Ft. Smith Medical and Dental Team, First trip to Cunen, and Bus drama.

So this blog is a couple of weeks in the making. As if y'all couldn't have already tell that I have been way behind on writing my blog lately. Anyways, I leave tomorrow morning to pick up 2 more weeks of teams (one of which is from my home church!), so I decided that even though I am crazy busy tonight I need to get these stories down.

If you have been keeping up with my blog (again sorry for being a stranger lately) then you know that a couple of weeks ago I finished my first 3 weeks on with teams. My last week I hosted a medical and dental team of 19 with 3 doctors and 2 dentists in a very little village called Cunen which is about 5 hours north of Panajachel. My group of 19 was actually part of a larger team of 34 which broke up into 3 groups during the work week.  We had a construction team at our clinic in Camanchaj, a medical team in Chichi, and my team in Cunen. I loved everything about this week. I loved the team who could not have been more supportive of me and my mission down here. I loved the village Cunen and would host every team there if I could convince more teams to go there, and I loved all the laughter and joy I shared not only with the beautiful team but also with our translators and driver. I realized after the fact that I really didn't take that many pictures during the week and that these are all from my iPhone. Hopefully I can get some of the pictures from team members and maybe add them back into this blog. Anyways, here are the pitiful ones that I took.

Here is beautiful Cunen with the Hollywood sign and everything. So I know I have talked about this before, but sometimes I get the urge to live in a more rural community than Panajachel and spending the week in Cunen didn't help that feeling. I know it would be a completely different experience, but I do question if I am fully following God's call since I do not live the way our patients live. I guess just something to continue to pray about and see where I am lead. I truly love my life and community in Pana, but lately the more I think about it the more I may want to explore what it would be like to live in a more rural community and experience what it is like to live the same way as the patients we serve.

Here is a pic of our Hotel in Cunen.  This is one of only 2 hotels in the village with the other one only having 2 rooms and apparently not suitable for us to use. This hotel is walking distance from our Salud y Paz clinic in Cunen. The clinic is completely built and is almost completely set up inside. We are hoping for more donations this year towards Cunen, so we can have it staffed with a Guatemalan doctor and dentist. Right now it is only open when we have teams in Cunen (you would think I would have taken a pic of the clinic, but nope). 

So remember above when I mentioned that this was the only hotel in town we could use? Well since we took such a large team to Cunen we had to scramble and figure out how to fit everyone in the hotel. They ended up bringing in 4 extra beds to accommodate the translators, but didn't have another one for me. I ended up sleeping on the floor on this pad in the storage room upstairs where we kept all of our rural medical and dental supplies. It wasn't the most comfortable night's sleep, but the worst part was that it didn't come with a bathroom nor was there a public one at the hotel to use. Therefore I had to be that awkward girl who had to ask random team members and translators if I could use their bathrooms or better yet when I woke up in the morning and they were all standing outside drinking their coffee with their doors open I would just go into their rooms. At least one of the translators that I am close to had his own room, so I could use Raul's room and bathroom whenever I needed to. I actually woke up one night and wondered if I should set up a rural dental chair and if that would be more comfortable. The other hilarious thing about staying in this room was that this was where the breaker box was. Almost every time 2 people tried to shower at the same time or maybe turned on their lights even the power would blow. Then the guy working at the hotel would knock on my door, step over my bed, and flip the switch. One night I was talking to my roommate on the phone for about an hour and he came in about 6 times while I was just laying in bed dying laughing.

This next picture is of a man named Jose who lives in the first community La Barranca where we served Monday. He came in with a cloth bag over her arm, and when he took it off this was underneath. None of the doctors on the team had ever seen anything like this before and I have never seen or heard of any of our teams seeing anything like this out in the rural communities before. Jose said that he had had it for about 7 years and had only gone to the doctor once, but that the 1 treatment he did didn't make it go away. The team was great with him. They took pictures of his arm and sent them to another doctor back in the States. They also said that they would be willing to help out financially for his treatment if we could get him to the appropriate hospital. However, even though I gave Jose money for transportation to Cunen to follow up with the team later on in the week and Raul's phone number in case he had questions he never showed up in Cunen. I am still holding out hope that he will come to Camanchaj, but probably not. Please pray that he does make it to our clinic in Camanchaj and that we are able to get him the treatment he needs.

 Ok... so remember from a couple of teams ago when I mentioned that between running around making sure the team had everything they needed I figured out I could color with the kids and keep them entertained? Well here is proof that I spent yet another week coloring with adorable kiddos. :)

These pictures were taken in Chiul which was the community where we worked Tuesday. This was one of the poorest communities I had worked in. On this day the kids taught me a little song about Jesus while we colored. Just a beautiful day!

The girl on the left is Susie. Her mom was one of our local translators all week, so she was an active member of my coloring club everyday. Also the little boy in the crocs below was my favorite. He was just incredibly precious and took my hair out of my ponytail, so he could play with it.

So I hadn't hurt myself in a few weeks, so clearly something was bound to happen in Cunen. I walked outside to take a phone call where I saw a little girl who was laying on the ground crying. I went over to the little girl and bent down to pick her up. What I didn't know was that she had tripped over a broken off piece of ribarb that was sticking out of the ground.  It gashed me, but luckily the medical peeps I was with fixed me up everyday. Oh also the bottom circle cut is from when I was with the Stratham and Eliot team a couple of weeks ago and was BIT BY A TURKEY. Yep, you read that correctly. I was actually bit by a turkey and I think I am going to have a stupid scar from it. I will say that when it happened the doctor on that team had a hilarious line about how "turkey bites are what took out the pilgrims". 

These brothers were also in Chiul and were hilarious. They showed up at the end of the day while we were cleaning up and loved carrying suitcases bigger than themselves down the massive hill to the bus. Before we loaded up I entertained them by taking their picture on the iPhone. Then I got the brilliant (yep... brilliant) idea to take their video then show it to them. Now I have 26 videos of them dancing and laughing hysterically on my phone. They would show off then run back to me to watch themselves on my phone and laugh their little hearts out then ask for more. 

The last 3 days of the week we set up in our clinic in Cunen. The 2 pictures below are from outside the clinic. One is of the line of patients waiting to see the doctors and dentists and the other is of 2 cute boys who were just taking a nap up against our clinic. Right next door to the clinic is the Methodist church where Alejandro is the pastor. 

 

Below are just some more pictures of cute kiddos at our clinic in Cunen. I would hang out with them until a team member needed me then I would leave them and the kids would come find me and call me teacher and ask to color or play with bubbles some more. It also made me laugh every time team members would walk by and just smile and take my picture then walk away.

I can't remember this ladies name, but she lives across the street from the hotel where we stayed. The team had seen her last year and when they saw her again this year they decided to help her get to the clinic. They actually sent a translator to her house one morning to make sure that she was going to come. Susie showed up at the clinic sick this morning, so since her mother was translating I took her into see the doctor to get her some medication. As I sat there with Susie this lady started telling me how her husband had died several years earlier leaving her with no other family in Cunen. She has a cousin in Chichi, but no one in her house to help take care of her. I talked to the pastor about looking out for her and he said that he would make sure that she had people who would bring her food. She started crying at one point and told me that she was scared to see the doctor and reached over to hold my hand. This is a lady who was sitting there telling me that no one had been taking care of her in years and that she hadn't touched someone in so long, but yet I was just this American with poor Spanish who she decided to reach out to. We just sat there in silence holding hands for a few minutes until it was time to go into the doctor. After I went with Susie to see a doc and she went to another one I saw her again in the pharmacy and she gave me a huge hug. She then thanked me for living in Guatemala and serving her people and said that God had something special for me when it is my time to go to Heaven. Such a precious moment with a beautifully strong woman. (By the way if you are reading this blog and remember her name please let me know.)

This is a picture of me with the team leader, Nelson, in his super cool hat! He was for sure the trouble maker on the team, and was one of my favorites. I communicated with him a lot prior to their arrival and he always made me feel like I was his granddaughter. When we were having some difficulties planning the trip he would just say over the phone "You're a smart girl you'll be able to figure it out.". His wife Dottie is in the background of this picture. They both reminded me of church members back home and Nelson actually reminded me of my grandfather Vernon. Also know that he lost his suitcase for a day before getting it back. However, in those few hours where we didn't know if he was going to get it back or not we brainstormed how to get him clothes for the week. My suggestion was obviously that he needed to wear the traditional Mayan dress. You can imagine how disappointed I was when he actually got his suitcase back. :)



This precious little baby is Miguel. He was born with a cleft lip palate, and had already had 1 surgery to repair it. However, according to the parents the stitching had come out, so obviously he was in need for a second surgery. This little baby was really scared and crying a lot when he entered the doctor's office, but by the time they were ready to leave he was smiling at me his giant smile. We do not have a surgery team coming down who is able to do cleft lip palates (we do cleft lip) at our clinic, so we just gave them some baby vitamins and told them about our clinic in Camanchaj. Please also pray that Miguel's parents find the appropriate organization or hospital who will be able to complete the surgery on him.

This isn't the best picture of this little old man, but it does show what one of the doctor's offices looked like. This was the room that Dr. David and Raul served in all week. This little man came in complaining of back pain and saying that he didn't understand why his back always hurt. The doctor explained to him that he was just getting older and that he needed to slow down a bit. He had such a hard time walking around our clinic and I can just imagine how far away he had to walk from to even get to our clinic.

These next 2 pictures were taken when I took the team to a local house for them to visit and see how the patients they had been treating all week live. The first was the view from the house. The team had to walk up a pretty big hill to get to the house on the top. I thought it was absolutely worth it to see the view. I never got over how beautiful Cunen was. 

This was one of the two rooms in this home. I thought it was unusual that this room had 2 beds in it, but no mattresses. Most of the patient homes I visit have the mattresses on the floor, but no actual built beds. No wonder so many patients come through complaining of bad back pain. 

Again I loved working with this team. I can't remember if I have written about this before, but every time a team leaves I think well now I have to stay next year until (fill in month here), so I can work this team again. This team absolutely made me think I need to stay at least until next February so I will be able to work with them another time. Who knows. This was another beautiful team where I felt like I became a part of their team and not just the host who no one knew. They said such kind and reassuring words to me during the week and prayed with me during a hard time. If anyone from the team is reading this please know how thankful I am for such a beautiful week of service with y'all! I truly appreciate and miss your community, laughter, and joy.

Now onto a slightly different note I had a little bit of a scare Friday afternoon while traveling back to Pana after leaving the team. I said goodbye to the team in Los Encuentros where they traveled onto Antigua and I had to take 2 buses back to Pana. My first bus from Los Encuentros to Solola was uneventful, however my bus from Solola to Pana wasn't. After being on the bus for a few minutes I heard this guy towards the front of the bus yelling in K'iche (one of the Mayan languages in Guatemala). Since I couldn't understand what he was saying I didn't think much about it, but after another few minutes I saw the guy stand up and start waving a knife in the air. I was towards the back of the bus, so I wasn't close to the guy but I did quickly realize that I was the only non Guatemalan on the bus. All of a sudden he grabbed a lady and held the knife against her neck. After about a minute and a half a couple of guys tackled him while the bus slammed on their brakes. I was sitting by a group of older teenage guys who opened the back door and all jumped out. The guy I was sitting by threw my large backpack to one of his friends who threw it out the bus while another guy grabbed my hand and jumped out with me. Right after we jumped out the back the bus started going again.

Thankfully I made it out with my main bag, but left several others on the bus. I left some things that the team had donated to our clinic, a bag of personal donations the team had given me, all the dental stats for the week, one day of medical stats, the amazing $100 donation the team had just given me, and a bag I was using as a purse with about Q300 in it along with some other personal items. Also my bag which was thrown off the bus had my computer in it and when it hit the ground my computer busted. I was able to pay someone $125 to get it back up and running, but the screen is cracked and it keeps overheating and dying. Even though it was upsetting to loose all that stuff the thing that I couldn't stop thinking about was the lady. I jumped off the bus (or was kind of dragged off the bus) before I made sure she was ok. It took me about a week to not wake up in the middle of the night crying because I felt guilty for not staying and making sure she was ok. One of our translators talked to some bus drivers and told me that they would have heard if anything bad happened, so I needed to take that as a good sign.

The other reason why this was so upsetting to me was it took away my comfort level down here. I didn't even think twice before jumping on the bus to come home. When I was spending a lot of time in Xela I used to ride the public buses all the time by myself. Now I am too scared to go on one even if I was with other people. I needed to come home last week one day early from the clinic and had to have one of our staff members drive me because I wouldn't do the bus. It makes me so mad that my comfort was taken away. It also on the same hand made me realize how thankful I am that I have now been in country for a little over a year and that is honestly the only time I have been scared (besides that whole 7.6 earthquake thing). I just keep telling myself that the embassy had warned Americans to stay off of buses and I was too stubborn to listen, but that if I just keep away from the buses then I am fine. Things like this happen everywhere including back home in the States. I always tell my teams that as long as they use common sense they will be fine which is what I need to start doing. As long as I follow the rules and don't put myself into bad situations I will be fine. It has been 2 weeks and I am still a little shaken up, but I know that it is just in my head and that I need to get over it. Hopefully my confidence will come back little by little.

Ok... this has become the world's longest post I know. Last thing: Tomorrow morning I am going to Guatemala City to pick up the team from my home church in Houston! My parents are leading the trip, and my brother along with so many others who I love and miss are coming down as well. Most of the peeps on the trip are college kids who were youth while I was working at the church. It was so difficult for me to leave my job there to move down here that it means so much to me that they are going to be able to come and experience what my life is like down here. I know I have asked you to pray a lot this blog, but if you have time please add in a little prayer for a beautiful week of working construction with my loved ones. Also we have 2 additional medical teams in country next week that could also use prayers for a safe and amazing week of service.

Have a beautiful week and thanks for reading. :)