Honduras

Molly Martyn
Mayo Medical School, MS2

Children living in the city garbage dump on the outskirts of Danli, Honduras.

Young girl living in the city garbage dump on the outskirts of Danli, Honduras. She and the other children sift through the garbage looking for food and other items of use.

The inescapable poverty was the first thing I noticed upon arriving in Danli, Honduras. The town was full of kids in ragged clothing, stray dogs, and vendors hawking spoiled fruit. It was hot, dirty, and heartbreaking, but spending last summer volunteering at a medical clinic in Danli was an amazing experience. The patients who sought care at the clinic showed tenacity and kindness in a place with few comforts. They were a pleasure to learn from and get to know. One weekend, the other clinic volunteers and I piled in the back of a pick-up and traveled out of the town to the city dump. We brought meals to the community of people living in and on the trash. Their shelters were made from cardboard and tin. The children sifted through the trash, looking for scraps of food and other items of use. For these people, medical care wasn't an option. Their barriers to access extended beyond the poverty of the typical Danli resident to include lack of transportation into town and the stigma of being part of the dump community. They would remain on the outskirts of the city, living on other people's garbage, and dying in it as well. When we returned to town, Danli seemed prosperous in comparison to the dump community. The children in town may have had little, but at least most had shoes. The vendors' fruit may have been spoiled, but at least it was food. Working in Honduras provided daily lessons in perspective and humility.