Many kudos to George, Natalie, Craig, Kristin, Angela, Mike, Steve, Chris, Sung and Stan along with all those from Honduras who completed the MEDICO team to Pranza, Honduras. It certainly was a WOW week for this team! The team saw 297 medical patients and 98 dental patients. They also constructed improvements to the clinic building, repaired the school and repaired the community water tank.
A little from behind the scenes…After landing on a dirt airstrip in Puerto Lempira and driving over 3 hours on a fading 4WD trail down to the Rio Coco River, the team arrived in Pranza, which is on the border with Nicaragua. Due to its location on the river and connection with the 4WD trail, Pranza is a bit of a hub for several communities scattered about the jungle on both sides of the border. The wonderfully kind people who live here grow rice, beans, yucca, plantain, and other subsistence foods on small plots. There’s a community nurse in Pranza, but she has almost no medications, not even a working blood pressure cuff. She worked in a ramshackle wreck of a building with holes in the floor so large you could fall through them.
No one comes to help Pranza. It is literally the end of the road. It is too small, too far and too poor to count. But MEDICO was there. Following up on work by the Pan American Health Organization, we’ve helped rebuild their small medical clinic building. The local nurse, the schoolteacher and the pastor all came to help. Local people came to help set up our field clinic in the church building and to sweep out the clinic at the end of the day. They worked together with our medical providers. We saw any patients who came, whether from Honduras or Nicaragua. About half of our patients came from across the river in Nicaragua. Many of them paid for their river passage and the people of Pranza graciously stepped back and let them be seen so they would not have to return another day. Meanwhile, our construction team constructed shelves and doors for the clinic and repaired a community water tank.
Yes, no one comes to Pranza, but MEDICO did. And, we’ll be back, working together with the community to help make it a little bit better, a little bit healthier.
None of this happens without our wonderful volunteers and donors. What do we all get for this? The knowledge that we can make a difference in this world, even in a small, poor place like Pranza. Especially in a small, poor place like Pranza.
We’re grateful for our team volunteers and all who support our mission efforts.
Kindly,
The MEDICO team
