"Relaxation
is so made that he can only find relaxation from one labor by taking up
another." -Anatole France (1844-1924)
First of
all, my apologies for the delay on this blog post. Now that the teams
are here, there is much more to be done, which is something I do not
mind at all. I love bullet points and pictures, so I'm going to begin
focusing on making more lists and posting more pictures. I hope that is
okay with all my wonderful "blog followers."
Sunday,
June 10th
 |
| first lancha
ride= success [no motion sickness] |
 |
| on our way to
casa del mundo= paradise on earth |
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casa del mundo.
check out their website: http://lacasadelmundo.com/
perfect place to come & relax for reasonable prices |
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| view from casa
del mundo |
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| up to the eating
area |
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| water levels have
risen a bit. this house flooded, unfortunately. |
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hot tub. it's
heated by a fire which is located in the metal box in the center.
it needs to be heated many hours in advance to be an appropriate
temperature
a little more difficult than pushing the "on" button in the U.S. ones |
 |
| fixing the hot
tub. |
 |
breakfast: fresh
strawberry & banana smoothie
spinach and cheese omelet
fried potatoes
freshly squeezed orange juice
cost= under $10 |
- Focus of the day: relaxation & fellowship
- As the quote says and as is true for me personally, it is so
difficult to feel productive when you are doing "nothing." That nothing
can include reflection, laying around, relaxing, and conversing with
both new and old friends. This is productive in it's own way and
although the "productivity" may not be quickly apparent, it is there all
the same
- Read "Nice Girls Don't Change the World"-- borrowed from one of the
team members. Easy read, awesome message
- Ate at Circus Bar, one of the oldest bars in Pana, known for their
awesome Italian food
Monday, June 11th
 |
| medical clinic in
chitulul, a village about an hour outside of pana |
 |
| adorable children
gathering outside of the school |
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| tons of vitamins
donated by a hospital in tallahassee |
 |
| most everyone
gets vitamins, if you can't tell... |
 |
| masks that are
made and then decorated by the children during bible school in the
afternoons |
 |
betty [on the
left] & linda [standing up] helping check in patients
in guatemala, there are 23 languages and one of them is kaqchikel
the translating process often requires english to spanish to kaqchikel
sometimes they know spanish, so we can all meet in the middle with
spanish as our second language
process of the medical clinic:
1) check in at the front desk
2) wait towards the front
3) see betty and linda to get weighed and tell basic symptoms
4) if necessary, they are seen by one of the two doctors
5) doctors request medicine that we fill according to the meds we have
in stock
6) after waiting for a bit, we explain how to use the medicine & the
people are on their way |
 |
this is the roof
of chinita's, where we ate dinner
this is one of my favorite restaurants, they have great asian food &
especially awesome tea |
- My
apologies for this portion being in all caps...
- I
learned that I really enjoy working at the medical clinic. We saw around
70 patients
- It is ridiculous
how much we take the medical care in America for granted. Yes, we
complain about waiting for hours to get into our doctor's appointment;
but, we neglect to realize how blessed we are that we can wait in air
conditioning and are insured to receive the correct dose of medicine,
which are always readily available
- At breakfast, I
sat with two other group members. We talked a lot about missing people,
and of course, I miss tons of people while I'm in a country surrounded
by people I have just met. We decided that mission people is like a
triangle effect. There is your family at the bottom, which is your
foundation because you know they will be there when you get back. There
are your friends that are less stable as your family, but you miss them
just a bit more because there is less holding you all together. Lastly
and at the top, there are the people you may or may not be in a
relationship with. Those are the ones you can't help but miss the most
because you travel wish they were here with you, but there is no
definite commitment ensuring that everything will be okay after your
trip. Yes, that was a very brief summary, but I hope some of you made
some sense out of all of that
- Learned that my
stomach can tolerate coffee in Guatemala, probably because it is so
fresh. That's right, we drink coffee that is grown right down the road.
And yes, you guessed it, I want to learn how to grow coffee...
 |
medical clinic in
ojo de agua [village about 45 minutes away from pana]
this is lindsey, one of the girls from element 3, marking some measuring
cups for the liquid medicine |
 |
this volcano
supposedly contains water, which is why the village is called "ojo de
agua"
the farmers would dig deep into the ground to find the water and
potentially make money, whether they harnessed it or were able to
further water their plants and make money off of crops |
 |
| beautiful view. |
 |
| tons of meds and
vitamins and great people to work with |
 |
| christine [one of
the volunteers at porch] took this to show what i did during the day.
my job was to fill prescriptions and measure out the medicine and
sometimes explain to the patients about the medicine and such |
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| one of the
doctors & a translator seeing a mother and her daughter |
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| our set up |
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| hector loading up
the porch van |
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| mirador=
beautiful view |
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| can't help but
begin to fall in love with this place |
- Was
placed to work with the medical clinic again, which I uber enjoyed
- Fairly
certain we saw more patients today than yesterday, just at a more steady
pace
- Necessities
for your backpack:
- Sharpies,
sharpies, and more sharpies
- Hand
sanitizer
- Toilet
paper [always a hunt for a bathroom and even a greater hunt for toilet
paper]
- Camera
- Rain
jacket [yay rainy season in Guatemala}, although luckily today, we
didn't need one
- Water
bottle [the altitude tends to dehydrate you more]
- Being
flexible is key to any mission trip. You may be working
construction one day and then the medical clinic the next day. Keeping
an open mind and a positive attitude makes the experience 10 times
better than if you go into something dreading it. Sounds cliche, but so
so true in Guatemala
Tomorrow if
the last day of the medical clinic, so I am hoping to work with that
again. I will be flexible, however, and some good ole manual labor
wouldn't be too bad [especially to burn off all those croissants with
nutella that I've eaten haha]. This week has been such a humbling
experience. Some of the girls and I talked at dinner tonight about how
being down here changes our mindset towards things. My boyfriend made a
good point in that we don't have to make drastic changes from the things
we have learned on these mission trips, but become more grateful for
what we already have. Our perspectives can be broadened and further
decisions can be made to ensure that we do not get all that we want, but
rather focus on what we truly need.
