Wednesday, January 30th

We have had two full days at the clinic since I last posted. Luckily we finished early enough yesterday that we were able to go to casa Santa Domingo an amazing hotel built among spanish ruins. A famous guatemalan artist (Angela ?) has an exhibit there and I LOVED her work so I may come home with a piece if I can do some negotiating. From casa Santa Domingo we took a little open air van, like an oversized golf cart, just outside of Antigua ( the first non cobblestone road I have been on since arriving) up a big mountain to tenedor del cerro a fantastic restaurant. The restaurant is located at an outdoor art gallery!

We have seen almost as many patients in the last four days than the clinic saw all of last year. I am feeling more confident in my ability to fit a hearing aid. We have probably fit about 50 hearing aids and done over a hundred audiograms. Sadly we are almost out of "profound" hearing aids! This means when the doctors see a profoundly deaf person they will have to tell them we can't help them this year. We may be out of all the hearing aids before the end of the two weeks. I am also learning how to make a custom hearing aid mold.

The people are so grateful that they hug all the workers in the clinic. Two of the patients I worked with today gave us gifts. The first an older woman and her daughter gave everyone little pouches in wonderful fabrics. The second a man, whom I fit for his first hearing aid, and his wife returned to the clinic with dolls for us all. It made me cry! These people wait all day in crowded hallways and are shuffled from station to station and are still so grateful.

Our patients come to us in waves. A nurse comes with a big stack of files followed by about 40 people (15 patients plus their families). This happens several times over the course of the day!

We worked from 8 am til 4:30 today with about a fifteen minute lunch. We don't take breaks! We are busy ALL the time in a hot clinic. Today we had a number of difficult fittings that took a long time. It is very tiring work but I am loving it!!! I really hope to come back next year.

On our way home today we noticed an interesting doorway so we walked in bought a 20 quetzales ticket and walked around the ruins of Santa Clara (monastery and church). There is a treasure on every block of this town!

People are referring to this as voluntourism instead of volunteerism for good reason! Antigua, Guatemala has blown me away! It is a nothing short of awe inspiring! I love the work and I love what we get to see after work.

A group of ten of us are going to climb the pacaya volcano on Saturday! Pray it doesn't errupt....I understand it has already done that in the last six months so hopefully it has met its quota!

Good night