New blogging site

Dear loyal followers,

Duke has asked me to blog my trip as well and it has been difficult enough to keep one blog. Please visit this site for all future posts:

http://dukeglobalhealth.wordpress.com/category/honduras/health-behavior-religious-worldview/

Best,

Michael

Diligent Hands

The team is trained and we are ready to get to work. On Saturday, after a week of training, piloting, and doing surveys at Parque Central, we went to Colonia San Miguel and did some door to door surveying. It was a huge success.

The team did a great job and my spanish is getting good enough for me to do surveys myself, unbelievable! The picture to the right shows myself (far left), Dra. Duron, and the rest of the survey team. We collected about 130 surveys from going door to door.

Special update…..The electricity just went out – my Honduran mama, Marina, and sisters were saying that the lights went out in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador because they are all on the same grid. Anyway, the word on my little wind up radio from LL.Bean was that they shut the power off in Honduras in order to stop an impending protest against the government. Where I stay is surrounded by 10ft walls and barbed wire, so I am safe, don’t worry. I am writing this post again so the electricity is obviously back on.

Anyway, I told Marina back in January that I would make pizza when I returned to Honduras for the summer. Tonight I did, under candle light and in a gas stove. It came out great, and while we were waiting for the electricity to come back on we were indulging in some homemade pizza and italian stuffed bread. The ingredients are very basic, so I had no trouble picking them up at the supermarket.

I leave at 7am tomorrow because traffic here is ridiculous, I mean insane. It is worse during rush hour here than any place I have been. It literally takes 1.5 hours to get to a place that should take 15min. And worse, since nobody follows the laws when they drive and are super aggressive, if you do not cut someone off, you will never be able to merge into a lane or cross traffic.

Encuestador!!!!!

Greetings everyone,

We are under way. The first few days we spent training surveyors (encuestadores) and piloting the survey. Dr. Jorge Nazar and Joaquin Sierra are learning very fast and doing an excellent job so far. I underestimated how important it would be to have well trained surveyors that are able to answer questions people have competently. The first day we spent at Centro Medico Lucas and last two days we spent at Parque Central. We had to adjust our methods a bit and read the survey to people. This allows us to interview them and get a better idea of where they are coming from. Parque Central is an idea place for collecting a good sample. It is a very large parque in the center of the city of Tegucigalpa. Thus far we have seen everyone from employed to unemployed, males, females, people from rural areas visiting the city, and native Misquito people. We will spend the rest of the week at P. Central and move to another location on Saturday. Hopefully I will have two team leaders trained by the end of the week so when we go door to door they will be able to lead teams of their own. Apart from collecting the surveys, I am spending time with many of the public health leaders in Tegucigalpa. Dra. Reyna Duron, my mentor here, is starting a foundation that will support the construction and management of a new hospital in Tegucigalpa. They are collaborating with local pastors and Christian leaders and physicians for this proyecto. Their goal is to have the hospital be self-sustaining through a progressive user fee system combined with church support. Their goal is to be able to provide good quality care to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. After taking Manoj Mohanan’s class on Health Systems, I know that this will be no easy task. But, I know Dra. Duron is the right person to be leading this proyecto. She has a servant’s heart and is a compassionate physician who looks out for the people’s best interest before her own. Let me end this post by saying that what I am learning from this fieldwork goes far beyond anything I anticipated.

Bendiciones y paz

When I say rest, I mean....La Victoria

Instead of remaining at Mision Caribe, the mission home where I stay, I went with a group to La Victoria. La Victoria is a place that you will not find on any map. It is south of Tegucigalpa and very rural. We drove for about 1.5 hours on a dirt road replete with pot holes and rivers running across it. Our driver Miguel was wonderful. He even shook a mango tree for us to gather some fresh mangos. The people in this village do not have electricity or running water, and they subsistent farm. I did not see any health posts but did see a Farmacia on the way there (maybe 1 hour away by car). One older woman hurt her hip and has been in bed for 6 years, she says. Another said she was able to get medicine for her high blood pressure, but somehow it caused her arm to go limp and face to lose feeling. It seems that she had a stroke.

It was a good for me to get acquainted with more Honduran culture because in order for me to do good work here I must be aware of the many intricacies of these fascinating people. So, although I did not do any formal research today, I gained invaluable knowledge about Honduran people and culture first-hand. These pictures do not do justice, but I hope you enjoy them.

The road leading into La Victoria.

The church that the people from Mision Caribe recently built.

Inside the church.

A view from the top of the mountain. From this point you can see 360 degrees of mountains.

Myself with Mariella, who works at Mision Caribe and served as our translator, and Miguel, our driver and also a pastor in Tegucigalpa. Miguel used to live out by La Victoria and we actually saw some of his family on the drive up.

Llego a Honduras!!

Let me preface this post by saying that Monday we captured Duke's first NCAA lacrosse National Championship. Go Doooook!

After 5-hour celebration on the bus ride home from Baltimore Monday night, a continuation of that celebration with the staff and seniors, goodbyes and team lunch on Tuesday, senior dinner Tuesday night, a 14 hour drive home to Rochester, a day of packing and seeing friends and family, and a 6-hour flight to Honduras, I am sitting on the couch at Mision Caribe in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, reflecting and writing to you all.

Dr. Jorge Nazar picked me up from the airport around 1:00pm (Honduras is 2 hours behind EST). When I arrived at the mission home, my friends Jorge, Marina, Maria Jose, Ana, Mark, and Melissa immediately welcomed me. I slept for a few hours and then we went to the mall so I could buy a cell phone. I bought a nice little Nokia and about 200 Limpiras in minutes. Actually, I should tell you a funny story about my flight over. So I over hear some people talking about the Final Four and saying that they were cheering against Duke. Well, I had to say something. I said, "If you don't mind me asking, why were you cheering against Duke?" They said they are from Kentucky and are huge UK fans (Duke Basketball won it all this year too so they were still a bit bitter about basketball season). Anyway, I ended up telling them I played for Duke Lacrosse, and the father said that his son plays lacrosse in Kentucky and he knows some players that play for Denver. When we get off the plane he asked if his son could get a picture with me. Funny how things work out.

It seems like I will be taking the weekend off to relax and get settled. I begin work on Monday.

Bendiciones y paz,
Michael

Welcome

Greetings everyone,
My name is Michael Catalino, and starting in June 2010 you can follow me as I conduct a public health project in Honduras. The detail of the project are coming together as we speak. There will be much more to do in Honduras than just research and there are many people to help. As of now we are looking to help my friend Blanca build a soccer field in her village, do some painting for Mision Caribe and possibly volunteer at Jericho Ministries. You will here more about this all once I get started. For now, I must finish my final lacrosse season at Duke and finish the spring semester of my global health masters program.

If interested please visit my other travel blogs from South Africa and Vietnam.

God bless!