Back in Guatemala...

I've been back in Guatemala for almost a week now and it hasn't taken me long to remember why I loved this place so much. I had a moment on the plane (sitting in first class by the way thanks to the great Chris Cragg) where I completely broke down and started to cry. So many thoughts kept running through my head that I couldn't shake. "Did I make the right decision?", "How am I going to handle being away from my loved ones for a year?", "What if I can't live up to all the promises I made?", "What if I make a mistake as the team coordinator and it causes a team to never return which takes away services to the Guatemalan people", "If I fail and can't do it I don't have the safety net of my job at the church anymore. What would I do?", "What am I going to do without my family?". Trust me I could write 50 more what if's that were running through my mind, but I am tearing up right now and there is a team of backpackers sitting at the table next to me at the coffee shop who I really rather not cry in front of.

Anyways, when I landed in Guatemala I walked outside and met Ivan who was driving the dental team that was in town this week. After I dropped off my bags into the van I waited outside the airport with the Salud y Paz sign for the Free to Smile team. They arrived about an hour after I did and we loaded up the van and headed to Pana. I had been emailing Stacy who runs Free to Smile with her husband, so it was great to finally meet her and to get to know the rest of the team. Jose was the host of their team this week, so I took most of the week off to settle back in and only worked with their team for 2 days. They were great and working with them constantly reminded me of why I made this commitment. I love working with the teams, and I think they were the perfect first team back I could have asked for. They were always laughing and having fun while at the same time being professional and doing amazing work for their patients. Also Stacy was great at giving me pointers of what her team liked and what made it difficult for them. Between her help and Jose who spent the 2 days showing me all the random details that I need to know I believe I can handle hosting the dental team we have coming in on the 18th by myself. Stay tuned for a blog about how that is true, or about how I completely messed up coming up in a few weeks. Here are some pictures from the 2 days I worked with the team this week.

When we have dental teams that come in and work in the rural villages we use these portable dental chairs. It is amazing to me that they are made out of cardboard. The first day we were set up in the back room of a church in Santiago Atitlan which is a town across the lake, so we took a boat to get there.

For part of the day I helped with triage which meant I wrote down what needed either a restoration or an extraction. Dr. Culley would triage all the patients then they would line up and wait by number for the next available dental chair to open up. In this community there were so many more extractions than fillings. 

We were at the base of one of the volcano and the clouds made it look like it was erupting. I kept reassuring the team that it was clouds and not the actual volcano erupting and praying that I was right.

The second day I worked with the team we worked in Pana and partnered with the organization Mayan Families. The patients that we saw that day were completely different than the ones across the lake. I was told by the dentists that about 75% of the patients they were seeing had a private dentist and they did as many restorations and they did extractions which is rare. Usually the tooth is too far decayed to do a filling, so it was great to see patients who had better dental hygiene.

On my day off in between I hung out in town at all my favorite places. I walked down to the lake, went to the bookstore which I spend too much money at, went to buy fruits and veggies at the market, and just walked around town taking in everything I had been missing. Heather met me for lunch at an asian restaurant which I had gone to once when my cousin Ashley had come to visit. Heather and I kept up pretty well by phone dates this summer, but it is great to be back and to be able to catch up on everything.

You can kind of tell in this picture that there are leaves hanging on the ceiling. It is such a cool place to go and sit. I need to make it a point to go there more often and just order tea and read or work on things on my days off.

Lastly, I have been working this week to set up my room again. I had to completely pack everything up in May when I left in hopes of renting out my room to someone for the summer. I had kept a few bins and suitcases on top of the closet which was fun to go through because I had forgotten what I had brought back home and what I had left here. I still have a few more things to organize (notice the 2 bins under the desks), but for the most part it is done. Now let's see how long it can stay this clean. Also feel free to admire my cat yoga calendar and be jealous.

Closet wall and night stand. The Guatemala map is so I can keep track of all the places I am going to travel to with teams. I also have a world map in my parents house that I put pins in all the countries I am fortunate to travel to. This summer my mom and I counted and I have been to 24 states and 17 countries. I have such a long ways to go!

Bed and bookshelf which along with the bedside table were given to me by 2 volunteers that moved away right before I went home for the summer. I didn't have it last time I was here and I am enjoying greatly having the extra shelves.

This is the top of my bookshelf. The flowers were sitting there when I arrived along with a welcome home sign and a huipil (mayan clothing). What a great roommate! Also my dad gave me this photo poster that the youth took pictures for on my last Sunday at church. They all have random signs that make me smile. Such a fun thing to have in my room to remind me of them.

When I started typing this I was sitting in the coffee shop and now I am at The Patio eating lunch. I love being back in Pana and visiting all the places I love. I also have had a great week catching up with the people here who I had missed.  I have been through so many emotions this week, but right now I am sitting here relaxed and confident that this was the right decision. Coming back I was welcomed with smiles and hugs everywhere I went. I am lucky to have an amazing community of friends surrounding me here who I missed even more than I had realized. I know I am still going to have days where I freak out wondering "What the heck did you do?!?!", but I know that if I just breath and get through those moments I can look around and realize that I'm ok here and that this is exactly where God wants me right now. Let's see if I can make that feeling last all day.