Ok so the other day I updated on June and July…. So here we go with August.  After Ashley left in July, I got caught up on some of my other work, which is hard to do when we have teams here.  I go to San Pablo a couple times a week and work on our projects in this village.  San Juan and San Pablo are about 6 kilometers apart, but the two villages are very different.  They both are Tzu’tujil (one of 22 or 23 different Indigenous Maya language groups in Guatemala), but they are still very different.  They both speak Tzu’tujil, but even the Tzu’tujil langage varies between the two villages. 

Each village has their unique traje (as do most other indigenous villages in Guatemala)… the traje is the typical dress of the village.  Most men especially younger men now wear western clothes, but all the women still wear the traditional dress (though the younger ones have started wearing traje of different colors and designs than the traditional design of their towns).  The villages have developed very different from one another; San Juan seems to have more going for it and seems more hopeful.  The mayor of the town has put money into making the town look pretty (though I am not sure how much this actually helps the people living in the town), and the town is very clean and well kept up.   San Pablo on the other hand, did not have any sort of trash cans or waste collection until the beginning of this year.  When I first came here trash was just everywhere.  It is a better now, but there is still a ways to go.  Many people also do not have any sort of toilet or latrine and many also do not have running water. 

A majority of the people in San Pablo do not speak Spanish really at all and even more are illiterate.  The same is true in San Juan, though from what I have seen most of the younger people speak Spanish and people in general seem to complete more education in San Juan.  One statistic I read, said that 85% of the population of San Pablo is illiterate, and that statistic does not seem that far fetched to me.  San Juan has a panifcadora (bread making place), a couple hostel type hotels, Super Quic, a store that has just about everything in it (you can buy beans, eggs, cornflakes, cookies, school supplies, pots/pans, tools, paint, construction materials, giant pinatas, toys… just about anything you could think of), a market (the market is brand new, but most of the stalls are empty because I have heard the price is too high to rent one), Elenita’s… a comedor where local people eat and there are always a ton of people in it—it is delicious! (you get a choice of caldo de res (beef soup) or pollo dorado (fried chicken) for lunch, and eggs, beans, plantains, cheese, a mountain of tortillas and coffee with a ton of sugar in it for dinner), a bank, a more touristy type restaurant (I love it… on the pizzas they put queso kraft… (kraft american cheese)…. gross!), a couple internet places, even a computer “repair” place (although, I took my laptop there to look at and clean the fan…. And they couldn’t figure out how to get into the laptop…I said oh ya know what… I think it’s alright… so then Jimmy fixed it, but he messed up one of my speakers and didn’t tell me… just turned that one off!), a new library and even a doctor who has a “private practice” (though no one really goes to this doctor because it is too expensive).  San Juan is also working at promoting “eco” tourism in the town… and there are about 7 different women’s natural dye weaving co-ops in town.  (though one of my friends said that there are no tourists now… she said it has been 2 months since a tourist even walked in her store)

San Pablo, does not have many of these amenities, and from what I have heard the mayor is incredibly corrupt.  People in the town always tell me that he is illiterate… but I don’t think that is true.  But I do know that people who did not vote for him in the election cannot get jobs with anything run by the government, for example the public school, or the centro de salud (health center).  I know a very good teacher, and a nurse who works so hard for his community and neither of them can get jobs because they didn’t support the mayor in the election.  I guess it is public knowledge who you vote for, which is pretty scary.  As I said the town just started having a trash collection service, and I still don’t think this is the government who is paying for this.  San Pablo does have a library (though I have never been there to check it out),  a rotary club constructed a market, but it wasn’t being used, and now it has been turned into classrooms, for night school, literacy classes, and a semi-private, but lowcost private school….the public schools are well not the greatest environment to learn in so I have heard.  And the public schools in Guatemala only go through primary—6^th grade, if you want to continue in education you have to pay for a private school.  Thus if people do end up graduating from primary school, many do not continue their studies into basico (middle school), and far less complete diversificado (high school… where you learn a trade and usually have to travel to a different village to go to a diversificado). 

San Pablo does not have any bigger tienda type stores, and there is no market… sometimes women sell some fruits and veggies on the streets.  There is an Australian non-profit in town which has now set up a low-cost internet for the community to use and has computer classes for kids and adults in the community.  This organization has a lot of money… and the computers and internet they have are some of the best I have seen in Guatemala…. way better and faster than the internet in San Juan. 

Most of the people in San Pablo live in houses built of adobe with a dirt floor.  As I said the other day it is the rainy season now… and it just rains all the time.  I was walking through San Pablo in a downpour the other day feeling sorry for myself getting all soaked wadding through the muddy, dog poo rivers in the streets, but as I looked in to some of the houses I immediately realized how good I really have it.  I can go back to my little casita, which is simple and authentically Guatemalan, but which has a concrete floor, the roof doesn’t leak, water does not enter under the door (at least not yet), I have running water outside, a toilet and a shower, a gas stove, and I can afford to buy purified drinking water, food (fresh veggies and fruit… meat… if I wanted to buy the meat that hangs in the market with flies all around it), gas for my stove.  I don’t have to go up the mountain and collect fire wood and degrain the corn to grind up to make tortillas to eat with a little salt and herbs for dinner.  As I was pasearing through San Pablo in the rain and I looked into the houses, I saw many women sweeping and throwing buckets of water out of their houses from the rain that entered in.  And I cannot imagine all this water mixed with the dirt floor in their houses.  It was so cold; my feet were freezing from the cold rain that soaked my sandals.  But when I got home I could take rinse my feet in hot water and put on dry clothes, climb into my bed and drink a nice cup of tea.  But despite all this I never hear people complaining of the rainy season.  Everytime I talk to people in the towns and say… I am so tired of the rain I can’t wait for it to end, they laugh at me.  When I ask, do you like the rainy season, people don’t respond with yes or no, they say that they need the rainy season for the crops and everything.  And then I say oh yes I know that of course but if you had a choice, which do you prefer the rainy or the dry season… but they still just answer that both are necessary.  I think that I, as well as probably most people from the U.S. and other such countries, think of things in how they relate to ourselves and how they affect us.  Even if I know that the rainy season is important for the crops, the forests, the lakes, I still know that for myself I prefer it when it is not rainy, though it is of course necessary.  But when I say things like… I am so ready for the rain to be done… (or something like that in Spanish)… people just laugh at me or look like I’m crazy, because even though they have to scoop the water out of their houses with buckets, it is just part of life and part of the seasons, and is neither good or bad, but it just is. 

Oh man so well let’s see it has been quite a while since I have written in my blog… people keep reminding me of this… so here is a little recap of what I have been up to lately.  And I shall then later add some things that I wrote in my journal before when Ash was here to give better descriptions.. I have been a slacker at writing in both my journal and my blog lately…. I really need to work on this!  But yeah so here is what I have been up to….

Well let’s see I don’t know where I have left off… but Ashley (my sister) was here with me for two months this summer… and I miss her very much.  We had such a wonderful time together… we braved the tropical storm with Jimmy and Holly, worked quite a bit on the clinic.  I must say that the volunteer construction teams we have had since Jimmy Ashley and Holly have had it soooo much easier.  We now have an ayudante who works when we have teams… so Francisco and the ayudante do more of the sifting sand and mixing of cement.  With Jim, Ash, and Yoli (Holly) we had to mix and sift all of our own concrete… and it was a lot!!! Since we were stuccoing Styrofoam walls.  And Francisco and I were kind of fighting at the time so well yeah he was not going to help at all with the sifting and such.  By the end of the week we couldn’t even mix anymore, we just would start laughing whenever we tried.  Plus… we had to carry all of the cement across the field… 100 pound bags of cement! 

            But yeah so after this week, we traveled up to Semuc Champey and Coban and saw lots of cool sights up there… then Holly and Jimmy left and it was Ashley and me.  We worked a lot on doing the community health needs assessment, which I am still currently working on… now I am trying to go around and figure out how I am going to start interviewing individual families in the community.  We also had an ALAS family planning clinic which we organized.  We helped out here and there with a bit of reforestation and such.  And got ready for the next team in July… this team was from University Park UMC in Dallas, Texas.  We worked at the clinic to finish up concreting the tops of walls which I will add a description of later… it was quite interesting, and got the rafters ready to put up the ceiling.  The ceiling is ¼” plywood and little 1X2 boards along the seams and across the middle to make 4×4 foot squares.  I kind of wish we had used thicker plywood, but well it is working allright.  The best part is that we had to paint the ceiling white, since it is plywood.  Now for some reason, Francisco thinks that it is necessary to cut ANY kind of paint with either water or paint thinner… and no not just a little bit of water to make it more manageable, we are talking half water half paint.  I kept telling him no, the volunteers are not happy painting with water… but he wouldn’t listen to me… and everytime I came back with another bucket of paint from the store… before I could even turn around… he had mixed in the water!  Finally the last bucket I convinced him to not add a single drop of water and he finally listened.  We ended up putting like 4 coats of paint on the ceiling.  But yeah… we finished the ceiling and it made it sooooo much cooler in the clinic… before it was like an oven.  We also got some more of the Styrofoam walls stuccoed… they require 3 different coats of stucco with different mixtures of sand and cement. 

            Ashley worked with the medical part of the University Park team… I was so very proud of her.  She translated for Linda a nurse who was seeing patients like a doctor.  We both just really loved Linda, she is an amazing nurse and really just reminds me so much of our Mommy.  But Ashley was so unsure of herself, but she did such an amazing job at translating.  The group had said that they had more Spanish speaking medical providers than they in fact did… so Ashley stepped up and worked as a translator and was phenomenal!  For every doctor, pharmacy, intake, dentist, etc… we have to have two translators… one from English to Spanish and another from Spanish to Tzu’tujil.  It is a lot to coordinate!  But yeah we had medical clinics for two days in San Juan, two days in San Pablo, and one day in Santa Clara.  The group stayed in Pana and had to take a boat every morning which was a little crazy… and Ashley and I stayed at JoAn’s and prepared all the lunches for the teams which was a lot of work… lots of people to feed including all the translators and everything. 

            But yeah after the team, Ash and I had a crazy trip to Mexico to renew my visa… maybe I’ll talk about this more later… but yeah it was crazy and the boarder guys are all pretty corrupt.  Then we came back and got to relax and hang out a couple days before she left me.  She had a little birthday party for me.  We had our typical dinner… which we ate pretty much every night while she was here… prepared on the little hotplate.  But it was delicious and we had all the extras… such as rice, refried beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots, guacamole, limes, homemade tortillas (homemade by us), and lots of hot sauce… mmmm the best.  And for desert we made well tried to make a pudding cake.  We made chocolate pudding from scratch….Mommy had sent us ingredients in the mail such as cornstarch.  And then we tried to make somesort of a graham cracker crust and cook it on the stove… the peace corps oven.  But yeah Ash did all the finishing touches and it was just the cutest little pudding pie I had ever seen! 

            Then Axli (which is how someone spelled her name here and I absolutely love) left… and I was alone again.  But I have made other friends since then who come and go so it has been pretty fun.  For my birthday, Ana and Francisco made me a beautiful lunch of caldo de marsicos (fish soup… but so much more than just fish soup… it is quite an experience) and it was a really special day… maybe I’ll explain this more later.  Next time I write I will describe August and September… but my wrists are tired from typing now… and it looks like it wants to rain… and it is a big muddy river outside of the internet… so I shall write more another day! 

Oh my I am just so filled up on rice and orange soda, I cannot even describe it!  Ariel, my friend here in San Juan and kind of roommate now, and I made a cake yesterday for Francisco (the albanil—foreman of the clinic) because today is his birthday.  This cake was pretty incredible, and I have some good fotos of the process.  We made a carrot cake (well from a box… but we did add in extra carrots) and we had wanted to make it in the solar oven, I just got one and am excited to try it out… but as has been the situation for the last couple weeks now… there was no sun today… not even a little peek of sun through the clouds this morning which we are usually blessed with.  I am really ready for the rainy season to be done… everyone keeps telling me that it doesn’t really rain in October, and I am like um well it is October 4^th now and this is the rainiest it has been yet.  Yesterday I got caught out in the rain and I had these books that I am borrowing from this guy here in town, so I ran to the store and bought a piece of plastic to tie around my neck.  Yesterday the whole day I wore this plastic and my big black rainboots.  Ariel said that we are starting to look pretty chapin (which means Guatemalan) but not chapina… which is the word for a girl Guatemalan… yes I dress kind of like a man going to work in the fields… they wear these same black boots and always have this piece of plastic tied around their neck covering only their backs.  People look at me pretty funny sometimes…. I don’t know how the women always look so put together when they are wading through rivers running down the street that go at least up to mid calf.  But yeah sometimes I just have to wear this stuff… I am sick of being soaking wet. 

So… we could not cook the cake in the solar oven… and well although cooking a cake on the stove is fun and worked out for Ashley and I, we decided that it would be easier since we had two cakes to cook it in the oven… yes I do actually have a gas oven in my new casita.  Ok… so we cooked the cake in the oven… it was a little lopsided, but no not quite like your cherry birthday cake Ashley that we made in Varsity.  But yeah… so then we decide that we will take the cake out of the pans and make a little layer cake and be all fancy.  So, we decide the burnt up comal that I have to make tortillas is the best surface for the cake.  However the cake didn’t want to come out of the pan… so well we had some craters in the cake… Oh but before this, we went to the store to find stuff to make icing.  Now the first idea was to buy the little container of Betty Crocker icing which has been sitting on the sheves of the store since I moved here.  It moves around the store always on a different shelf.. but it is always there.  There used to be another can of frosting, but Ash and I bought that for the stove cake we made… as we were putting it on the cake, we realized that it was about a year expired… but I don’t think anyone got sick:J  Ok, so the icing has disappeared off the shelf…did someone buy it?  Ok, next plan… we will make our own cream cheese icing!  So we find the cream cheese… and from what I can remember powdered sugar is what you use for a cake.  So we look at Super Quic the store that sells everything…. Yes pretty much anything… food, school stuff, plastic, tools, paint, computer stuff, toys… but no they are out of glaze sugar (pronounced like glass… took a while to figure this out).  So well we decide to pasear around to the other tiendas and the market to look for glaze sugar… and no luck… everyone pretty much laughs at us for thinking that we could find powdered sugar in San Juan.  When we ask at one store if anyone would have it… we get this answer “No muy vende aqui in San Juan”  that is a new use of the word muy for me…thinking maybe that is not correct but who knows… So yeah well we buy regular sugar which every tienda has PLENTY of…. Sugar is well a staple here.  I was buying food for a family here… we are trying to get one of the kids strong enough so that he can go to Spain and have surgery… and I buy corn, beans, rice, oatmeal, milk, this milk supplement drink stuff, salt… and lots of sugar!  But yeah, so anyways we have our sugar and cream cheese. 

Back to the house to make the icing.  So… we decide that to get the granuals out of the sugar we should cook the sugar with water… well this was quite a process… but yeah I guess it somewhat worked, and we added the cream cheese and essence of vanilla…not quite sure what that is for quite a large bottle it costs about 25 cents (US).  But yeah, it works out well, but well we don’t have enough to cover the whole cake in layers and such… so how are we going to stretch this icing???… well we added some water and powdered milk and more sugar… and now we have very liquidy icing… so what can we use to thicken it… why not corn flour which we use to make tortillas.  So yeah we add some of that and it has a weird tortillaish taste… well we add more of other stuff and end up having an interesting icing which tastes kind of strange but we figured they are used to eating tortillas and corn all the time so well maybe they will like it.  So we ice the cake and put the layers on top… and well it looked kind of like a disaster.  With craters in the middle pieces falling off the edges and two very different sizes of cakes.  How can we make the cake look somewhat edible??? Well we do a bit of surgery try to bring the cake back to its original form… then to fill in the craters we put banana slices on top of the cake and in the craters.  Then to make this look a little more natural and presentable, we melt up some chocobanano chocolate… really weird consistency choclatey stuff that they use to make chocolate covered bananas…. And we drizzle this over the cake.  Then to top it off, we take these little chocolate chip cookies we found at the store and make an F on the cake for Francisco…. And we cut off a piece of a candle and stick it in the middle.  Now here is a Guatemalan birthday cake. 

So… next we head over to Francisco and Ana’s house to bring the cake.  But before we can sing happy birthday and eat the cake… we have to put on the Guatemala birthday mix CD and set off some fire crackers, meanwhile I made a couple tortillas with Ana… I am getting better at them… but mine still are a little funny shaped and kind of fat.  Now we are ready for the cake… so we sing happy birthday, and all eat the cake.  So Ariel and I get up to say our goodbyes cause it is about lunch time, and they say no no you are staying to eat lunch with us… oh yes yes we have enough we made lunch for you too.  So we get a delicious meal of chicken pepian and rice cooked with carrots and quisquil.  And… of course our tortillas.  Now whenever I eat there they always give me the hugest portion of food… and then Ana and Julia just eat a little plate of food.  And of course here you have to finish all your food.  Its really good food…. But it is sooo much.  And Ariel doesn’t eat meat so she asked for a plate without chicken and she got the hugest plate of rice I have ever seen!  I think that it was seriously a whole bag of rice (a pound) just for her on her plate.  It was pretty incredible!  And she actually finished it all off…very impressive.  I tried… but I just couldn’t finish all the rice… I think I got all the chicken… but its so hard to tell on those bones if you got it all… I know what a special treat it is to have chicken… so I try really hard to get it all… but it’s a struggle… luckily everyone eats with their hands and licks their fingers for napkins so I never have to worry about offending anyone with my bad table manners.  But yeah, so both of us now are so incredibly full, but it was very delicious and such an honor for them to invite us to stay for dinner. 

Francisco told me we needed these three weeks to get everything set up… not quite sure that we really did… (we ended up putting up some of the walls ourselves)… but I think that he wanted work for those weeks, and it did help us to get a lot done while the volunteers were here.  Here is the update on the clinic: we now have all the interior walls for the clinic part of the clinic (the dental clinic and classroom are another building) up… and well almost completed.  We used this stuff called triditec to make the walls.  Francisco really, really wanted to use this material and the architect didn´t think it was such a great idea.  So, well I had to choose and the architect wasn´t getting back to me when I called her… so finally I just trusted Francisco and went with his choice.  I figure I have to work closer with Francisco than I do with Monica the architect… so I probably shouldn´t make him upset.  Plus we went through the budget and he assured me this material would be the same price as block, and would be a lot faster.  Well it deffinitely was faster!  So yeah we put all the walls up… (the material are 4×8 styrofoam sheets covered on both side with a gride of gate like metal).  Once those are up and secured to the walls and foundation with lots of rebar, you just have to plumb the walls and then put up about 3 layers of cement.  We had a bit of trouble with throwing the concrete at the wall like we were supposed to do to get it to stick… but we eventually figured out a method that worked for us.  So yeah now we have some interior walls which make up the three exam rooms and the pharmacy.  The rest of the space in this building is the intake, vitals, and waiting area for the clinic.  And this area can be rearranged to be a place for presentations, classes, etc.  And we are actually using the clinic on Tuesday for a capacitacion (training-class) for family planning for women.

So with the next group that comes at the beginning of July, we are going to finish up the concrete-stucco layers on the walls, and put up the cieling– right now there are just rafters and the tin roof… and it makes it really hot in the clinic… though strangly it is never really that hot outside. And then… hopefully with the team in August we will be putting in the floor!!!! I cannot even say how excited I am about putting a floor in the clinic!!! Right now all we have is a dirt floor… and it is a mess!!! There is always dirt and mud and dust everywhere!!!!  Then the groups in the fall will do some finishing stuff on the clinic such as painting, putting in cabinets, moving the door, stuccoing and painting the outside…. and THEN… on to the construction of the two story dental clinic and community classroom!!!

But it was so fun having Jimmy, Ash, and Holly here working with me.  They worked super hard and got so much done.  We stayed in my little room in my apartment, and we rented the room next to me for a week.  We cooked our dinners on the little hotplate that I have… yeah that deffinitely takes a while when you are cooking for 4 persons, and you can only cook or heat up one thing at a time… but it all worked out.  I made some choco bannanas for the them as a nice little treat after work (cause I didn´t want to buy them from the tienda and get them sick)… but I think they made me sick!  The night before they came I cooked the chocobanana chocolate stuff and dipped the little bananas… and well of course I had to eat some of the chocolate sauce while I was making it… it made me feel a bit ill… and the next morning when I woke up to go get the kids at the airport in the city… I felt like death… again.  Pretty much everyweek I have a little relapse of girrardia… for a couple months.  I had even taken the really hard antibiotic stuff this time which kills everything in your system (and which made me even sicker) and I thought it had gotten rid of all of them… but no, no I think the choco sugar stuff revived those little parasites.  So I felt like death for a couple days… that incredibly curvy bumpy ride to and from the airport was a nice addition to.  But I took some more of that crazy antibiotic stuff and well after a day of feeling the worst I ever have… I was ready to start work with the group on Monday!

Yeah work went well (well Francisco didn´t show up for work on Monday morning… and we deffinitely had some words and he almost quit, and I almost fired him, and yeah then Jimmy was mad at him cause he thinks Francisco is taking advantage of me…. etc. etc…. so yeah it was kind of heated there for a while… but we talked the other day and I think we got it all figured out… Francisco keeps telling me that I am strict and he doesn´t like working like this… um because I expect him to be at work when we have a group… and cause I tell him that I need reciepts for everything to be accountable for our budget… I don´t really think I am strict… actually I am quite a pushover.  Usually when we are not agreeing with something… he just talks it to death… like hours and hours of him talking and me nodding my head, and lots of times I just give in cause I can´t take it anymore!!!)  But anyways it is once again all better now… and he is all ready to start work preparing for the next group!

But thanks to Jimmy, Ashley, and Holly, and money donated from some people at St. Andrew, and my parents… we now have interior walls!!!! Yipee!!!

Woo so we had the first construction team a couple weeks ago–the last week of May.  The team consisted of Ashley, Jimmy (my sibblings), Holly (Ash´s friend), and ME!  We were small but mighty!  We had a couple of additional volunteers some days… and of course our Albañil, Francisco.  Francisco and I worked for three weeks before the group even came… to prepare for the team.  It was hard work just the two of us… we were doing foundation stuff and putting up walls.  I think my favorite part was carrying 5 100 pound bags of cement across the soccer field and into the clinic.  (There are no roads that go to the clinic only little dirt paths… so we have to carry all of our materials across the soccer field (it is walled in by concrete blocks). Not only do we have to go all over San Juan and other towns to get the materials, we then have to either carry them through the streets of San Juan, or if we are lucky enough to get them delivered, we have to carry them across the field!!!

Alright so here is a journal entry I wrote on April 24th, and I thought I would stick it in the blog for a little update.

Well, well, well…I now have much more time to write and I think I shall because here I am across the lake living in San Juan (actually it turns out no I do not have more time to write I have less… I am much more busy over here…).  It is 7:00, dark out, I am sitting in my rather stuffy little room.  I open my window sometimes, but now am a bit afraid since I heard from Francisco that I am living in a brothel (well in so many words.. he said my landlord Mariano rents out these roms for parejas–pairs for ¨sexo¨) …(well actually turns out this I think is false… I have only seen volunteers with fundacion solar here)  and now I recently cannot find my camera which I am pretty sure–well almost positive that I left in my room.  I even remember hiding it (don´t remember where exactly) but in strange places all over my room along with my money, liscense, ipod, credit card, computer, etc.. in case someone broke into my room while I was gone.  But yeah it is p0retty fun living here–kind of like camping– I have to put on my shoes at night to go out to the bathroom which is actually outside–which I share with whoever is living in the rooms next to me at the time (which… contrary to rumor…as of yet has only been volunteers or workers with fundacion solar–a community project which does lots with recycling, trash, community gardens, and eco tourism for San Juan.)  And, next to my little bathroom stall is our little shower stalll.  And I must say, I have never been so happy that  shower has hot water!  I thought, oh I don{t need a place with hot water, I don{t need to be a likttle pampered Estados Unidenses… oh but yes I do.  It is downright cold some days when I turn off that nice little trickle of hot water and reach for my towel. 

On to the kitchen… well Mariano originally told me that he would bring me a stove and putit in my room, then he told me it would be better for me if it was outside.  Then he asked if I wouldn{t mind sharing a stove withthe neighbors who live down half a flight of stairs from me.  I guess this is their kitchen and pila  which I too can use.  They have their own bathroom and sleeping rooms circling it.  (It is really hard to explain Guatemalan type houses unless you have lived here).  This little stove is rather difficult to use… it is gas and as the little bars are set on top to put your pot on… we maybe a combination of these bars and the ridiculously small 1 quart pot I decided to buy and bring down here… every morning, no matter how hard I try, the little pot kind of flips over and spills oatmeal everywhere.  Well this just kind of puts me in a bad mood to start off my morning because then  I have to clean the stove, counter, rag, pila of oatmeal which is now everywhere.  And then of the course the Pila which I believe I have described in great depth where I wash dishes, clothes, and what have you. 

My room though is quite a cozy little room with two beds actually wedged together (with actually nice typico woven bedspreads… so I have no graduated from my sleeping bag), a little table for cooking and holding cooking supplies which Dad put on cinder blocks, a little book shelf, my minifridge I splurged and bought, those little hanging shelves which Mom and Dad brought down for my clothes, and the little table and chair I borrowed from the clinic for now.  So yeah it is quite cozy in there, but I like it. 

After spending a week and a half with my parents while they were here visiting in Guatemala, I was excited to get back to see the classes and what they are up to! Mateo’s class unfortunately was not meeting today, and Lucia did not have any students in her class. She said that sometimes Fridays are low attendance days since the students are allowed to miss one day of class per week.

But I did however have a chance to observe both Manuel and Odelia’s class today… and I actually learned quite a bit sitting in on these classes. Manuel’s class started with their math lesson today… and I was at first quite confused at what they were learning. Manuel had three little boxes drawn on the board… one on top of another. And inside the boxes he had a number of lines and then dots on top of the lines. Then he gave the lines and dots numerical values depending on which box they were in and the students had to figure out the number value of each box and then add the values of all three boxes together. Now I sat there and tried to figure out what they were doing for most of the class. I thought perhaps this is like something to do with an abacus or was maybe the way my parents learned to do math back in the day before they had calculators like I had growing up in school. Finally when the students were working on some practice problems (reinforcing the lesson they just learned), Manuel came back and asked me if I understood what they were learning… and I was like umm… no. And he explained that these were Mayan numerals… and he explained a little more about the function of these numbers for me. Well all the kids in the class just started laughing and making fun of me in Tzu’tujil because I was a teacher and didn’t know Mayan numerals. And then Manuel explained to them that we come from different cultures and that we learn different cultural things in our schools sometimes… a little cultural lesson… as well as a lesson that even though we in developed countries think we have education figured out there are things that we too need to learn.

The students also seemed to be having lots of fun with practicing the problems in their notebook and having Manuel check the problems… when a student got the answer wrong, he would go back through the problem with the student and have them figure out where they made the mistake which is great for them learning to correct their own mistakes. I see why I always here from students that math is their favorite subject in school; they get a chance to use their critical thinking skills!

In Odelia’s class, she only had 2 students today so instead of using the board and a more formal style of teaching… she sat down in between the students and worked individually with each of them in their notebooks, and had them slowly read aloud to her. This was great for each of these students to have a chance to read get one on one help… especially with sounding out words. Sometimes in a big class when the students read together, students who are not getting it can blend in and get passed by with out the teacher really knowing the level of each individual student. So I think this was a great opportunity for these two women, and Odelia has such a soft patient voice and style of teaching.

This next week I will hopefully be able to observe both Mateo and Lucia’s class and send an update of their classes with my next email!

It was great to get back into the classroom to see the students and observe after having a couple weeks off–one for Semana Santa, and almost another full week for capacitaciones (trainings) for the teachers. I was able to make it too all four classes again and had a chance to see all the teachers teach at least part of a lesson. I first dropped into Mateo´s class… after having a little difficulty finding it because they switched rooms! This class is the 6th grade class which is made up of different ages of men and women with ages ranging from teenagers up through adults. Today Mateo introduced the class to fractions… they first reviewed whole numbers and practiced a bit with those numbers (which is great reinforcement) and then they moved onto fractions. Mateo did a great job of using the example of a cake (circular cakes are popular here) which he drew on the board. He then told the students that they had the task of dividing the pie into enough pieces for their family of 10 to all have an equal piece. I thought this was great because he made the problem relevant to their lives, and also gave them a number which is a little more difficult to divide evenly than say 8 pieces. Hopefully next week we will go further into how to use the fractions to help out in our daily lives.

Ok… and below are some of the observations that I send out to the people in Canada who pay for 4 literacy classes here in San Pablo. I observe the four classes once a week and write my observations and send them to the sponsors in Canada. I also am responsible for paying the teachers, getting attendance, and I think I am going to start to get to go to the teacher inservice classes! It is a great way to get to know more people in the community.

Hello everyone,

Alright, so here is probably more information than anyone ever wanted to know about the medical clinic that we had here in March, but these are the notes that I wrote up to give to the other volunteers I work with and to have to help plan future medical clinics. We host medical teams of doctors, dentists, nurses and such who come down from the states or other countries to spend a week providing medical care for the people in the villages where we work. Eventually the clinic we are building will be a place where we host a medical-dental team once every month or every other month. The advantages of having an actual clinic will be that we have a place to keep records, we plan to have a nurse who works full time at the clinic who can help with meds or with follow-up care from the clinics, the doctors and dentsists will have more tools and instruments they need to provide a higher quality of care, and we will have a pharmacy where we can store medicines securely. Also we want this building to be used a lot!… a community building. I am currently working on a health needs assessment to see how we can provide the best services. Hopefully the clinic will also be used as a place where we can provide classes and such on preventative health care, hygiene, nutrition, water, natural medicines…ect. So that we can get to the cause of the illnesses and maybe prevent them instead of having to treat them. People from the community have also expressed interest in holding meetings such as AA meetings and a women´s weaving group would like to use it to meet in. So we have lots of hopes for this building to really be a community building!

Here are the notes from the clinic we had in March… there are lots of extra details…

The team arrived in Panajachel on Monday March 10th, spent the night and met up with JoAn on Tuesday morning. JoAn and the team took a private launch over to Casa Rosada, the Launchero—Andres charged 300Q for the trip, and JoAn was very pleased that he helped load and unload bags for the team. After the team arrived at Casa Rosada, they settled in claiming their bunk beds and arranging the food they brought in the kitchen. After a brief intro to Casa Rosada and a lovely demonstration of the Pila by Mary, the group had a bit of free time and then headed to San Juan for a day of fun! We took a little tour of the town such as the new market and new library and such. Then some of us went to visit Ana and Francisco and to see Ana’s weaving groups’ weavings. Though it was difficult to actually get the group to go to Ana’s house, some finally did agree to go, and they seemed to be just so happy they went. They even got samples of the different kind of natural die thread in addition to some weavings. Some people in the group went to see Juan Carlos and some had a refresco at the nice hotel and checked out the art galleries. Then we waited around for Santiago and spent much time trying to find him to place their order for coffee. I am thinking that this must be the very best coffee in the whole world… they were seriously so very worried they would not be able to find Santiago with the coffee. Well as it was nearing dark, and Mary kept telling the group we probably should catch a ride back cause it is not fun to walk on the path at dark. So finally most of us decided to go find a ride back. But not our heroes Marilee, Evie, and Riley… no they were on a mission to find that coffee for the team, even if they had to brave that curvy, robber filled dirt path in the pitch dark. Now as for the rest of the group, they are mostly all some kind of medical professionals from the states; however the 3 extra Q to take a tuk tuk back to Casa Rosada instead of searching high and low for a picop (pick-up truck) was too much of an expense. So we waited and waited for a picop to get ready to leave. They kept messing with the engine and pouring water over something, which is probably not a great sign… as the yellowy pink sunset faded into an increasingly greyer and greyer color. And then who shows up but the coffee hunters! They came running with their bags of happy all exclaiming how Santiago had come riding down the road on his bicycle with a great big smile on his face… how very happy was to see them all. Or perhaps happy to sell hundreds of pounds of coffee??? But with our group reunited and the engine cooled down from the recently added water, we were ready to head back to Casa Rosada; the picop made it and we climbed the stone steps up to the house just in the nick of time! What an adventure!

Of course upon returning home the group was “starving” not sure if they could even wait for dinner? Why are we eating so late they would ask? Hmmm ask your leaders… But luckily in walk Rosa, Nicolas, and Loida with dinner—hooray! And what a spread there was. Rosa prepared a delicious caldo de pollo (chicken soup) with carrots, potatoes, and quiskil along side, Tere brought her amazing pasta salad on the boat from Pana, and Juan brought some tortillas and cheese spread… it was quite a feast! And it was a wonderful time of fellowship and a chance to meet new friends.

After dinner we circled up for the cultural orientation. Medoh gave quite an introduction on ODIM, our programs, and how she became involved with ODIM. After this presentation, Juan Toj presented some information on culture and how to work with the indigenous people in the villages and to be culturally sensitive. Unfortunately Juan did not have that much time to present this information, so it mostly consisted of people asking questions. JoAn and I noticed many things during the clinics which we did not go over, but which were in the cultural sensitivity piece. On some of the feedback forms, there were comments that the team members would have preferred more cultural information and discussion especially from Juan, and less information about ODIM and our background. I agree that we could just hand out the brochures, give a very brief intro to what we are about and then I am sure people would have questions they could ask us at other times. Or it might be a good idea to read the group while we are presenting, if they seem interested then we could go into more depth. After the orientation we kind of divided up roles and who was going to work where and we were off to bed.

The next morning bright and early we woke up and started getting ready for the day. The group did kind of a make your own breakfast thing with granola, yogurt, fruit, mosh, juice, coffee, tea, etc. Which seemed to work well for everyone and was pretty easy. For lunches the team packed tostadas, cans of refried beans, packets of tomato sauce and chopped up onions and cucumbers and tomatoes and avocados and such. The lunch people each day spread the beans on the tostadas and set them out for people to top with what they wanted. They also brought fruit, bread, cookies, and leftover salads from dinner. These lunches were a big hit and they went over great! Some days though there was not quite enough food, so it would be a good idea to bring more than we think we need. And on the comment forms it was unanimous praise for Rosa’s dinners, they loved them! They did suggest perhaps having a fish dish for dinner one night.

The first clinic at San Pablo, was well, a little crazy! We ended up seeing 92 patients! We got started later this day, like 9:30, at the teams request… they actually wanted to start even later. And the doctors got off to kind of a slow start with some pretty sick patients. I think that perhaps we should have brought Marilee to see Gaspar at a later time after the clinic to open up some time—she spent an hour with him. It was kind of chaotic inside the clinic with people waiting and such, and Mac was not a lot of help in trying to organize this. The pharmacy was great, and there was never really any backup. And it was really great to have Jill a nurse who worked with the patients on nutrition and medication education. The team especially Marilee was really pretty mad at the end of the day on Wednesday, because they felt that their requests to have 60 patients had not been heard. We ended up leaving the clinic around 6:00 and they said that was not ok. JoAn and I both thought it was great and there were so many very sick people who got seen, but the team seemed to have a different view. They also wanted things to be very orderly, but San Pablo is just not really orderly. Timoteo at one point tried closing the door to keep the other people out especially the kids who kept running in. But Mac made him open the door back up saying that they needed to keep it open, and thus more people came in, and we had more patients! But we made lots of referrals, including many referrals which we have not had before… such as to the Hospital in Solola and the centro de salud in SP. We even ended sending one lady with a blood sugar of 481 to the clinic in San Pedro as an emergency.

The next morning we were off on the hour trip to Pasaquim. The mini bus picked us up at the public doc and we rode the twisty, curvy path through San Pablo, up to Santa Clara, and over behind Nariz and back down a bit to Pasaquim. This was a great place to have a medical jornada, as they have never had one in this aldea before! One thing we might need to think about though is that during the rainy season this road might be kind of dicey since much of it is dirt road and down a hill and such. But we had the clinic at a guy named Oscar’s house… we used a couple rooms inside the house for the two doctors and their exam rooms and the outside big front porch we used for registration, intake, vitals, pharmacy, and waiting. It seemed to me that doctors saw a lot of cases of scabies here! We ended up having 72 patients at this clinic and the team seemed to think this was a much more manageable number. The team also did a little skit/ song for the kids as they were waiting. Two of the members of the team have some clowning and acting background and they made up a cute little song about brushing your teeth, washing your hands, not drinking sodas, and such. The team also handed out lots of toothbrushes which seemed to get kind of out of hand. The kids kept coming back to ask for more toothbrushes. Perhaps in the future we should encourage the doctors to hand out the toothbrushes in the exam room, or the pharmacy with the medicine. Also, JoAn suggested unwrapping the toothbrushes first so they couldn’t go and sell them. But the clinic in Pasaquim seemed to go very smoothly, and the translators were overall very good. Francisco changed out one for the second day because he thought she wasn’t doing a very good job?

For the clinic in Pasaquim we had a shorter drive, only about half an hour—this aldea is the one closest to Santa Clara. When we arrived in Palestina, the translators had already set up the clinic with sheets and all exactly the way we had it set up the day before in Pasaquim. However, once the group arrived, they began moving everything around and completely changed the set up that our translators had worked hard all morning and the night before to set up. This is perhaps something else to add to our cultural sensitivity document, or at least something to talk with the teams about. The clinic at Palestina was quite calm and very manageable, even though Karen, the adult physician, was sick and unable to examine patients most of the day. Jill and Evie ended up examining the patients and consulting Karen when they had a problem. JoAn worked on education of patients to fill in for Jill, and Mary worked in the lab with urine and blood samples. But everything flowed smoothly despite this little problem. We had fewer patients at Palestina and actually even ended up leaving a little early. There was a small problem with the mini-bus driver and JoAn and I were a bit worried he wasn’t going to show up to pick us back up… but he came! Some of the group though had decided to begin walking back though… not quite sure where they were walking too… they did not want to wait for the mini-bus though, and they were cold because it was pretty cold this day up in Palestina. Many of the patients in Palestina wanted glasses or needed cataract surgery, and it was hard not having any place to refer them for glasses or cataract surgery. Some patients were very insistent, so we did end up referring them to the eye clinic at the Solola hospital, but we found out later that the glasses are a crazy amount of money that these people could never afford. Later we found out that there was a huge eye clinic which included free glasses and surgeries in Pana in April, and we were able to call the community contacts and let them know about this clinic. But it would be great to have this info ahead of time.

But over all the clinic was a great success, despite some of the personality conflicts and trouble with people on the team trying to be in control of everything. Marilee is going to send out all the statistics of the clinic, so we will add that info to this document.

Alright little shnookie… you asked for it… here are some more posts. You may be the only one who reads this… so enjoy. When mom and dad were here visiting they sounded like they didn´t even know that I had a blog! Mom said she looked at it once! So anyways here is for you….