Minnesota Rotary Men

When Andrea and Bernardo, the previous PCVs left Santa Barbara in July they left me with a list of contacts from the states that they had worked with in Santa Barbara in the past and who would be expecting to work with the new PCVs when they returned to Santa Barbara. One such group is a Rotary Club from Minnesota that has been coming down to Santa Barbara every year for the past two decades to do medical brigades and other projects. They had a reputation for being the most fun and having famous “security meetings” at Jose’s Sports Bar every evening before dinner. A few months ago one of the members of the Rotary Club contacted me to say he would be coming down late in October and would like to work with Agua Pura on a water project (ie. designing and building a water system to deliver water to communities). At first I was hesitant because Agua Pura works with water filters, not water systems and I personally know nothing about water systems. Furthermore, the community they wanted to work with, Buena Vista, is over 3 hours away from Santa Barbara and difficult to get to. The Club discovered Buena Vista during one of their previous trips and found a great need there and suggested Agua Pura install filters there, which they did. When I found out that Agua Pura had installed filters there I questioned the decision to install filters in a community so far away because of the great transportation costs (gas and delivery of filters) and time (6 hours driving a day). Considering that there are other needy communities much closer to Santa Barbara I wondered if we should spend more time and money to install filters so far away. In the end I referred the group from Minnesota to Katie, the Water & Sanitation engineer in Santa Barbara to work with them on the water project.


Chris and Dr. Ted arrived on Sunday night and met with Katie and I and the local Rotary Club to plan their week. They would be returning to Santa Barbara in February with a large group of about 25 so the goal this week was to plan the projects they would do in February. They planned to visit the hospital to prepare the medical work, visit Buena Vista to investigate the water project and find schools eligible for construction projects. This planning process was quite different than my experience with the previous Rotary Club visit; for which I planned their entire week for them weeks in advance. I think that the fact that the group has been coming down for so many years has gotten them used to how things work here and thus they have come to be pretty flexible and laid back (or maybe that is just how they are naturally).

From Left: Larry from Colorado; Dr. Ted from Minnesota; Rene from Santa Barbara; me; Chris from Minnesota

At the meeting Chris and Dr. Ted re-emphasized their interest in the Buena Vista water project and stressed the importance of working with this community with no water, no latrines and no electricity. They said that if they didn’t help them nobody else would. This made me re-think my economic analysis of where Agua Pura should install filters. If a community really needs something is it okay to spend more time and money helping them than you could spend helping somebody else who is maybe a little less needy? Yet, at the same time I remind myself that they are only funding the projects and aren’t the ones that will be making the 3 hour trips daily, so the extra time and money spent isn’t as palpable for them. What is the best balance between economics and compassion to help us determine who gets helped and who doesn’t?

Monday morning we met for breakfast and headed to the hospital to meet with doctors and administrators to talk about what medicine and equipment the hospital needed and plan the surgeries to be done in February. Dr. Ted had been doing surgeries and supporting the Santa Barbara hospital for over 20 years, so he was well known and respected and even had wards dedicated to him. He was able to introduce me to many people that I didn’t know but was also pleased to see that I already had already formed relationships with many of the people in the hospital. I served as the translator between the groups although Chris can get by just fine with his Spanish. One big change that is happening this year is that the Minnesota Rotary Club will not be sending a medical brigade that will be going out into communities to see patients; the doctors will stay in the hospital in Santa Barbara and focus on surgeries. The reason for this change is that they had come to believe that sending generalists into communities was not effective. Another one of their goals was to figure out how they can make medical brigades into the communities more effective. The general feedback was that specialists were more in demand, such as gynecologists, dentists and optometrists. Working previously with medical brigades I have come to agree with this idea more and more. Honduras already has family doctors that can give vitamins and general medical attention. It doesn’t make sense for foreign doctors to spend lots of money to come to Honduras to do what a Honduran can easily do. However, if foreign doctors can come to Honduras to provide care that Honduran doctors do not have the technical knowledge or financial ability to provide, then it makes more sense to me.
After leaving the hospital we went out to lunch at the new vegetarian restaurant. During lunch Dr. Ted asked me about my eating habits and I said that I eat everything and have never gotten sick. I think I jinxed myself! All of a sudden I started feeling horrible and I had to tell Chris and Dr. Ted that I was sick and needed to go home. My stomach hurt, I became very tired and I felt like I was going to have diarrhea and throw up at the same time. I went home and slept all Monday afternoon and Tuesday. As usual when I am sick I am a big baby and cry and want my mom. Obviously my mom couldn’t take care of me, but luckily Katie has gotten used to me when I am sick and does a pretty good job of taking care of me.

By Wednesday (October 31st) I dragged myself out of bed to go to the lab to get a blood test, urinalysis and a fecal exam (I was convinced I had parasites since my stomach was making so much noise). It turns out that I didn’t have parasites but I did have a mild bacterial infection so the doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. Then I met the Rotarians for dinner. Dr. Ted showed his Halloween spirit by showing up with a bag of candy and an Osama Bin Laden mask. When I saw him I started crying because it made me miss Halloween in the states.

Dr. Ted on Halloween

Thursday I joined the group to investigate construction projects for schools. Larry is an engineer and in February he will bring down a construction team who will replace school roofs and paint schools. We got a list of possible schools from the local Rotary Club and set off to check them out (because sometimes the schools don’t actually need what the list says they need and the group insists on helping those farthest away who are most in need). Two have asbestos contamination and need new roofs and a paint job and one is perfectly fine and doesn’t need anything at all. I was happy that I could work with them and help translate but I was still exhausted from being sick and just sitting in the car made me tired.

Every year there is a large PCV Halloween party in Copan Ruinas where local businesses hold parties and PCVs from all over the country gather. I had planned on going and even had my parents send me my belly dance costume. Unfortunately I still felt sick and had very little energy so I decided not to go. It was disappointing but I think I made the right decision. So I hung out some more with Dr. Ted in the hospital and was lucky enough to observe surgery. Katie and I both went with Dr. Ted and put scrubs on and were actually allowed to stand in the surgery room and watch a c-section, a circumcision and a hernia (obviously we didn’t watch a hernia, we watched the doctors fix it, but I don’t know what the surgery is called, they just called it a hernia is Spanish). It was really interesting and probably not an opportunity I would ever have in the states.

From left: Me (yes I am smiling); the Cuban surgeon; Katie

Katie and I always joke about how we want to meet handsome Cuban doctors working in Santa Barbara who can dance salsa but I think this one is a little too old for both of us.

Above: Katie and I, below: Dr. Ted and Katie

Overall it was a wonderful week (even though I was sick). Dr. Ted, Chris and Larry were amazing to work with because of their laid back yet get things done attitude. I could really see that their years of experience have taught them how things work down here and how to effectively help people (so many times foreign aid groups have no clue how things actually work with the people they are trying to help and don’t even speak their language). They are well respected by everybody who knows them (which is a ton of people; they actually introduced more people to me than I introduced to them) and are willing to give their time and money to help those who need it most. I can’t wait until they come back in February!