Good Day at Work...

Today was a great day at work. Since I am leaving to come home next Tuesday (could not be more bittersweet) I have been kind of going crazy trying to get everything done that I'm in charge of before I leave. This includes both tasks in the school and as Team Coordinator. I am looking forward to August when I am just doing one job and don't have to try to split my time between 2 different positions. There were several moments today that made me smile and feel confident that I made the right decision in deciding to come back. I have this fear that I am going to return home next week and that after awhile working at the church again (and let's face it it may be a day) I'm going to be asking myself "What the heck did you do giving up this job?!?". I just keep telling myself I have to remember the feeling I get working here in Guatemala. I already know that I am going to go home and have a ridiculously hard time saying bye to everyone and leaving my job at the church. It was always my dream to work there and some days I think it is crazy that I made this decision to give it up. Not to mention the whole moving to another country by myself. However, then I have a great day at work and I look around and I know this is exactly where God wants me to be.

This is why my day was great. As the Team Coordinator I work side by side with Jose Hernandez who has been working at Salud y Paz for years. He is the eye doc at the clinics and also serves as the "Assistant Team Coordinator" but let's face it he knows way more about being a Team Coordinator than I do. We have worked together on several teams and have spent the last 2 weeks trying to get all the arrangements done for the teams this summer. We really are a great team. I get the emails from the team leaders (my email has been BLOWING UP since I took on this position) and if it is about hotel reservations or room assignments I just show it to Jose and he takes care of it. Most of the time I email back and forth with the teams and he emails with Guatemala Tours and other random hotels we send teams to. Sometimes I'll write an email to Guatemala Tours and give him my computer to type a sentence in Spanish. If I ever meet Doris from Guatemala Tours in person she may be a little surprised to learn that I don't speak much Spanish at all. Lately I have been sitting at Jose's desk with him (you know so we don't have to scream at each other across the ER we all office out of) and I love it because it's like having my own personal translator all the time. :) When we work together there is a lot of looking at each other and not knowing what to do followed by lots of laughter. Working at the church has instilled in me the importance of laughing everyday at work. It makes me incredibly happy to know I have that here also. Notice how cute Jose and I are in our matching Salud y Paz jackets. Also notice how little his computer is compared to mine. Apparently Macs are rare down here and all the Guatemalans make fun of how big it is.

Another reason why it was a good day is because all the teachers and Janet were in a meeting during recess, so I had to man it on my own. Most of the kids were playing on the playground, but then some stay in their classrooms and play with indoor toys. I was making my rounds and found little Pati (if you read the last surgery week blog you saw pictures of her and I from my computer) sitting at her desk by herself crying. I asked her what was wrong and she just kept saying her teacher's name. I picked her up and after carrying her around for about 5 minutes rubbing her back she calmed down. She then decided she wanted to swing, so I started pushing her. Now this caused a problem with the other kids. One of the favorite/most annoying things that the kids do during recess is scream my name when they want me to play with them. Now you may be thinking that that sounds like an 'adorable how cute that they know your name' thing. Well that's what I thought at first also. However, after months the cuteness wears off and the annoyance sets in. Some kids just stand there screaming my name over and over again and even though I go up and play with them for a few minutes the second I leave they are right back at it. I think it is hard for some of them to understand that I have to play with everyone. I just reread this paragraph and laughed really hard because it sounds like I'm a middle schooler complaining about being too popular. :) All I'm saying is that if I'm holding a sobbing child maybe it's ok that I don't ditch her to come help you on the monkey bars even though you are shouting my name at the top of your lungs. However, that is not a sentence I have learned in Spanish yet, so all I say is "sea paciente. un momento". Recess today was fun despite all the shouting. There was a pick up truck (it's important in this story to remember that it is owned by S y P and not just a random truck) parked by the playground. While I was in a classroom talking to Pati about 20 kids decided to climb into the back of it. When I noticed I walked over to the truck with intentions of telling them to get out, but then I noticed that they actually had an intense game of ice cream shop going on. I was actually impressed with how detailed their imaginations were, so I just let them play. All was good until they must have made it move too much or something happened to where they set the alarm off. This made all the patients standing outside the clinic turn to see what was happening then laugh really hard. I can't even begin to describe how many times in the past 4 months I've had Guatemalans laugh at/with me. One of the Guatemalans I've become friends with once told me I'm that quirky American girl that makes people happy. Compliment maybe? Juan the other day walked into the clinic and yelled across the room "I love your smile Kelly". Maybe being that quirky American girl who makes people happy isn't such a bad thing.


Another moment that made me smile is that we had a staff meeting (which is all in Spanish, so I try to sit by someone who can clue me in) this afternoon. Dr. Freddy and Juan lead them and every time they ask me if I have anything to talk about and I just stare at them like "Are you kidding me?" knowing I couldn't do a report in Spanish. It always makes the staff laugh (remember quirky American). Today Juan said my name then I followed that he was telling the staff that I will be returning to the States next week for 3 months then coming back for a year. The staff all looked at me then started to say different things. Then everyone clapped. So with my limited Spanish and the fact that someone had come into the meeting late and sat in between Jose and I therefore I couldn't be clued in I figured that they were either applauding my leaving or my commitment for a year. Hopefully they were happy that I am coming back. Otherwise I should probably delete this as a moment that made me smile today. 


So I'm coming home in a week. I can't believe it is already going to be May and that it is time to go home. I am both incredibly sad to leave and incredibly excited to be home. I feel like I have just started understanding my role as Team Coordinator and a part of me thinks it would just be easier to stay and take it on fully now. However, there is an even bigger part of me that can not wait to be home and spend the next 3 months with everyone I love so very much! I know that if I am going to come back for a year I am going to need these 3 months not only to get everything in order, but also to spend with my friends and family. I just hope I can remember this feeling on days when I'm sitting at home with loved ones wondering what the heck I did in quitting my dream job and committing to move to a foreign country for a year. Hopefully I won't have many days like that, but I know myself pretty well and see an incredibly fun/incredibly difficult summer ahead of me. 

Here is a moment that did not make my day better. My ears have been hurting lately, so yesterday I had both Heather and Cheryl look in them. They said that in one ear I have a lot of fluid built up and in the other a lot of wax. I have always had ear issues and actually had to have surgery on one ear in college when my ear drum ruptured. They gave me pills and drops to take at home. However, today during work Cheryl flushed out one of my ears with water and some kind of medicine. The water was too cold and it made me incredibly dizzy. I felt like I was going to pass out and she had to keep me from falling over. It didn't help that I was sitting in a swivel chair. After she was done I had to sit for about 15 minutes before I felt like I could get up and move around without wiping out. I've always heard that your inner ear controls your balance (or you know something like that), but I had no idea how out of it you could feel if it is messed with. However, because I do tend to be that weird illness breaks a lot of bones girl it does come in handy not only living with a nurse, but working at a clinic. I even had one of the surgeons last week look at my ear. I'll probably end up getting better health care down here than I would back home. And by better I obviously mean cheaper and quicker.