Fun times with airport security ...

We visited the city of Limon, Honduras, which is a relatively poor town on the Caribbean coast. Multiple teams of physicians, dentists, nurses and other people visit a clinic there yearly to offer medical services to the people in and around Limon. I've never done anything like this before, and it was hard work, but we also had fun. I may well go back next year.

Language barriers made it hard (

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the people of Limon, Honduras. It has to give you a good feeling to be part of a project so selfless and giving. May God bless your group for giving so freely of your time and talents to a people of such need.

A long time Consumer Advocate on one of the TV Channels (13) here in Houston, TX has done an annual report on a group of plastic surgeons that do something like what your group does. I don't remember what country they go to but it's also a poor and remote area where they do plastic surgery on some of the most disfigured kids you have even seen. They perform what seems like miracles. They also stay for a limited time, work almost around the clock and on a strictly volunteer basis. I think they even pay their own way. You have to admire people like that. And I'm sure there are a lot more groups like this we never hear about.

The lady with the bubbles, in the picture you provided, has a very unique and clever idea of entertaining the kids, that was neat. I hope you have more pictures to share? I would love to see them. Please post them.

I took about 250 pictures on a new digital camera. Now I have to figure out what to do with them.

The actual picture files are about 1-2 MB each. Some of the exposures are too dark or too light. Some of the pictures will benefit from cropping. And so it goes. I'm new at this so it takes quite a bit of time.

I have the skeleton of a web page for the pictures but I have not yet decided which pictures to include and I have not yet 'touched up' the pictures by editing them or reducing the size for web images and thumbnails. It may take a while.

I'll post a link if I ever get it done. In the meantime I may post individual pictures on occasion.

1-2 MB is quite a large file I must admit. I think somewhere in another thread IrfanView was recommanded to you as a picture editor:

http://www.irfanview.com/

I think it's about the best little free editor you can find. You can optimize your pictures using that very easily under Images > resize/resample.

Don't forget to get all the plugins for IrfanView at the same site, it's a separate download.

Hi Bill,

I have a program called JPEG Overdrive that compresses images. Can't seem to find the originating website. Just loading and saving JPEG's with my HP Image Editor seems to cut their size to about 1/5th. Anyway, you may want to gather some input on image compression utilities. I have a format converter that can run batch conversions, with that many pictures, it would sure save time to be able to batch compress your images first.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. You have done a wonderful thing.

Evie

I really think that your effort is worth a lot and you should be very, very proud of yourself and your colleagues for what you do! Thank you for your effort to make the life of the people of Honduras better!

I also hope there is/are some organization/s that will support those groups of the Honduran society that struggle for better medical supplies and drastic sociopolitical changes. Only then can we see a real change. The best would obviously be if you and your colleagues wouldn't have to go there to help out. In the meantime, you do a very good job! Is your group supporting any groups in Honduras for a political change since the current situation doesn?t seem to provide enough help for the people?

The group that provides overall coordination of the medical clinic is also involved in other public health problems like water purification.

In the end the political questions have to be addressed by the Hondurans themselves, not by outside agitators.

Unfortunately Charlie, Honduras is one of the poorest nations in the Americas. Political change will not help a country redistribute what it doesn't have. What it needs now is customers taking more of the few products it has to offer, mostly coffee, bananas and shrimp. Hopefully our own growing economy can help in this area.

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We have similar expeditions here to poorer European countries for medical help. I cannot pretend to be part of them but applaud the effort involved both by the people who put these together and of course the people such as yourself who carry them out.

Regards
Mo