Let's try again!

Sadly last night, after a long time composing my two day detailed blog entry, my battery died on my iPad and took my entry with it!

So now it has been three days since I last posted, I am tired and obviously frustrated from the loss so I apologize in advance for the "roughness" of the following entry.



Wednesday we finished up in the hearing clinic with just a handful of patients in the morning. We had a man with gold stars on his teeth and one very special and grateful woman, along with her daughter, who came armed with a beautiful cake to thank us. It was a wonderful way to end our work.

By noon we had tidied up our space and Laurie had completed the inventory. It was a great 11 days working with an amazing team of women but more importantly was what we got back from the wonderful Guatemalans we treated. We received countless blessings, gifts, hugs and kisses. I can't recall one person who didn't express sincere gratitude to us as they headed out the door of the clinic, all of them hearing better than they had when they arrived. I truly feel that we were the lucky ones! I really hope that I have an opportunity to do this again but even if I don't I will forever be grateful for this experience.

It was actually really nice that with the clinic finishing on Wednesday we had some time to see more of Antigua and take a couple of spectacular field trips. We started our time off by having a fun shopping afternoon on Wednesday when five of us headed to the artisans markets. Laurie, Maureen, Lavinia and I each bought a huipiles ( we-p-lays). Huipiles are the traditional tops worn by Mayan women. They are beautiful with hand embroidery. Each village has a specific pattern they use on the huipiles so your top will identify where you are from. We all had great success in the shopping department. Laurie and I stopped to visit with Maureen, Ann, Dr. Patty and Dr. Linda on the way home. We all shared our "new stuff" with each other.

Thursday was both a heart wrenching and an uplifting day. Maureen, Lydia and I visited the Guatemala City dump and the safe passage organization. Hanley Denning who started safe passage has left an incredible legacy in her far too short life. Along on the tour was a group of eleven high school girls, four teachers and the principal of a traveling school. A school were girls travel for a semester and study along the way. Check out www.travelingschool.com

We viewed the dump from a large cemetery. Kind of creepy for me but it had an excellent vantage point to see what was going on. The sky and trees were filled with vultures. It looked like a scene from "The Birds". The dump was filled with people chasing the garbage trucks, swinging from the sides of the trucks and jumping into the backs of them. Until recently families actually lived in the dump. Laws have changed and now you must be at least 14 to go into the dump and people are no longer allowed to live there. It was so sad to see people actually choosing to live like this.

When Hanley saw this she made it her mission to get the children out of the dump. The first safe passage building we went to was a beautiful early childhood education facility complete with green space and play structures. This facility is a little oasis surrounded by a shanty town that built up in 48 hours once people were no longer allowed to live in the dump. Next we stopped at their tutoring and adult centre where we purchased jewelry made from recycled garbage. 20 plus women who used to work in the dump are now supporting themselves through this venture. We made our last stop at the largest facility which is an after/ before school program as well as a newly started school that will continue to grow. I learned on this trip that 49 % of guatemalan children under 5 suffer from malnutrition. The children involved in safe passage are all feed by the organization. We had lunch in their cafeteria along with them.

Watch the documentary "a recycled life" to learn more about life in the Guatemala city dump.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VEe8nmwd4iE


Today was another opportunity to take a phenomenal field trip. The group today included Laurie, Lydia, Cindy, Dr. Mario (aka Murray) and I. We went on the most amazing coffee tour with "as green as it gets". This is an organization which has formed a coop for small local coffee farmers. We first meet with Andres (the farmer), Melvin (his 11 year old son) and Jane ( our green as it gets guide and interpreter). We started the tour by taking a fairly long hike up Agua Volcano to Andres' little plot of land to pick the coffee off his trees. It reminded me of berry picking in PEI. The coffee bean is bright red when ready to be picked. After we had picked for a while we headed back to Andres' home so he could show us the steps involved in getting the bean to your cup. It was very interesting to see how the family lived. Their home had very few possessions. There was a horse in the house! The main living area was open to the outside, four bedrooms and a small kitchen. He showed us how he used a bike contraption to hull the beans, how they dried the beans on the roof, and then we sorted through the dried beans to take out any undesirable ones. From there we headed into the kitchen to roast our beans with his wife on an open wood stove. Next we ground our freshly roasted coffee with a big stone rolling pin. I drank what was the best cup of coffee I have ever had using the coffee we had just roasted and ground! This was followed by a simple lunch of chicken and rice. What a great tour and learning experience!

Tonight was a goodbye party for medicos en accion, complete with the padre from Hemano Pedro hospital giving us a thank you certificate for volunteering!

good bye Guatemala, I hope I get to see you "proximo anyo"! Not the other one I keep saying...my Portuguese has not served me well here....I kept saying proximo ano ....let's just say the translation is not a good one!