Abril 29 Wednesday Vamos a reparar sus dientes

As expected, the camera was right where I left it and now we have some pictures and stories to share..

Yesterday we treated a young woman - Emily - who in addition to some cavities - was also missing a front tooth.  I took some impressions and got those over to Jack ( the false tooth technician ) who got to work on a prosthesis she could use.

More on Emily later.  You notice that the glasses I am wearing look odd.  Or maybe it is just my face.  Regardless, the frames are a stark reminder not to send cheap sunglasses through the autoclave.  The lenses melted out and the frames were ...interesting.  We brought two pairs of cheap sunglasses for the patients to wear because of the bright lights.

 

Emily, Jack and I with her new front tooth.  She had been missing the front tooth for so long we had to train her to smile.

Jorge had 12 cavities and just about wore me out.  The bent glasses are a reflection of how my back felt.

 

Around midday a huge storm rolled through and dropped thumb size chunks of hail and heavy rains.  The power went out for about three minutes until the back up generator kicked it.  It was nice having the lights down for a bit.  We just kept working since my lights were all battery powered.

Susan took this picture out our window at the clinic of the downpour.  Reminded us that we are in the tropics.

 

More pictures of patients we had today.  We tried to have fun and they appreciated it.

 

Fernando - our last patient of the day.  Our fingers show 7 - 9 - 9  for the total number of patients treated at the clinic.

 

This is the map I brought with little stickers we put on the map for where just our patients were from.   Most were from Guatemala City area as you can tell by the big clump in the middle.  Red was the first two days, then blue, green and yellow for separate days.  We think there are about 80 dots on the map.  Count them and let us know if we are off ......

Today was the last day of clinic and after everyone had been treated we started packing up and cleaning and taking equipment apart.  We will miss our little clinic  spot where we spent over 60 hours of our life.   But we will miss

 the wonderful friends and experiences even more.  Look forward to the next opportunity to serve already !

 

Tuesday April 28 Sigue moviendose

I know you are scrolling around looking for pictures.  Lociento.  I left the camera in our space at the clinic.  I am worried about it leaving?  Not at all.  Everyone there is very honest. 

So here are some unpublished pictures from previous days. Probably should have not told you about the camera and pretended that these are are fresh and current.



Okay, pretend like you never read the beginning of this post .

The above picture is self explanatory.  Thinking of changing Trisha's name to Tzicia.

The main road up to the church in Patzicia.  There are absolutely no road signs here. 

Two Americanos standing in the hallway at the church.  See - we are still alive and well.

 The sisters in their beautiful native Sunday best.  The colors are supposed to be indicative of tribe and regional ancestry.

Okay - so you still want a picture from the clinic.  Well maybe tomorrow when I find the camera. 

Today was interesting because I swam forty laps in the pool this morning and Susan walked 2.5 miles at 530 am and we probably should have just slept.  We were both tired even before the  first patient but we remembered the story of the Mormon pioneer who after losing almost his entire family to sickness and suffering from exhaustion recorded in his journal the following -

Still moving.

That is and will be our motto for the next few days.   Good to be here in Guatemala.  Tomorrow we exercise in moderation.......

Monday April 27 Protesting and arrest ( almost )

Today started off badly.  First, the city was filling with protesters to protest corruption ( obviously not the first time ) and I got handcuffed.   

The protesters were not a problem - we were leaving the hotel early enough to beat the crowds.

Officer Jorge then arrested me on the bus for speaking Spanish poorly and brought out his handcuffs.

Why am I smiling?  He has a key.   Why is he smiling?  He doesn't have a key.  None of the officers carry the keys to their handcuffs so the prisoners can't try to get it from them.  So even in my broken Spanish I convinced him not to actually put the handcuffs on while the rest of the bus was chanting for my arrest....

 The following pictures are just a few of the youth we met today.

 Really impressed with their willingness to do hard things - travel for hours to see us, to sit around for hours waiting, and then to be cheerful about the whole experience.  Even willing to make faces with us and help us with our Spanish.  And to be smiley even when their mouths are dormido ( numb ).

Today went by quickly.  El tiempo vuela cuando tay estes divirtiendo !

April 26 Sunday "One who does not serve others is broken"

Today we traveled to Patzicia - a town about 1.5 hours drive up in the mountains.  8500 feet.  We attended church there with one of the wards that met in the building and then afterwards distributed the humanitarian things that had been sent with us from the US. 

 Our driver, Oscar who threaded our bus through impossibly narrow streets and dodged cars, bicycles, minicarts and pedestrians.

 The bus system consists of privately owned heavily decked-out school buses that have huge engines because they were passing us all day long.

The following are just a few pictures of the country side and people.

After the Church meetings were over we opened the bags we brought and put out fleece blankets, toys for the children, quilts, clothing, soccer balls and all sorts of little household things .

 The power in the town had been out for a few days so a generator had been brought in to power the organ and the microphone in the chapel.  It was also a blessing because power was needed to run the printers we had brought to print up family pictures that we took of each family.

 Susan and our friend Sylvia sharing a quiet moment in the hallway.  You will remember Sylvia from the first post.

The people of Patzicia always dress in their best for church meetings and their tradition clothing was beautiful.   This is a little girl carrying some of the gifts - she is also wearing one of the princess outfits that were brought.

 Susan greeting families into the room where the quilts were given to each family.  Tome uno por favor. ( Select one please ).   You can see that these wonderful people are quite short due to the altitude.

We then left the church after a few hours and drove to another meetinghouse back in Guatemala City where we enjoyed a meeting with all the young men and young women in the area.  Afterwards I tried to round up some patients out of the young men  to come visit with me at the clinic.  They will be coming this week.

After that we got back on the buses and drove to a restaurant up on the mountains overlooking the city.

On the way back to the hotel ( we had been on the road for 12 hours by then ) we stopped by the temple to walk the temple grounds and get a few pictures.

It was neat to be able to see the diversity of Guatemala and we certainly appreciate their kindness and gratitude for our service.

The quote for today's post was spoken ( translated into English )  by the humble brother who drives the truck that has all the equipment for the clinic from country to country.   And he is certainly wiser than most of the world.

April 25 The orphanage

 This morning a small group of us left the clinic for a bus ride to an orphanage here in Guatemala City.  This is the boys orphanage and when we arrived there were groups of them outside in lines that reminded me of scout camp.  Behind Susan you can see some of them back there.   Turns out the orphanage does has a boy scout troop and they were lined up by patrol.  There are about 500 orphan boys in this building.

 We took the assignment to organize an egg hunt for them and they were pretty fast in picking up the eggs filled with candy.  Impressed with their willingness to listen and follow directions.  But more impressed with their ability to get along with others and gratitude.

 This is one of the groups checking out what they collected.  They each ended up with a bag of some candy and a prize for picking up just four eggs. They also made tie dye shirts, made jump ropes and played with stacking cups that we had brought and left for them.

 Susan hiding eggs.  They could only pick up four eggs so I hid my eggs in groups of four.  Seemed reasonable. ......

 Susan passing out some leftover candy.  She was quickly mobbed by about twenty boys so she started throwing handfuls of candy up in the air.  They all dropped to the ground and she made her escape.  Pretty funny to watch.

Got back to the clinic in time for a quick lunch and back to work.  An action shot of me working with Luis.  It looks bad but really isn't - his mouth is propped open ( more comfortable for him ) and we are restoring a couple teeth ......  the chair light I invented is doing really well - you can see it there by his head.  It clamps to the chair and can be bent in any position.

 The after picture.  He was a great patient.  Had a few patients travel from over two hours away and they had been waiting at the clinic for almost 12 hours to see us.  Knowing that helped us forget our own fatigue and aches and pains and keep working to serve these wonderful people.