Today our group split up between the Asilo, a nursing home for the elderly in Bocas, and La Solucion. At the Asilo, we took the patients for a walk in the park, talked to them, and just interacted with them in general. Without volunteers from Floating Doctors, the people in the Asilo rarely get to interact with people in Bocas Town. The Asilo is a great example of people taking limited resources and supplementing them with time, interaction, and kind conversations to turn it into something invaluable for the seniors. The Asilo helps many of these disenfranchised people get off the streets.
At noon we came back to the warehouse for lunch and then some of us stayed at La Consultario (medical clinic), while those that went to the Asilo in the morning went to La Solucion. In the afternoon, the project at La Salucion was lifting up the water pipes that bring in clean, potable water from the city, up out of the muck and attaching them to the bottom of the walkway. They encountered a few difficulties with water lines detaching because they were not properly glued, which is a huge health hazard because the swamp water gets into their only clean water source.
The Consultario is where members of the community can come ask Doctor Ben and the other doctors for a consultation on their health problems. The problems are often diarrhea and other stomach problems, which ties back to the problem of clean water. Some volunteers went with Tommy, the master carpenter, and Andrew, the film guy, to the Marina to work on their boat. The Southern Wind is the Floating Doctor’s boat, which has taken them from Honduras to Haiti and back.
After a good days work, some of us went to Riptide, jumping off their boat to cool off in the ocean, and then La Bulga. We all regrouped at the apartments and went to a delicious restaurant called Maracuya (Passionfruit in Spanish!) for Lisa’s 21st birthday. Today was a great balance of hard work and relaxation and fun
Posted by Patty Lu