Jalapa to Antigua and Back

February sure is flying by, so I figured I had better get in one last post before the end of the month!

Last week was a very busy week for me. First, I volunteered to help translate for a medical mission in Jalapa. This group of about 60 doctors, surgeons, dentists, nurses, pharmacists and translators has been coming to Jalapa for 17 years or so. The public hospital in Jalapa turns over a big part of the facilities to them for a whole week. They arrive to set up on Sunday. Monday through Friday they attend to patients- this year over 3,000! Then Saturday they head home. Last year some other volunteers told me that they were going to translate, so I tagged along for a couple of days. Luckily this year I was able to be there for longer. And what a great experience! I was so impressed with the dedication of all the people that come. Because it's not just the one week that they are in Jalapa that they are devoting time to the people of Jalapa; they spend countless hours fund raising, buying, organizing and packing medical supplies, recruiting new people to volunteer, following up with difficult cases....and the list goes on.

There's not always a lot that can be done for patients that come in with the most common complaints in Guatemala: heart burn (from drinking lots of coffee and eating spicy or greasy foods, and not drinking enough water) and aches and pains (from the very physically demanding lifestyle). But those patients receive lots of good advice, as well as some aspirin and vitamins, so at least they feel like they're getting something. People spend the night on the sidewalk waiting in line in order to be seen the next day! For those with more serious problems, the doctors are able to do simple surgeries that don't require much follow up (hysterectomies, gallbladder removals, pulled teeth, removals of cysts, etc). There was even one little girl who had a sixth finger removed! (It was infected). When the doctors are confronted with a problem too big for them to solve during the week, they talk with the local social worker to help people get appointments with specialists.

Though I'm generally more interested in medicine when it's applied to cows and horses, it was really interesting to help out. Although sometimes it was a little uncomfortable to translate a private conversation between a doctor and patient, it was also quite fascinating. I learned a lot about common health problems here in my area, many of which are related to nutrition. The doctors also gave me some new ideas for how to approach these problems with my students and women's groups.

Speaking of nutrition, I just read an interesting article about malnutrition in Guatemala:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/latin_america/jan-june11/nutrition_02-16.html

While I wasn't helping out at the medical mission, I was in Antigua at our Project Review meeting. Projects in Peace Corps are developed for a certain period of time- our Sustainable Agriculture Project Plan ends in December of this year. So last week a group composed of PC volunteers and staff as well as counterparts and other people who work with PC met to review the Sustainable Ag Project and come up with ideas to guide its remodeling for the next ten years. I was lucky enough to be invited, and to be able to bring along Francisca, one of my favorite group members! She's also my host dad's mother, so she's kind of like a mother/grandmother figure to me too:) When the meeting started, I looked around and realized that she was the only villager in the room! All the other Guatemalans worked for NGO's- meaning they live in cities or towns and work in offices. Whoa! How uncomfortable and out of place must she be feeling? (Actually, I first thought that the night before as we checked into the hotel and I had to show her how to use the key card to get into her room. This, mind you, is a woman who lives an hour walk uphill from the main road, in a house with no electricity or running water). But I was so proud of her- she took it all in stride. While Guatemalan village women often tend to be timid, she participated and shared her opinion. And she also survived two days without eating tortillas- something that most Guatemalans would declare impossible!

A Day In Pino Dulce

Vanessa looking over her family's coffee as it dries in the yard.

First of all, Jorge is doing much better. He came home after a week in the hospital, after a surgery to remove coagulated blood from his head (or something like that, I didn't get a very medical explanation). Now he's recuperating at home with his family- one of his eyes is still partially swollen shut, and he still has a lot of aches and pains, but he gets his stitches out on Monday! Poco a poco (little by little).

Yesterday I had a fun day in Pino Dulce. Well actually, it didn't start out so fun- I had to wait almost an hour for a bus! The longest I normally wait is half an hour. Who knows what was going on. So I got to the school almost half an hour late, which of course was annoying to me. (Yet I'm sure that nobody else in this country cares, after all, it's more normal for people to be late than on time). BUT, the good thing was that as I walked into the school yard I saw a HUGE pile of sacks and bags full of the materials to make a compost pile- my project with the kids for the day. It's the only elementary school that I work in, and I really enjoy working with the younger kids. They're so enthusiastic and fun! I like working in middle schools too...but the kids can be a bit rebelde (rebelious) at times. Anyways, we ended up making the biggest compost pile that I've made yet, in record time. The teacher even took advantage of the fact that the boys had brought their machetes to school to give the lawn a trim!

They boys "mowing" the school lawn.

After finishing the compost pile I headed to a women's group meeting. I've been a little frustrated with the attendance to meetings with this group, and once again only five women showed up. But, the good news was that one of them was new- I vaccinated her chickens last week and invited her to come to the meeting. She may have been an hour late...but at least she showed up! We made cough syrup with eucalyptus leaves.

Next I went to the middle school. Last week we talked about different career options (I've become frustrated with the fact that all young people here seem to either want to be nurses, secretaries or teachers). I was pretty impressed with the kids- we came up with a list of about 50 different careers! Then yesterday we talked about goal setting and how to accomplish your goals. They were all quite cooperative, which is saying something when you've got a class of 34 kids. I was surprised, until I learned later from one of the girls that two weeks ago, when I got really mad because the kids kept talking and wouldn't listen to me, that after I left the teacher les hico bien reganado (gave them a good scolding)! He's a young teacher, I think he just graduated recently, and this is his first year at the school. I wasn't sure if I liked him that much, but now that he's standing up for me, he's my favorite!

By 4:30 it was time to head home. All in all a successful day!