new leaf

I traveled to Honduras on June 13th, 2010 with the UC Davis medical brigade to provide medical and dental care to rural villages. Along with our 24 students from UC Davis, we were joined by the brigade from UC Riverside, as well as four Physician Assistant students, three doctors, one pharmacist and one nurse . Our brigade completed three visits to separate villages in Honduras over the course of three days, treating about 1,300 patients in total.

Day 1

At 5:00 pm on Saturday I headed off to San Francisco from Davis. There was traffic so I arrived at a friend’s house at around 7:30 pm. A massive amount of medicine awaited packing and we spent over an hour stuffing vitamins and drugs into 10 suitcases.

A shitload of drugs.

After pizza and watching Toy Story, we headed off to the airport. In total, there were 25 of us leaving for Honduras that would be representing UC Davis, including one person from UC San Diego and a nurse from Washington.

The UC Davis team.

Our flight was at 1:22 am with TACA airlines. Unfortunately, I was stuck flying in the uncomfortable middle seat for the whole five and a half hours.

Day 2

Early in the morning, our plane landed in San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador. From my experiences in China, I’d say this is one of the jankier airports I’ve been to. The runway, for instance, was lined with overgrown weeds and broken down shacks, though the interior of the airport wasn’t too bad.

Outside the airport at San Salvador. Another shot outside the airport. Inside the airport.

A delicious six dollar sandwich.

An interesting fact about El Salvador is that the entire country switched over to the U.S. Dollar in 2001, so buying what we wanted at the airport was pretty easy, though unfortunately prices were comparable to the U.S. There was also a Subway in the airport that did not taste like the Subways in America. We spent about five hours in San Salvador waiting for our plane to Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras), which arrived at 2:00 pm. The flight from San Salvador to Tegucigalpa wasn’t actually that long, only ~45 minutes since the two countries are practically right next door.

Our old school propeller plane – we had to walk up to it on the airfield in order to board.

It was my first time in a propeller plane, but it wasn’t as bumpy as I expected.

Flying over Tegucigalpa. Close to the ground.

About to land.

From the sky it was easy to spot the gap between the rich and poor in Honduras as some houses sported swimming pools while other much smaller houses were packed so close they looked like fish scales along the hills. The airport landing strip was positioned in a kind of valley with houses plopped above both sides of the valley, so it was a bit unnerving to be in a plane flying so close to a residential area.

Tegucigalpa Airport.

After landing, customs was quick and straightforward, though our group had about 30 pieces of luggage we needed to pick up. The airport at Tegucigalpa was actually much nicer than I expected and certainly a step up from what we experienced in San Salvador (though this may be the case due to the fact that Honduras is a much larger country than El Salvador). We exited the airport and were greeted with the sight of familiar American fast food:

Outside Tegucigalpa Airport. For our enormous amount of luggage. Houses just outside Tegucigalpa.

We boarded a bus that took us about two hours outside the capital city to a community called Nuevo Paraiso run by the Sociedad Amigos de los Niños. The Sociedad Amigos de los Niños is an organization that provides food and shelter to impoverished women and children in Honduras, and Nuevo Paraiso was one of the villages they run. Groups from other schools such as the UCLA medical brigade also stayed at Nuevo Paraiso, along with other types of brigades such as the construction brigades that built homes for the village. We stayed in an abandoned clinic converted to house groups like ours.

The five of us guys shared a room, which was surprisingly nice. We had air conditioning, a toilet and shower, as well as a housekeeper who took out the trash and made the beds each day. We had dinner at 6:00 pm, which was also surprisingly good.

Our first dinner in Honduras.

After dinner the electricity went out and everyone was tired from the trip so we all went to bed at around 9:30 pm. One thing about Honduras is that it gets dark very early at around 6:00 pm during the summer, so it always feels later in the day than it really is.

Day 3

We woke up early for breakfast at 6:30 am in which we had eggs, tortillas, beans, juice and coffee, which is more than what I eat for breakfast back at home! After breakfast we began unpacking medicine and repacking them into zip-lock bags for easier distribution. We looked pretty shady, with all of us wearing gloves and counting pills.

Around noon we took a break from our packing and met the little kids in the elementary school next door to our clinic. The kids were really cool but unfortunately I couldn’t understand anything they said.

Lunch was a delicious slice of pork with rice, tortillas and watermelon. All our meals are buffet style with plenty of juice, fruit and tortillas. I felt a little uncomfortable for eating so well while most Hondurans in the village probably ate much worse than we did.

After lunch we were back to packing. We had a whole suitcase full of vitamins that needed to be separated into bags of 30 – fun times.

At around 3:00 pm we were taken out to a tour of Flor Azul, a kind of camp for impoverished boys that was within our village. We joined up with the medical brigade from UCLA and played soccer with the kids from Flor Azul. There was one boy we met in the camp named Agua who drank out everyone’s water bottle while we were playing soccer.

My adopted kid and another guy from UCLA.

At dinner, we met up with the brigade from UC Riverside, which shared the clinic with our brigade.

Dinner.

Day 4

Today was our first “brigade”, a term used to describe when our group drives out to another community to treat the
villagers. In our case we combined our group with UC Riverside’s group into one brigade since both our groups were pretty small. We also teamed up with a group of Honduran girls who would perform presentations as part of our brigade.

We awoke at 6:30 am for breakfast and packed into two buses with all our medication. We drove to a village called Jalaca, about an hour and a half away from our clinic. On the way there I noticed a lot of posters plastered on houses that advertised Coke products. Each bottle costs 18 Lempiras, probably as much as a typical Honduran makes in a day.

At the site there was already a large crowd of villagers waiting for us, mostly elderly people. We set up in an elementary school of four rooms. We had our first room as our triage area, the second room where the doctors worked, the third room with presentations and the fourth room with the pharmacy. The patients were supposed to be first triaged, then shown to the doctors. After meeting with a doctor, they would attend a presentation while we fetched medication for them in the pharmacy.

The pharmacy room.

Medication ready to be distributed.

The prescriptions sheets we filled.

I worked in the pharmacy in the morning and it got pretty hot in the room from the 14 of us all grabbing medicine. It rained from time to time, though it didn’t seem to cool the room down much. It was also my first time communicating in Spanish and I definitely messed up on explaining the instructions for the medicine more than once. We generally gave out Tylenol, Advil, cough medicine and vitamins.

Security.

For lunch we had this kind of wrap with chicken and hot sauce in it.

After lunch we continued to fill prescriptions until the line of patients shrunk at around 3:00 pm; we saw a total of  about 480 patients that day.

Tonight was the night before the Hondura vs. Chile game so the staff at the clinic celebrated by decorating the place with Honduran stuff and had a party. I bought a Honduran soccer jersey ($15) and a shot glass ($5).

Day 5

We started at 7:00 am for breakfast and left for a village called Joyas del Carballo. The main road was flooded from rains so we took an alternate route through the mountains that took about two a half hours. At point in the mountains the other bus couldn’t get up the hill so everyone had to get out of the bus. The village itself had a very beautiful view.

I got to work in the triage room in the morning and I paired up with a Spanish speaker. He asked all the questions and I measured things like temperature, blood pressure and weight.

After lunch I was back to the pharmacy.

We finished around 4 pm after seeing about 430 patients for the day and headed back. It was pretty stormy by the time we neared our compound.

Our guard and his buddies.

We played packed some more medicine and played mafia that night.

Day 6

Today was our last brigade, in a village called Valle Arriba. The drive there was very short (about 45 min).

The elementary school where we worked.

The last day was a bit disappointing since there weren’t as many patients that needed to be seen as the past two days. I spent the morning in our tiny pharmacy room and after lunch I shadowed a doctor. A lot of patients unfortunately had symptoms that our limited selection of medicine couldn’t treat. We ended up referring a lot of people for x-rays and other tests in the big hospitals in Tegucigalpa, but I couldn’t see how many of them could even get to the capital.

At the end of the day we ended up with way more medicine that we brought than we needed. We saw a total of 230 patients plus 30 dental patients.

Group picture with Riverside and GMB staff.

Our last dinner in Nuevo Paraiso – banana chips, salsa and breaded fish.

The GMB staff threw a party for us since it was our last day, though we still had to pay for our own drinks.

Day 7

It was UC Davis’s last day in Honduras, though UC Riverside was planned to stay another day.

Breakfast.

We packed up and left at 8:30 am to visit a tourist town to buy souvenirs. I bought a machete and and some souvenir liquor bottles for my dad.

Lunch – most places accepted the dollar.

Our flight at Tegucigalpa to San Salvador was at 5:10 pm. I noticed that as we drove into Tegucigalpa, their public transportation was made up of a fleet of yellow school buses – some of them still had the American “School Bus” markings on them.

Tegucigalpa.

Another shot of Tegucigalpa streets.

My last meal in Honduras – Mcdonalds!

The security at the airport was surprisingly loose, they let me take on board two bottles of liquids!

About to takeoff from Tegucigalpa Airport.

On the flight back to San Salvador we were in a jet plane that even had touch screen TV’s in front of each seat, a far cry from the propeller plane we took from San Salvador to Tegucigalpa.

Leaving Tegucigalpa.

The El Salvador coast – surprisingly straight.

We had a short layover of one hour in San Salvador, then we boarded our flight back to San Francisco. Unfortunately, our plane from San Salvador to San Francisco wasn’t even equipped with individual TV screens.

Home!

Do you remember when we first met? We were sitting across the room from each other in Ms. Selvin’s little sanctuary. I remember your invitation to your birthday after having just met me. You had your tomboy looks and your unique hairstyle, but right then I knew you had something so special, so incomprehensible that to this day I still don’t understand why my heart pines for the few moments I get to be in front of you. Back then I felt silly for making my way to over to your side of the room every time we had a group activity. I suppose I wasn’t exactly sure of my feelings toward you. I was naive, a little shy, and most of all afraid. Sophomore and Junior years passed by and I never quite could express what was on my mind. Terrible, I know. Finally in Senior year I told you about the person that made me feel a certain crazy passion for. I could understand what it felt like; a friend who you wished would remain one, professing this thing you hardly wanted to deal with. I walked away from you that day with the resolve that we would nothing more than friends. I thought it would be easy, to simply change the way I viewed you. I would wake up each day with that idea, and an exchange with you as meaningless as a greeting brushed aside that resolve like a hurricane to a leaf. Over the months I did make progress; you were hardly ever on my mind. By the time prom neared, I planned to only ask you as a friend, because that’s all I felt toward you. I felt that I would probably regret it if I didn’t even try. The discovery that other suitors had the same plan for you reared ugly, spiteful jealousy and with it resurfaced that old, incessant passion for you. I think I only waited two weeks for your answer, but each night’s session of hoping, wondering and pondering made it a lifetime. My emotions were on a roller coaster and my absurd insecurities turned me into someone I wasn’t. I couldn’t study, couldn’t be content or happy. I don’t blame you though, I never will. I should be the one apologizing for putting all these things in front of you and expecting something out of that mess.

However, I do need you to understand that I’m sick of feeling this ugly cauldron of emotions, I’ve been sick of this for a very long time. I despise that I have this burden that prevents me from fulfilling my academic potential, and more importantly, my happiness. I want to move on, to find new love. I go to sleep wishing that the next day I’d have a new outlook on you. I want to be able to laugh with you without wondering the reason behind that laugh. I wish I could see you enjoying yourself with another man without feeling that primal urge of jealousy. I need so badly to not have my heart leap when someone offers me something, because your name is formed from “you want”. I’m done playing the part of the dumb astronaut who can’t achieve the escape velocity needed to break free of your gravity. I’m ready to be myself again, I’m ready to be happy.

Sometimes I do wish that a higher power hadn’t placed us together in that seventh period class of Sophomore year, but most of all I wish we hadn’t both chosen to go to UC Davis.

Whether or not you’re with another guy, I had planned to avoid you, to simply ignore your existence for at least the next four years. That would have been the easy way out; It’s a coping mechanism that had worked in the past. Fuck it, I’m going to do the hard thing, to man up, to not throw away another friendship because of my inability to face difficulties. It’s like in the song “Details in the Fabric” by Jason Mraz, if it’s a broken heart, face it. I will continue to be your friend. I’m going to put my emotions and happiness on the line again, because I know someday these feelings will fade. You don’t have to be awkward around me, I’m okay with it, really. My mind’s moved on, its just my heart that lingers.
What?
Oh.
Sorry, I must have been daydreaming. Yes. I’d like a round-trip ticket to Hawaii please. A week. No, nothing to declare. Hmm? Oh no, no carry on – just this emotional baggage.

I remember scoffing when Mr. Gottlieb mentioned that his son graduated from UC Davis.

“Hey Trent, when’s out next badminton meeting goi-”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

So today my parents asked me if I wanted to go to Connie’s Chinese New Year party. I was pretty hesitant to go, but I couldn’t explain why. I don’t have anything against her nor does she have anything against me. What I realized was that I’ve always been nervous about being around people who aren’t my close friends.

Since high school began I’ve tried to be a confident person who wasn’t afraid of socializing with people I’ve never met. I tried not to fit into the stereotypical quiet, shy Asian boy, uncomfortable around other people. Today I realized that I’ve never been a better person, because I sweat like hell when I’m talking to someone I’ve never met before, I act funny in big social events, I hesitate when I pass a friend in the hall because I’m unsure whether I should say hello, and my confidence waivers like the value of WaMu stock. I don’t talk much; even my uncle in China could tell that just from five minutes on the phone with him. I am that stereotypical Asian boy. I am quiet and shy.

just kidding, but you shouldn’t put your name on an email that you’re not responsible for

I think I’m most like Micheal.

I’m an extremely self-centered person; I always try to steer a conversation toward things about me. Whenever something good happens to another person, I feel cheated and jealous that it didn’t happen to me. While people tell me about their problems, I think of ways to tell them about my problems.

I have a desperate need for others to like me and I care too about what other people think about me. I only enjoy being in leadership positions because of how people will think of me. I get discouraged and my feelings hurt easily. I make a big deal out of small things. I’m hypocritical; when no when used to talk to me and I was excluded from groups, I promised to never let anyone else feel the crushing discouragement I felt. I’ve so been going back on that promise lately. I absolutely NEED to show off to other people what I’ve accomplished and to convince them how smart I am, all while pretending that I don’t want them to know with my “modesty” bullshit. Wait..that last one wasn’t a trait of Micheal’s. Whops!

I try to be sensitive to other people’s feelings, but usually end up misunderstanding and annoying them. I make gaffes, offensive jokes, though not always on purpose. I blame things on other people that are my fault, and generally I don’t do things for other people if I can’t get anything out of it. And my love life? Oh god; at least Michael gets a girlfriend in season 3. Did I mention I love to show off?

I haven’t been very successful getting rid of these traits, but I definitely will keep trying.

Micheal may have a hot girlfriend, but at least I know my weaknesses.

Dear Trent,

Thank you for submitting your application for Stanford University. As you know, we receive thousands of applications each year and the vast majority of them are rejected. After carefully reviewing your application we have decided not to include you on our waitlist. Instead, we’re rejecting you right now so that you won’t be hoping until April thinking that you were accepted at Stanford. Your time is better focused on California shi-, State University applications. We wish you the best of luck with the quality education that only the CSU system offers. There’s really no difference between a CSU and Stanford graduate, really!

Again, best of luck on behalf of Stanford University and thanks for your 75 dollars.

Shawn Abbott
Director of Admission
Stanford University
Office of Undergraduate Admission

This morning I walked outside to see my dad shoveling dirt. I walked right next to him and said nothing. I stood there and thought about how life sucked because of college essays and how I would tackle the

“Tell us how Stanford would be a good place for you” prompt. As I thought, I realized that I couldn’t really hear my dad’s grunting until I stopped thinking about the things that stressed me. Then I tried putting everything out of my mind.

It certainly was a different experience.

I could smell the chill in the air that I hadn’t experienced since Canada. The grey sky simply had more meaning, a kind of mysterious vibe that I hadn’t thought about since childhood. I could hear the leaves and trees rustling in the wind and I couldn’t hear a couple of seconds ago. I felt a totally different world when I let my mind go numb, and I felt happy because I could sense again what I felt during childhood. Then I realized I wasted so much time thinking about this freewrite that I could have applied to catching up on essays because I played Mass Effect all day, and I wasn’t happy no more.

I’ve wondered why all these years America has hated autocratic nations, why our Presidents would go to such great lengths such as in Vietnam and Iraq to stamp out “opposition” to freedom. It’s because of free speech. Dictators just don’t need to deal with that stuff. News reporter criticizing you? Send ‘em to count trees. An opposing political party questioning your actions? Qiang bi! If Democratic leaders have to deal with that kind of shit, they’re going to make sure everyone else has to.