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!