Today was our last day in Hinche. After breakfast (pancakes and bananas!) we headed back to the church to start on work...except the rocks still hadn't made it there. Roshnee, the engineer, said a few people could work on moving the mounds of dirt from digging out for the foundation. Josh, Don, Rich and Gary helped with that while the rest of us sorted and took down supplies to set up for the clinic.
Rich came over a little while later and said we should walk over to where they were trying to get the truck of rocks up the hill. We were cautioned not to walk to close to the edge of the cliff because the rain had softened the ground so much that some of the bank had already collapsed. Several workers were shoveling dirt into the road in hopes of giving the truck more traction, but nothing worked. They tried and tried, and made one last effort of driving the truck up the hill in reverse, but the road was just too muddy. They decided to send the truck to come in from the other side of town.
Later we all decided to walk down to the other end of town to see if we could find the truck. It was stuck again. This time the road was too narrow at one point for it to get through. So, we decided we would go ahead and start the clinic. We had some group teaching on brushing teeth, washing hands, and taking vitamins. Then Colleen met with most of the people individually--taking blood pressure, giving out medicine for headaches, rashes, and indigestion, and bandaging minor wounds. We gave out almost all of our vitamins during the clinic, and the health kits were distributed in no time flat. We definitely want to assemble and give out more of these next year. We had paper and crayons for the kids to draw pictures while the parents were waiting to see Colleen. After being seen by Colleen, many people were hanging around, so Josh and I went back to the church and grabbed a soccer ball to encourage some of the kids to go play because it was getting crowded and chaotic. We took a break for lunch and then finished the clinic around 3:15pm. Good work was done, and Colleen did a fantastic job, along with Patrick who translated all day. We all got showered before dinner (homemade lasagna--Lulu's favorite meal to cook, chicken, rice and Coke and Sprite). At the end of dinner it started raining so we rushed back to the church. We're worried that the van will not be able to get up the hill tomorrow if it keeps raining. It will be interesting for sure!
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