hours. Sydnee laid awake for two hours listening to roosters, dogs and imaginary robbers.
Day 2:
On Sunday morning Sydnee slept in like any decent person would and Justin got up ridiculously early. After a quick dip off the pier at our house, we went to the Blue Bahia with Peggy and Richard (Dr. Crespo) for lunch. The wait was long but the food was good. The best part about hanging out with all the local people is the gossip that you get to hear. I think the lack of constant television input limits the conversation to events much closer to home. A lot of crazy stuff goes on here, that’s all that needs to be said about that.
We swam in the pool there after lunch and then headed back to the apartment. We were starting to settle in for the night when Richard came down and invited us to visit with some friends of theirs that own the Bay Island Beach Resort. We were pleasantly surprised while there with a delicious homemade dinner courtesy of Ted and Kim. Afterward, we were pretty exhausted and our bodies are still two hours ahead, so we went to bed early.. again.
Day 3:
Sydnee started work today, it was good, but a little overwhelming. Only 26 patients, which is a slow day, but it was a big adjustment thinking about things in terms of diseases specific to the area. It’s also a challenge dealing with the limited resources. All in all though, it was nice to see everybody again, and Syd enjoyed getting back to pure medicine. Justin worked on the internet as usual, though occasionally spotty internet was a challenge.
Later we finally were able to secure some cash at the unfortunately named Coxen Hole, the county seat of sorts. After we returned the apartment, we were invited to go swimming by a local named Amy. Here’s her with Syd.
She showed us a really great magic trick involving a salt shaker and a napkin. We STILL can’t figure it out.
