The Patuca River medical/dental team goes to some of the most remote locations IHS travels. However, many who go there say it is one of the most rewarding locations they have been to. Each site along the river is a bit different but many things are similar enough for the team to prepare for their work ahead of time. In this way they are able to send most of the team’s needed food and medical supplies in a container. For as remote as this team is, they can also stay in constant communications with the PLP logistic team and many others.
Here is a great testimonial from a volunteer on our February 2019 mission.
Flowing with Purpose: Our Journey Up the Patuca
As Westerners who hail from the US and England, we are used to ordering and controlling our lives. We expect safe and predictable modes of transportation, dangerous-animal free enjoyment of the outside, help to arrive at the end of a telephone call if needed, and predictable meals, showers and drinking water. For those living along the Patuca River in Honduras these would be considered unimagined luxuries so when I told people here at home that I would be traveling with a team of eight up river to help facilitate dental and medical camps in five villages, one of the first questions I almost always received was, “won’t that be hard?” The answer to that question after spending the better part of two weeks on the river is, “Absolutely, but it is so worth it!”
When my wife, Shanette, who is a newly minted medical resident, and I were invited to go along on the IHS Patuca River team we jumped at the chance. The idea of serving populations in remote areas was truly exciting both from an adventure standpoint as well as the importance of offering medical services to those who would otherwise have extreme difficulty getting them. On the first day as we set up our makeshift dental and medical “office” in Wampusirpi, pitched our tents preparing for the evening and watched people line up dozens deep to meet with us, it was clear we were not going to be disappointed on either count. By the end of that first day as we crawled into our sleeping bags at 7:30 at night, it did not matter that I was normally a night owl: with an exhausted smile on my face I went right to sleep!
Over the next ten days as we traveled up river spending a day and a half or so at five different locations, the Patuca River presented us with an amazing mix of beauty, difficulty, incredible people and tough medical situations. Life in the jungle is much more of a dance between nature and humanity than our controlled environments at home, and this seemed to reveal itself at every turn. Whether we were stitching up a self-inflicted machete wound on a 10-year-old boy, casting a young girl’s broken arm, struggling to extract decaying teeth, diagnosing new cases of diabetes, referring people with major medical conditions out for surgery, or handing out multivitamins and anti-parasitics to every person that came through, it was obvious we were small participants in the dance of life going on in the villages. From time to time I found myself frustrated at not having all the answers needed to make life safe and comfortable for myself, let alone the people there, and then equally surprised a moment later at the beauty, love and grace with which life unfolded. A clear example of this was the last day as we were coming down the river and the motor of our boat died, stranding us to float down the river with hastily acquired poles, knowing we would not get back to our destination until way after dark. This difficulty was offset by the beauty of watching an amazing sunset over the river, the generous hospitality of another boat that pulled up alongside of us and towed us to our destination and the fun of navigating the river by headlamp the last 45 minutes or so. The difficulty and beauty of that excursion gave us just a brief glimpse into the dance of life along the river for people there.
As I remember the joy of the children just being around us, the gratitude of the villagers for something as simple as deworming medication, and the warmth of fresh made tortillas for lunch each day, I am reminded that the dance of life along the Patuca happens whether we are there are not. That we had the chance to be spectators of that life, participate in making it a little better for some, and now know the names of people those who ask questions back home will probably never meet, I am all the more grateful for the journey and opportunity to have served! It is with a heartfelt “thank you” I will remember the Patuca from this year and, if it is in the cards for the future, hopefully join in that dance again someday.
