I’ve been in Honduras for a month now, and it’s been a lot of fun. Today we did a pilot brigade, we were only supposed to have 6 students today, but 5 students from a different school really wanted to come with us, even though it meant skipping their trip to buy souvenirs. We took them with and managed to do an extra project, which was great because we finished our work at two different houses on the same day.
One of the houses we finished working in belonged to a couple and their two young daughters. The husband and both daughters were sick with chicken pox, so we brought them some medicine for the itchiness today and the students brought a care package with gifts and some money, because the husband hadn’t been able to work for a few days.
In the past 4 weeks I’ve been able to meet and talk with a lot of different families in Pajarillos. It’s really rewarding to hear them talk about how big of an impact our group is making in the community. It’s also really great that I’m getting better and better at speaking Spanish. A month ago I wouldn’t have been able to understand locals in Pajarillos because they talk so fast, but now I’m able to have conversations with them without too much trouble.
I think the other part of Public Health Brigades I like best is seeing how students respond to going on a brigade with us. Just about everyone comes back saying they had a great time. Like today for example, 5 people from a brigade we weren’t supposed to be working with wanted to come with us because they had done a public health brigade in the past few days and had a great time. That kind of enthusiasm makes me really excited for the year to come in public health. I think a lot of people are going to start clubs and bring brigades down. As we work on program development and start our real public health brigades, this is going to continue to grow into a really awesome program.
