Fresh news: Last week my partner told me he thought he had cancer so he wanted to go back to Korea, he was sorry and whatnot. I did not give it much credit as he has missed many days of work because he didn't feel well. It should be said here, before I venture into this tale any further, that before coming here to Central America, Bang Won told our team he wanted to leave our team because he wanted to be on his girlfriends team. The rest of the team went crazy, blaming and guilt-tripping him in such a way that he then said she was forcing him to make that choice, manipulating him and that he really did not want to quit the team. I said then, and believe now, that if a person wants to leave, they have a reason and that no one really knows what that reason is except that person. Once a person gives up essentially, everything that happens serves as an excuse to them to leave so the real reason becomes masked by the hundred external alibis. I told Bang Won that he must consult his heart and take responsibility for making a decision to stay or go on his own, that no amount of blame or guilt from anybody else on the team could change his inner conviction about what he is truly ready to take on.
My motives were later questioned with the belief I must not care about Bang Won if what he did to the team i.e., breaking apart the team, did not matter to me. In actuality, I cried at the way Bang Won was treated by the people from his country. I do not understand all the blame. Really, I don't. Anyway, Bang Won stayed with the team from what I perceive would be guilt, the rest of the team not speaking to him for days because of his..I don't know, decision.
So, continuing in Belize, Bang Won told me that he had decided to go home to Korea. I supported his decision to leave because if a person doesn't want to be in a place then they will find all kinds of reasons not to commit to being there and that is not why I came here. He left on the bus the next day to go to another village where his girlfriend, another volunteer, is staying to tell her his decision to go back to Korea. He came back saying he had not found her there, that in fact, she and another Korean volunteer had gone back to the office in Bella Vista because the non-girlfriend wanted to go back to Korea because the living conditions weren't up to her standards i.e. no electricity, water from a pump, etc. So, BW went to Bella Vista the next day to tell Pantaleon, our project leader, his decision to leave. So, five days later,still no BW and I went to have a meeting with Humana because they wanted to 'talk to me'.
When I arrived Panta told me the Korean girl had left. He also told me that two of our teammates from Korea had also gone home from the second hand clothes store. Then, he wanted to know if Bang Won and Sen (gf) and I could be on the same team. He said he didn't want there to be any division between them and myself. I asked him if Bang Won had mentioned to him that he also had come to quit. He said no. I explained to him about the similiar situation in California and what has transpired six days prior. I said I could not trust that Bang Won was committed to much, much less being on a team with me. I said that already there had been a division between us when we chose to be dishonest about his reasons for leaving our team ( Bang Won did not want to leave because he had cancer but he said he was extending his work visa to stay here with Sen for an additional two months), and that I did not want my work to suffer because this. I thought the people in the other villages were expecting two volunteers and they should get two volunteers. I would stay here and manage these 25 families on my own.
So, that's what's new. I have no partner now and I have all 25 families in three villages to finish with. I am relieved in so many ways. I am happy to work on my own. I have no fear of taking initiative, no fear of the work, and no fear of my ability to do what's right. Of course its difficult work, that's why I've come here. But don't fear, I am happy when I wake up and content before I go to bed. I have everything I need within. Trust that I have grown to do this.
I understand Bang Won, I have been him. I am him. I will be him again. We all want to become bigger then we are and forget who we are sometimes in the process, seeming instead of just being. MAy we rememeber to help each other rememeber when we forget.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
lets see, where to start
This is the most beautiful life that exists.
Can't you feel it?
Open your eyes
Refocus your mind
Look again at love with love
Rumi
Smart man
Why do you see the ugly parts
Don't you know youre beautiful
What if you only saw
the very best of you
What if you knew you are everything
I want to hug you until
all your tears fall out
Don't conform to the worlds opinion
hold true to yourself
what you think is perfect
what you feel is perfect
You are the glue and the light
You are the anecdote to your own life
YOu are the coolest crayola
in the box
Love your life and
She will love you, too
This wave will pass
it is not the ocean
I have loved you for more years
than I can count
on my fingers and toes
to me, you are perfect
everyday
in every way
This is just simple and from my heart to yours because I know you need it.
Can't you feel it?
Open your eyes
Refocus your mind
Look again at love with love
Rumi
Smart man
Why do you see the ugly parts
Don't you know youre beautiful
What if you only saw
the very best of you
What if you knew you are everything
I want to hug you until
all your tears fall out
Don't conform to the worlds opinion
hold true to yourself
what you think is perfect
what you feel is perfect
You are the glue and the light
You are the anecdote to your own life
YOu are the coolest crayola
in the box
Love your life and
She will love you, too
This wave will pass
it is not the ocean
I have loved you for more years
than I can count
on my fingers and toes
to me, you are perfect
everyday
in every way
This is just simple and from my heart to yours because I know you need it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Third part: Child Aid: Toledo
...Major concerns consist of the school system. The grades are from preschool to standard 6,which is about 8th grade, and are free to all Belizeans. However, after standard 6, the students have to pay to attend high school and many cannot afford to go. This is a quote from a book on the Q'eqchi' Maya and transmission of knowledge, traditional and modern, "Literacy rates are often quite high for the population of Belize, from 70%-90%, depending on the source of information (Belize National Human Development Report 2002) this is an indication of the minimum level of education that students receive. Furthermore, if the statistics are broken down by ethnicity, 47.7% of Mayas were considered literate. Toledo district also ranked lowest (58%) when compared to 91.9% literacy in Belize district." Not only is the learning and literacy level low throughout Toledo, it was also found that the teaching received by the students who are in standard 1-6, is less than the national standard."In the Toldeo district, 24% of teachers are fully trained, which is to say that they have completed a government certification program and passed a series of qualifying exams. In 1998, 54 fully trained teachers were employed in Toledo district and 164 not fully-trained, or 33% (Belize National Human Development Report 1998). One of our 25 families pulled their oldest daughter from 4th grade because the mom had, and has, fainting fits on a regular basis and needed the girl to help raise the younger children, of which there are three younger than she.
Another challenge for the people here is garbage dumping. Garbage is everywhere and most people burn it. When asked what is done with the trash that cannot burn, the general response is is to bury it or just throw it far away. There are few trash cans to be found anywhere and wrappers and trash are all over the place. In the burn piles, chemicals have been found, burned batteries, burned computer circuitry, and almost everyday, the smell of burning plastic bags can be smelled in the whole village. Plastic bags are used to bag everything and cover the roadside, the school yard, the community center porch, football field, homes, churches...one day, I went looking for a garbage bag to wear when it rains and there was nary a one to be found in five stores in three villages.
Health problems are a concern, too. Swine flu is here, and Malaria makes a common appearance among the villagers. The majority of families we talk to have little to no knowledge about malaria or malaria prevention. When somone gets sick, the family waits to go to the doctor until it is serious. A fever is nothing to worry about or a runny nose for weeks on end or a fungus on the foot that gets worse and worse. There are many children who have mental health problems. One baby boy, named Aldrin, has Cerebral Palsy and his mother does not want to improve his situation, our relationship being strained by the process. I have blogged about Aldrin's story, so please read to finds more information. Another mother in Indian Creek, when asked about any health related issues in the past three months, responded that nothing had happened out of the ordinary except that her son turned black and red sometimes. When questioned further about this, the boy has Asthma and when the mother cannot afford to take the bus to get his inhaler, the boy has asthma fits and turns black and red because he cannot breath but she did not understand that the two were related. One last concern to mention here, the chickens die every year due to the chicken flu. Families may have built a steady supply of 50 chickens for eggs and meat and then the flu comes and wipes them out in a week. There is medicine but not many people get it. People from Humana and Health officials come to tell the people about preventative measures (once a chicken appears to be sick, isolate it away from the group), but many people do not heed the advice. The chickens, like the pigs, are not caged and free to roam throughout the village, which makes for happy chickens and pigs to eat but also heightens the chance of infectious disease i.e. chicken flu/swine flu.
So now you have read about some of the concerns for the children and their families in these villages, here are some of the solutions we are working on as a pair and as an organization. We went to visit all the schools in the three villages and ask permission to teach a class once a week. All schools allowed us the opportunity to do this. In San Miguel, standard 5 and 6 are taught tuesdays from 245 to 330. In Indian Creek, there is a rotating schedule so all students, from preschool to standard 6, are taught in the consecutive weeks. Silver Creek is the same, preschool to standard 6. Mobilizing the people to meet about disease prevention and nutrition has been a challenge for us and attention wanes when present so we have shifted our sights to the audience who is most receptive to learning, children. More children are able to be reached and have a much better attention span in the classroom environment. We are teaching currently about disease and disease prevention, discussing common illnesses to the country i.e. swine flu, malaria, dengue fever, etc. Nutrition will be next, as the gardens are being built as models with our familes now. The class can then go to a neighbors house and view the garden and learn with hands-on experience how to grow and care for vegetables. Bang Won has an idea to have a contest and have everyone make a 'clean our village campaign' sign, then have them put in front of their houses in an effort to clean up the trash and educate about the importance of a clean environment.
Maybe some of you know, we have started building organic vegetable gardens for the families and have now half completed. The idea is to grow vegetables so the family has a good source of nutrition and can also save money from food costs, much of which comes from a can. The gardens are all made from natural resources, cohune leaves and small tree limbs, used to make a 3m x 5m fence and 1m x 1m seedbed from lumber or other resourses around the house. The rate is about a garden a day to two a day. It is rainy season, so sometimes days are sloooooowwwww, waiting fo rthe rain to pass. The classes and the gardens make a full day. garden work in the morning, hurry to the school, change clothes, teach, smile, laugh, change clothes again, and then rush back for more garden work. This is the best way for the information to reach the people. Humana, of course, supports us and our area leaders talk to the people and give classes also. While our families are making gardens, Humana is somewhere else building latrines, chicken coops, giving away clothes, asking for money and grants, etc. A word here about initiative: The chances are good for those of you coming here that you could meet with some resistance to your great ideas. Don't lose heart! Only consider that you are a foreigner, coming here to give information and whereas it IS good information, other organizations have come before you to give things to some people and then leave, so you will be asked to give more than you will be asked for help...at first. You must take the responsibility of going to each person's house and showing them you mean to work. THEN, they will know you are there to help them. Its a slow process but you can do it, you have to:)
Humana has gotten a donation of trash barrels to be delivered to the villages to collect trash. I don't know how they will do this exactly, more on that later.
Also, we are working on cleaning up the water in our village. We found some bad build-up of white residue everytime we boil our drinknig water and decided to collect our residue in the jar and take it to Punta gorda and have an analysis down. We think it is chlorine. The water board puts tablets of chlorone in the water so it can be drunk but really, this is too much and maybe it hasn't been cleaned in some time. The health department sent soem people to our home to test the water and we are waiting for the results to come back and then we can arrange with the water board to have the youths help us clean the tank. This will be for our action week
In two weeks now, we will finish with the garden task. At that point, we will start to build 10 firewood saving stoves in San Miguel. Many of the people use the ka'mal which is made of baked mud so they crumble over time. This will be great for the corn tortillas:) More on this later.
There are many things we do and many more we could do. This is where we are with a month and a half behind us. I'm being run out of the computer lab now...i hope this paints a clearer picture for you. I will posts blogs and give you blog addresses when complete, maybe tomorrow. LOVE YOU ALL!!
Another challenge for the people here is garbage dumping. Garbage is everywhere and most people burn it. When asked what is done with the trash that cannot burn, the general response is is to bury it or just throw it far away. There are few trash cans to be found anywhere and wrappers and trash are all over the place. In the burn piles, chemicals have been found, burned batteries, burned computer circuitry, and almost everyday, the smell of burning plastic bags can be smelled in the whole village. Plastic bags are used to bag everything and cover the roadside, the school yard, the community center porch, football field, homes, churches...one day, I went looking for a garbage bag to wear when it rains and there was nary a one to be found in five stores in three villages.
Health problems are a concern, too. Swine flu is here, and Malaria makes a common appearance among the villagers. The majority of families we talk to have little to no knowledge about malaria or malaria prevention. When somone gets sick, the family waits to go to the doctor until it is serious. A fever is nothing to worry about or a runny nose for weeks on end or a fungus on the foot that gets worse and worse. There are many children who have mental health problems. One baby boy, named Aldrin, has Cerebral Palsy and his mother does not want to improve his situation, our relationship being strained by the process. I have blogged about Aldrin's story, so please read to finds more information. Another mother in Indian Creek, when asked about any health related issues in the past three months, responded that nothing had happened out of the ordinary except that her son turned black and red sometimes. When questioned further about this, the boy has Asthma and when the mother cannot afford to take the bus to get his inhaler, the boy has asthma fits and turns black and red because he cannot breath but she did not understand that the two were related. One last concern to mention here, the chickens die every year due to the chicken flu. Families may have built a steady supply of 50 chickens for eggs and meat and then the flu comes and wipes them out in a week. There is medicine but not many people get it. People from Humana and Health officials come to tell the people about preventative measures (once a chicken appears to be sick, isolate it away from the group), but many people do not heed the advice. The chickens, like the pigs, are not caged and free to roam throughout the village, which makes for happy chickens and pigs to eat but also heightens the chance of infectious disease i.e. chicken flu/swine flu.
So now you have read about some of the concerns for the children and their families in these villages, here are some of the solutions we are working on as a pair and as an organization. We went to visit all the schools in the three villages and ask permission to teach a class once a week. All schools allowed us the opportunity to do this. In San Miguel, standard 5 and 6 are taught tuesdays from 245 to 330. In Indian Creek, there is a rotating schedule so all students, from preschool to standard 6, are taught in the consecutive weeks. Silver Creek is the same, preschool to standard 6. Mobilizing the people to meet about disease prevention and nutrition has been a challenge for us and attention wanes when present so we have shifted our sights to the audience who is most receptive to learning, children. More children are able to be reached and have a much better attention span in the classroom environment. We are teaching currently about disease and disease prevention, discussing common illnesses to the country i.e. swine flu, malaria, dengue fever, etc. Nutrition will be next, as the gardens are being built as models with our familes now. The class can then go to a neighbors house and view the garden and learn with hands-on experience how to grow and care for vegetables. Bang Won has an idea to have a contest and have everyone make a 'clean our village campaign' sign, then have them put in front of their houses in an effort to clean up the trash and educate about the importance of a clean environment.
Maybe some of you know, we have started building organic vegetable gardens for the families and have now half completed. The idea is to grow vegetables so the family has a good source of nutrition and can also save money from food costs, much of which comes from a can. The gardens are all made from natural resources, cohune leaves and small tree limbs, used to make a 3m x 5m fence and 1m x 1m seedbed from lumber or other resourses around the house. The rate is about a garden a day to two a day. It is rainy season, so sometimes days are sloooooowwwww, waiting fo rthe rain to pass. The classes and the gardens make a full day. garden work in the morning, hurry to the school, change clothes, teach, smile, laugh, change clothes again, and then rush back for more garden work. This is the best way for the information to reach the people. Humana, of course, supports us and our area leaders talk to the people and give classes also. While our families are making gardens, Humana is somewhere else building latrines, chicken coops, giving away clothes, asking for money and grants, etc. A word here about initiative: The chances are good for those of you coming here that you could meet with some resistance to your great ideas. Don't lose heart! Only consider that you are a foreigner, coming here to give information and whereas it IS good information, other organizations have come before you to give things to some people and then leave, so you will be asked to give more than you will be asked for help...at first. You must take the responsibility of going to each person's house and showing them you mean to work. THEN, they will know you are there to help them. Its a slow process but you can do it, you have to:)
Humana has gotten a donation of trash barrels to be delivered to the villages to collect trash. I don't know how they will do this exactly, more on that later.
Also, we are working on cleaning up the water in our village. We found some bad build-up of white residue everytime we boil our drinknig water and decided to collect our residue in the jar and take it to Punta gorda and have an analysis down. We think it is chlorine. The water board puts tablets of chlorone in the water so it can be drunk but really, this is too much and maybe it hasn't been cleaned in some time. The health department sent soem people to our home to test the water and we are waiting for the results to come back and then we can arrange with the water board to have the youths help us clean the tank. This will be for our action week
In two weeks now, we will finish with the garden task. At that point, we will start to build 10 firewood saving stoves in San Miguel. Many of the people use the ka'mal which is made of baked mud so they crumble over time. This will be great for the corn tortillas:) More on this later.
There are many things we do and many more we could do. This is where we are with a month and a half behind us. I'm being run out of the computer lab now...i hope this paints a clearer picture for you. I will posts blogs and give you blog addresses when complete, maybe tomorrow. LOVE YOU ALL!!
part two Child Aid Toledo
Hello friends! When we last departed, we went through my team’s travel period from Los Angeles to Belize. Let’s look now to the village of San Miguel at our arrival, one month ago. We arrived to meet the Co family: Manuel, Tecla, MAcedonia, and Mauricio. There are actually five more sons and daughter of MAnuel and Tecla but Mace and Mauricio are the two remaining at the house. Mauricio is the village leader of Humana in San Miguel. He is in his last year of high school in Punta Gorda. Mauricio showed us to our house. BangWon and I share one room and have one common room for eating and reading and things. We have a small table and two chairs, a refrigerator, stove, and electricity, which means we are living in luxury. The Co’s live about 5 meters behind us in a thatch house. We each have a small bed and our clothes remain in our bags, as there is no place for them to be put except on the ground. We keep the windows open unless its raining (and it rains everyday because we are in the middle of rainy season), so mosquitoes come in by the boat load. We scratched our way through the first few nights, waking up in the middle of the night because of being bitten so much. We both got mosquito nets promptly. When you come here, don’t leave without packing insect repellent and the really good kind, too. I got Deet 40% and its made all the difference. I recommend 3 cans…
The first week, we went with some of the local high school boys to this massive cave outside the village limits. We rode bikes for a few miles, uphill both ways, on loose gravel and rock roads, parked our bikes and headied through the jungle to reach the mouth of the cave. I did a little climbing before we went in. Hiking through the jungle was intimidating the first time, I won’t lie. We walked through bat crap for a few hours in total darkness, it was amazing, then we found this room that sparkled and so all the boys tunred off their lights so we could see. When we came out (alive), we rode our bikes back to San Miguel. (I will say, you have to be IN SHAPE to ride bikes around here. Bang Won and I currently ride 100 miles every week on our bikes between villages!). This ends the travel period and carries us inside the next period, Life at the project: Child Aid Toledo.
We started our first week on the project meeting the families and having interviews, or Family Portraits, to understand what their needs and assets are. (During this time, Bang Won had bites from something that became infected form our day at the cave. He started to run fever and became delirius a little so we went to the hospital and had him treated for malaria and antibiotics. He recovered well within three days). There are 25 families we work with, 9 in San Miguel, 8 in Silver Creek, and 8 in Indian Creek. Humana has about 2000 families in the country that are being reached, to help put this number in perspective. 100% of the families we work with speak Q’eqchi’ Maya as a first language. These familes are traditional Mayan people. They live in thatch houses, dress in traditional dress, eat traditional food, and have traditional values. The families believe in raising many children and the majority of families consist of eight to 12 people. One family consists of 16 people (1 husband, three wives, and 12 children). The families use the traditional agriculture methods for farming, known as milpa, in which corn is planted on leased land from the government, wherever it is available, and planting methods involve only a machete to clear the land before it is burned and a stick to poke a hole in the earth and drop seeds in. No gardening or farming tools, as we know them, are used. The corn has sustained the Mayan people for thousands of years and is the staple food. Everymeal consists of corn tortillas and something…or not. Bang Won and I learned these things from seeing with our eyes and from a book found, kept by the principle of the primary school about ethnobiological research in that area. Using this and information we asked during interviews we started to form a picture of the lives of these families.
Of the families we interviewed(25), 80% have no one that has a job in the family. They survive on subsistence farming, of growing corn, rice, or beans, though many only grow corn. Sometimes they sell some things locally but this is not a regular source of income and not enough to provide for the large family’s basic needs. Of the families that have jobs, many are only seasonal and then they must find new way of making ends meet. So the families rely on source of corn to survive. When asked about how many times the family had meat, fruit, and vegetables in one week, the response was this: meat: 2-3x each week, fruit 2-3x each week, vegetables, 2x each week. None of the families we interviewed had dairy on any regular basic because there is no way to keep it from spoiling (most families do not have electricity). The local store across the street from our house in San Miguel doesn’t have bottled water most of the time but has a steady surplus of Coca Cola and Fanta to compensate. There is no community drainage system so families use latrines and water from a pipe in the yard. Some latrines have no walls, some have sunken into the ground because there is no cement base, only a hole dug right into the earth. When it rains, especially in rainy season, the water floods and the latrines can not stay level. Some families share latrines with three or four other families and some have no latrine at all and defecate in the bush. This is some of the information gathered from the interviews. After completing the family portraits, analysis was done for each family in each community to identify the major issues within households and villages. I would like to share some of the concerns we found....
The first week, we went with some of the local high school boys to this massive cave outside the village limits. We rode bikes for a few miles, uphill both ways, on loose gravel and rock roads, parked our bikes and headied through the jungle to reach the mouth of the cave. I did a little climbing before we went in. Hiking through the jungle was intimidating the first time, I won’t lie. We walked through bat crap for a few hours in total darkness, it was amazing, then we found this room that sparkled and so all the boys tunred off their lights so we could see. When we came out (alive), we rode our bikes back to San Miguel. (I will say, you have to be IN SHAPE to ride bikes around here. Bang Won and I currently ride 100 miles every week on our bikes between villages!). This ends the travel period and carries us inside the next period, Life at the project: Child Aid Toledo.
We started our first week on the project meeting the families and having interviews, or Family Portraits, to understand what their needs and assets are. (During this time, Bang Won had bites from something that became infected form our day at the cave. He started to run fever and became delirius a little so we went to the hospital and had him treated for malaria and antibiotics. He recovered well within three days). There are 25 families we work with, 9 in San Miguel, 8 in Silver Creek, and 8 in Indian Creek. Humana has about 2000 families in the country that are being reached, to help put this number in perspective. 100% of the families we work with speak Q’eqchi’ Maya as a first language. These familes are traditional Mayan people. They live in thatch houses, dress in traditional dress, eat traditional food, and have traditional values. The families believe in raising many children and the majority of families consist of eight to 12 people. One family consists of 16 people (1 husband, three wives, and 12 children). The families use the traditional agriculture methods for farming, known as milpa, in which corn is planted on leased land from the government, wherever it is available, and planting methods involve only a machete to clear the land before it is burned and a stick to poke a hole in the earth and drop seeds in. No gardening or farming tools, as we know them, are used. The corn has sustained the Mayan people for thousands of years and is the staple food. Everymeal consists of corn tortillas and something…or not. Bang Won and I learned these things from seeing with our eyes and from a book found, kept by the principle of the primary school about ethnobiological research in that area. Using this and information we asked during interviews we started to form a picture of the lives of these families.
Of the families we interviewed(25), 80% have no one that has a job in the family. They survive on subsistence farming, of growing corn, rice, or beans, though many only grow corn. Sometimes they sell some things locally but this is not a regular source of income and not enough to provide for the large family’s basic needs. Of the families that have jobs, many are only seasonal and then they must find new way of making ends meet. So the families rely on source of corn to survive. When asked about how many times the family had meat, fruit, and vegetables in one week, the response was this: meat: 2-3x each week, fruit 2-3x each week, vegetables, 2x each week. None of the families we interviewed had dairy on any regular basic because there is no way to keep it from spoiling (most families do not have electricity). The local store across the street from our house in San Miguel doesn’t have bottled water most of the time but has a steady surplus of Coca Cola and Fanta to compensate. There is no community drainage system so families use latrines and water from a pipe in the yard. Some latrines have no walls, some have sunken into the ground because there is no cement base, only a hole dug right into the earth. When it rains, especially in rainy season, the water floods and the latrines can not stay level. Some families share latrines with three or four other families and some have no latrine at all and defecate in the bush. This is some of the information gathered from the interviews. After completing the family portraits, analysis was done for each family in each community to identify the major issues within households and villages. I would like to share some of the concerns we found....
Hello from Belize
Hello everyone,
This is part one of our journey, travel period. There is so much to fit in, it will have to be done in parts. I miss all of you, my friends who are in Africa now (Felipe, I still haven't laughed well since you left), my friends in the states and abroad, and all my family. I am also missing my friends at CCTG and looking forward to rambling ideas when I return...
So, I will start from Los Angeles. The team found a couch surfer named Josh who we stayed with for one night. He lives in the penthouse of an old 50's style hotel called The Alexandria, home to many celebrity parties of that time. While with Josh, we met Pablo, half Mexican, half Aussie, who was also couch surfing with Josh. He was looking to find a ride to Mexico City from someone in LA and as luck would have it, thats where we were heading. So, the next day we packed all our bags, Pablo and his mini guitar covered in a grandmas blanket and tape into the van with us and headed east. We drove, drove, drove for ten hours and spent the night in Arizona. THe plateaus and crevices of rock and canyon in the desert was beautiful and complimented the Carlos Castanedas book I was reading at the time, Journey To Ixtlan. The next day, we drove, drove, drove again, stopping at 4am in New Mexico, which is kind of barren and brings to mind scenes from Natural Born Killers (classic middle america, no trees, no nothing). At 8am, it was back on the road. We had it worked out that Rita and I would drive 2.5 - 3 hour shifts, while one was driving, the other was passed out in the back seat. On the drive, our playlist was something like: Amazing Gina Playlist, Brazilian, African, Reggae, Nelson Mandela audio, Korean, and Amazing Kabriele Playlist (thank you both for having such spectacular taste in music, everyone loves your music:)) Okay, drive, drive, drive, and we finally reached Laredo, Texas. When we reached Laredo, the plan was to cross the border and go into Monterrey, in Mexico. We crossed the border, (WOOHOO!!!!) and drove for about one hour in Mexico. Unfortuneately, there was some problem with the paperwork (Rita will be sure to inform you, I know;), and so we had to turn around and go back to the US. So, instead of staying in MOnterrey as planned, we stayed at the Monterrey Inn, stateside, until the following day when we squeezed by immigration by the seat of our pants.
We made it to Mexico, andjust across the border you could see the difference of the economies of each country. The houses from crossing the border onward were made from 4x4 with large holes or tin or cement blocks. We drove to Monterrey and I had never seen mountains like this before. Monterrey sits in the the valley between these enormous jagged mountain ranges. The other noticeable thing is the amount of trash everywhere. Literally, the roadside is covered with plastic bottles, chips and cookie wrappers. It was depressing to see. From Monterrey we traveling south and the engine light came on so we stopped on the side of the road and had a man drive the car to listen to the problem, diagnose and fix it for us in about one hour. The gas filter had to be changed and....zzz..(i always fall asleep here). Anyway, I snapped a picture of his plumber's crack while he was working and off we went to Ciudad de Mexico. Upon arrival, we got lost...in fact, we got lost in EVERY city that we came to...and drove around for about an hour when we were pulled over by the policia (at this point, I will reference you to my blog for a journal entry of this adventure, but don't miss it because its pretty great). We arrived at the house of Kabriele's long time frineds, Ramon, Ahora (I didnt spell this right), Eduard, and Jorge. They were all amazing artists who went to school together, Some dance, some draw, and some paint, and all have unparalleled talents. While in CdMex, we ate the local food, with lime juice on everything. I started eating meat again here, partly because outside of the US, the meat is mot full of hormones and partly because the food is just too good. We went to markets and downtown to see the cathedral and Mayan ruins. CdeMex is the largest city in the world and there were many people everwhere! I tried my hand at Espanol and it was frightening at first but Rita and Eduardo were patient with my ramblings and butchering of grammar. My teammates started thier Spanish classes once we reached Mexico. (New guys -- ***study spanish, YOU WILL NEED IT!) We went to an art gallery while downtown and saw some original Diego Rivera paintings. We stayed in in the City for three days and then we left Pablo there, saidf our goodbyes to all our new friends, promised to come back, and drove away...to get lost again for about an hour.
From CdMex, we drove to Tuxla, on Chiapas to stay for a few days. Bang Won met smoe frends named Marlon and Jaido, who showed us around the city. Marlon teaches English in Tuxla and met Bang Won in the downtown square. One night we were approached by this drunken man who said we had to leave the hotel because some illegal immigrants were coming with ‘cyotes’ and they wanted the hotel clear. All guests had to pack thieer bags and leave the next day. We didn’t know if it was true but the next day, the hotel was empty of all guests and we didn’t want to take any chances so we left too. Oh, and the night before, Marlon and Jaido took us dancing in the square and we went for coffee afterwards and heard a drum circle so Rita and I went to check it out. One guy asked us to dance in the middle while everyone was standing around watching so I drug Rita to dance with me and we looked liked dorks, which was great . Afterward the cute drummer who was making eyes, came over to say hello…but alas, he spoke no English and my Spanish was poor so our fates were not aligned for any magic past swinging hips to the music. But his friend did give us both a pair of earrings that he made and we dubbed them our ‘lucky earrings’. We also visited an elderly living community, government funded, which was for people who had no relatives to care for them. Many were incapacitated and many were mentally unaware but some smiled and we talked to who we could as the manager ushered us through the facility on a tour. Leaving Tuxla, we drove to San Cristobal, where we stayed for an evening. Some went to see a Mayan cultural play and others went to town. While in town, I was sexually harassed by a drunk police man, I tell you, watch out for the policia! I found Sidney and we climbed Mayan steps and then found Rita and we went dancing till 1am. (woo-hoo!)
From there we headed for Guatemala. As we drove closer to the border, there were so many men with guns. After we crossed, there were all these painted busses from the US, everywhere. And a lot of smog, too. Guatemala was rugged, like what you would picture a real adventure being like, smelly, mean looking people, dirty, and jungle everywhere you look..I liked it here, best. In Guatemala, there is a major problem with dog overpopulation. Dogs are everywhere and they are starving and dying along side the road. If they are not starving to death, they are being run over. Its really awful and my heart went out to living beings who suffer this pain. Because there are so many and they are in everyone’s way, the people just kick them, as if they were roaches. At any given time, you can hear dogs squealing in pain from being hit or kicked from an otherwise decent human being. While we stayed in one roadside hotel for an evening, we heard what I considered could have been an excorsism. While Rita and I were cooking dinner in the rice cooker (best invention ever), we heard this craziness coming from across the hall. People were screaming and saying catholic somethings over and over and it just got luder and louder. I recorded some of it on my phone. It went on for about an hour. I don’t know what it was but it was spooky. Next stop, Panajachel, LAgo de Titlan. Here is the most beautiful lake in the world some say. I have a blog about this also so I will continue on. Next stop: Tikal. We stayed in Tikal for two days, the first day we found a hotel and when I was talking to the mistress, I told her I liked her shirt. I meant that I liked it on her and when we came back that evening, she had taken it off her back, washed it, and left it to me as a gift. I was floored. I looked through my belongings to find something to give back to her, which was a wallet. We wnet to the Tikal ruins the next morning. These ruins are really something unique in person. While walking through, Rita slipped and almost broke her arm and so we hobbled our way to the medical center and had her patched up, then dropped her off at the van and headed back in to see the major ruins, met up with the boys and we climbed to the top of Temple Four where you came out above the trees of the jungle and could see the other tops of the ruins and skyline of jungle. Climbed back down and met up with Rita and also some girls from Austria, who hitched a ride back with us at the hotel.
From Tikal, we left Guatemala toward Belize, sat at immigration for a million years and gave a lift to one of the security people when they set us free. First stop, Dangriga (if memory serves me correctly). We walked to the beach and stood there for a few minutes. I splashed some salt water on my face because its good for your skin and walked back to the hotel. It was a scene from a comedy; no one swam, we just stood there, up to our knees for a few minutes and then turned around and went backJ Belize City was next, where we went to find the beach again…but oddly enough, there was no beach. There were concrete blocks and then just straight into the water where there jagged rocks,it was strange. We said enough of this after driving for an hour to find beach where there was none back. I think Belize City is where I crashed the van (sorry!) trying to back up in a busy street, the wrong way but honestly, in my defense, there were no signs and I did make it seven thousand miles without any damage, well, maybe a few scratches…anyway, Orange walk was next where we met up with Humana Belize people. We had a meeting with everyone and then left Sid and Woo, Tae and Jihita. Bang Won and I road with Pantaleon and Jaime (Co-project leader ad Project Leader) to Bella Vista, where we stayed for a few nights. We met our mascot, Kitty, and she kept us company through the nights and introduced us to her owners, a couple and their daughter from Honduras. …..okay, this is where we end for today. You need a break from reading and I need a break form writing. I will tell you next about Belize and Humana People to People Belize. I will post blogs soon. I miss you all and I want to hear what everyone is doing in all parts of the world! How is Africa? How is Europe? How is life? I get lonely here without my friends so please send stories so I feel connected to you when we are so far. My heart goes out to everyone, even those of you I haven’t met yet;) Take care until next time…
This is part one of our journey, travel period. There is so much to fit in, it will have to be done in parts. I miss all of you, my friends who are in Africa now (Felipe, I still haven't laughed well since you left), my friends in the states and abroad, and all my family. I am also missing my friends at CCTG and looking forward to rambling ideas when I return...
So, I will start from Los Angeles. The team found a couch surfer named Josh who we stayed with for one night. He lives in the penthouse of an old 50's style hotel called The Alexandria, home to many celebrity parties of that time. While with Josh, we met Pablo, half Mexican, half Aussie, who was also couch surfing with Josh. He was looking to find a ride to Mexico City from someone in LA and as luck would have it, thats where we were heading. So, the next day we packed all our bags, Pablo and his mini guitar covered in a grandmas blanket and tape into the van with us and headed east. We drove, drove, drove for ten hours and spent the night in Arizona. THe plateaus and crevices of rock and canyon in the desert was beautiful and complimented the Carlos Castanedas book I was reading at the time, Journey To Ixtlan. The next day, we drove, drove, drove again, stopping at 4am in New Mexico, which is kind of barren and brings to mind scenes from Natural Born Killers (classic middle america, no trees, no nothing). At 8am, it was back on the road. We had it worked out that Rita and I would drive 2.5 - 3 hour shifts, while one was driving, the other was passed out in the back seat. On the drive, our playlist was something like: Amazing Gina Playlist, Brazilian, African, Reggae, Nelson Mandela audio, Korean, and Amazing Kabriele Playlist (thank you both for having such spectacular taste in music, everyone loves your music:)) Okay, drive, drive, drive, and we finally reached Laredo, Texas. When we reached Laredo, the plan was to cross the border and go into Monterrey, in Mexico. We crossed the border, (WOOHOO!!!!) and drove for about one hour in Mexico. Unfortuneately, there was some problem with the paperwork (Rita will be sure to inform you, I know;), and so we had to turn around and go back to the US. So, instead of staying in MOnterrey as planned, we stayed at the Monterrey Inn, stateside, until the following day when we squeezed by immigration by the seat of our pants.
We made it to Mexico, andjust across the border you could see the difference of the economies of each country. The houses from crossing the border onward were made from 4x4 with large holes or tin or cement blocks. We drove to Monterrey and I had never seen mountains like this before. Monterrey sits in the the valley between these enormous jagged mountain ranges. The other noticeable thing is the amount of trash everywhere. Literally, the roadside is covered with plastic bottles, chips and cookie wrappers. It was depressing to see. From Monterrey we traveling south and the engine light came on so we stopped on the side of the road and had a man drive the car to listen to the problem, diagnose and fix it for us in about one hour. The gas filter had to be changed and....zzz..(i always fall asleep here). Anyway, I snapped a picture of his plumber's crack while he was working and off we went to Ciudad de Mexico. Upon arrival, we got lost...in fact, we got lost in EVERY city that we came to...and drove around for about an hour when we were pulled over by the policia (at this point, I will reference you to my blog for a journal entry of this adventure, but don't miss it because its pretty great). We arrived at the house of Kabriele's long time frineds, Ramon, Ahora (I didnt spell this right), Eduard, and Jorge. They were all amazing artists who went to school together, Some dance, some draw, and some paint, and all have unparalleled talents. While in CdMex, we ate the local food, with lime juice on everything. I started eating meat again here, partly because outside of the US, the meat is mot full of hormones and partly because the food is just too good. We went to markets and downtown to see the cathedral and Mayan ruins. CdeMex is the largest city in the world and there were many people everwhere! I tried my hand at Espanol and it was frightening at first but Rita and Eduardo were patient with my ramblings and butchering of grammar. My teammates started thier Spanish classes once we reached Mexico. (New guys -- ***study spanish, YOU WILL NEED IT!) We went to an art gallery while downtown and saw some original Diego Rivera paintings. We stayed in in the City for three days and then we left Pablo there, saidf our goodbyes to all our new friends, promised to come back, and drove away...to get lost again for about an hour.
From CdMex, we drove to Tuxla, on Chiapas to stay for a few days. Bang Won met smoe frends named Marlon and Jaido, who showed us around the city. Marlon teaches English in Tuxla and met Bang Won in the downtown square. One night we were approached by this drunken man who said we had to leave the hotel because some illegal immigrants were coming with ‘cyotes’ and they wanted the hotel clear. All guests had to pack thieer bags and leave the next day. We didn’t know if it was true but the next day, the hotel was empty of all guests and we didn’t want to take any chances so we left too. Oh, and the night before, Marlon and Jaido took us dancing in the square and we went for coffee afterwards and heard a drum circle so Rita and I went to check it out. One guy asked us to dance in the middle while everyone was standing around watching so I drug Rita to dance with me and we looked liked dorks, which was great . Afterward the cute drummer who was making eyes, came over to say hello…but alas, he spoke no English and my Spanish was poor so our fates were not aligned for any magic past swinging hips to the music. But his friend did give us both a pair of earrings that he made and we dubbed them our ‘lucky earrings’. We also visited an elderly living community, government funded, which was for people who had no relatives to care for them. Many were incapacitated and many were mentally unaware but some smiled and we talked to who we could as the manager ushered us through the facility on a tour. Leaving Tuxla, we drove to San Cristobal, where we stayed for an evening. Some went to see a Mayan cultural play and others went to town. While in town, I was sexually harassed by a drunk police man, I tell you, watch out for the policia! I found Sidney and we climbed Mayan steps and then found Rita and we went dancing till 1am. (woo-hoo!)
From there we headed for Guatemala. As we drove closer to the border, there were so many men with guns. After we crossed, there were all these painted busses from the US, everywhere. And a lot of smog, too. Guatemala was rugged, like what you would picture a real adventure being like, smelly, mean looking people, dirty, and jungle everywhere you look..I liked it here, best. In Guatemala, there is a major problem with dog overpopulation. Dogs are everywhere and they are starving and dying along side the road. If they are not starving to death, they are being run over. Its really awful and my heart went out to living beings who suffer this pain. Because there are so many and they are in everyone’s way, the people just kick them, as if they were roaches. At any given time, you can hear dogs squealing in pain from being hit or kicked from an otherwise decent human being. While we stayed in one roadside hotel for an evening, we heard what I considered could have been an excorsism. While Rita and I were cooking dinner in the rice cooker (best invention ever), we heard this craziness coming from across the hall. People were screaming and saying catholic somethings over and over and it just got luder and louder. I recorded some of it on my phone. It went on for about an hour. I don’t know what it was but it was spooky. Next stop, Panajachel, LAgo de Titlan. Here is the most beautiful lake in the world some say. I have a blog about this also so I will continue on. Next stop: Tikal. We stayed in Tikal for two days, the first day we found a hotel and when I was talking to the mistress, I told her I liked her shirt. I meant that I liked it on her and when we came back that evening, she had taken it off her back, washed it, and left it to me as a gift. I was floored. I looked through my belongings to find something to give back to her, which was a wallet. We wnet to the Tikal ruins the next morning. These ruins are really something unique in person. While walking through, Rita slipped and almost broke her arm and so we hobbled our way to the medical center and had her patched up, then dropped her off at the van and headed back in to see the major ruins, met up with the boys and we climbed to the top of Temple Four where you came out above the trees of the jungle and could see the other tops of the ruins and skyline of jungle. Climbed back down and met up with Rita and also some girls from Austria, who hitched a ride back with us at the hotel.
From Tikal, we left Guatemala toward Belize, sat at immigration for a million years and gave a lift to one of the security people when they set us free. First stop, Dangriga (if memory serves me correctly). We walked to the beach and stood there for a few minutes. I splashed some salt water on my face because its good for your skin and walked back to the hotel. It was a scene from a comedy; no one swam, we just stood there, up to our knees for a few minutes and then turned around and went backJ Belize City was next, where we went to find the beach again…but oddly enough, there was no beach. There were concrete blocks and then just straight into the water where there jagged rocks,it was strange. We said enough of this after driving for an hour to find beach where there was none back. I think Belize City is where I crashed the van (sorry!) trying to back up in a busy street, the wrong way but honestly, in my defense, there were no signs and I did make it seven thousand miles without any damage, well, maybe a few scratches…anyway, Orange walk was next where we met up with Humana Belize people. We had a meeting with everyone and then left Sid and Woo, Tae and Jihita. Bang Won and I road with Pantaleon and Jaime (Co-project leader ad Project Leader) to Bella Vista, where we stayed for a few nights. We met our mascot, Kitty, and she kept us company through the nights and introduced us to her owners, a couple and their daughter from Honduras. …..okay, this is where we end for today. You need a break from reading and I need a break form writing. I will tell you next about Belize and Humana People to People Belize. I will post blogs soon. I miss you all and I want to hear what everyone is doing in all parts of the world! How is Africa? How is Europe? How is life? I get lonely here without my friends so please send stories so I feel connected to you when we are so far. My heart goes out to everyone, even those of you I haven’t met yet;) Take care until next time…
back post (from Guatemala)
...first of all, I just read my last post and realized that I said I was tires. amazing.
Good Morning Morning Pages, we are in Panajachel (Lago de Titlan), the most beautiful lake in the world. There is a huge volcanic mountain and another two next to it. The bigger one kisses the clouds, it might just be a littel smaller in diameter than Mt. Shasta in California. The rest of the lake is surrounded by tropical/jungle jagges mountains. The water itself is torquoise and azul. Littel Guatemalan villages are in the mountains , including the one we are in. Panajachel is farthest down the mountains, closest to the water. We are so lucky. Our hotel was given to us at an inexpensive rate, 230 quatezalas, around $40-$50 a room. Meanwhile up the road and away from the water are the tourist hotels, skyscrapers, which I would assume cost a few hundred a night, easy, and I don't know if local people benefit at all, other than having more toursits to sell trinkets to.
The owner of our hotel is really social and really kind. He looks and talks like John Leguizamo (sp?). Really. Rita and I are haivng coffee and ensalada de fruta at a local restaraunt. When I go next to an internet cafe, I want to write everyone and say hello. I miss my friends and family. I don't have alot to write because the musica is really loud and i'm thinking about that and not able to get much deeper at the moment....
Good Morning Morning Pages, we are in Panajachel (Lago de Titlan), the most beautiful lake in the world. There is a huge volcanic mountain and another two next to it. The bigger one kisses the clouds, it might just be a littel smaller in diameter than Mt. Shasta in California. The rest of the lake is surrounded by tropical/jungle jagges mountains. The water itself is torquoise and azul. Littel Guatemalan villages are in the mountains , including the one we are in. Panajachel is farthest down the mountains, closest to the water. We are so lucky. Our hotel was given to us at an inexpensive rate, 230 quatezalas, around $40-$50 a room. Meanwhile up the road and away from the water are the tourist hotels, skyscrapers, which I would assume cost a few hundred a night, easy, and I don't know if local people benefit at all, other than having more toursits to sell trinkets to.
The owner of our hotel is really social and really kind. He looks and talks like John Leguizamo (sp?). Really. Rita and I are haivng coffee and ensalada de fruta at a local restaraunt. When I go next to an internet cafe, I want to write everyone and say hello. I miss my friends and family. I don't have alot to write because the musica is really loud and i'm thinking about that and not able to get much deeper at the moment....
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Journal Entry 9/12/09
Good Morning Morning Pages, I am tires this morning. Yesterday, I took Aldrin and his mother Adelina Butz to the free clinic in San Pedro Columbia. The baby is 1 year, 10 months, and he can't hear, can't talk, can't walk, adn can't swallow food. He's been living off breast milk and Coke and he should be eating solid food by now. He has seizures two or three times a day and his mother says he falls off the bed and hits his head on the mud floor in thier thatch house. Adelina said she took him to the doctor once and he told her what was wrong with the baby but she forgot what he told her. He spends most of his time in the bed or in the hammock, which is the parents' bed.
We left on the bus for Columbia at 7, arriving at 7:45am. The clinic opened at eight and the doctor on duty saw us. I had come the day before and explained the baby's situation when Bangwon had come in with fever and infected bug bites. The doctors took care of Bangwon with antibiotics and pain reliever with codine, and with my broken spanish and thier broken english, we established the pediatrician would be in the following day. So, when we saw another doctor at 8am, he told us the pediatrician would not be in until one o' clock but I had not understood that. So, we waited outside until one o' clock when the pediatrician arrived. The saw the baby and did some physical tests and talked to Adelina about the birth of the baby, how she gave birth, was the baby blue (no), did the baby cry when born (not at first), did the midwife have to stimulate the baby befoere he cried (yes). He asked some other questions and then asked me if I knew the English term Cerebral Palsy. I said yes. He explained as best he could with his heavy Cuban accent that the baby, he thought, had this disease and more testing needed to be done and asked Adelina if she could pay for this. (Adelina and her husband met when she was 14 yrs old and he 16. He saw her while she was in another village and fell in love with her. He then sent his parents to find her parents and asked to be engaged to be married. Her parents said yes, and so at fourteen, Adeline moved in with Santiago, settling near her parent's house. He left his own village to be with her and he started subsistence farming on 2 acres of land with her father. They cannot afford the three to four thousand dollars it would cost to have a celebration and ceremony to marry so until now they have yet to marry but have been common law for four years and have two babies, Darlie,3, and Aldrin.)
Adelina said her family could not afford to have testing done and the doctor sighed. I asked if they could learn to communicate non-verbally. ( I remembered this from time spent watching Angela at Heart of Hope with Wilson, with similar communication challenges. She would show him flashcards with pictures and words or use sign language). I noticed Aldrin would move his hands in a clapping motion above his head which looked like he was trying to communicate, although no one could speak his language yet. The doctor said yes, to try this, and also to mix his food with water so he can start getting all the vitamins and nutrients from solid food sources. He said not to let the baby swing in the hammock fo rlong periods of time, it was very bad for him. His joints need bending and flexing and his muscles need physicla stinulation by hand. He needs physical therapy and since his mother cannot afford this, she will have to this herself during the day. The doctor then gave Adelina a prescription for the babies seizures and told her to come back each month to get it refilled.
The next bus did not come back until five o' clock, so we walked the four miles back to San Miguel, taking turns carrying the restless baby. She and Aldrin turned off the road for thier house. I had a meeting with our Co-project leader as soon as I arrived home. We spoke for an hour and a half about our upcoming week's plans, then a motorcycle lesson as Finity (co-project leader) wants me to drive the motorcycle at night instead of riding the bicyle 15 miles in the dark from Indian Creek. I practiced in 1st and 2nd gear for about thirty minutes around the super muddy foortball field. Then back to Adelina's parents house to invite them to thier daughter's house to discuss what the doctor said early in the day.
I tried to explain Cerebral Palsy in a way they could understand because there is no equivilent translation in Q'eqchi' Mayan. Aldrin wanted to know if Humana could support his babies treatment. I said I didn't know but here was a list of things that could be done presently and that waiting for money would be detrimental to Aldrin now. I suggested we try not to focus on what they didn't have and instead focus on what we have to start with now, which is better nutrition, daily physical stimulation, and communication development. The grandfather said he didn't want his daughter and baby to have to travel fo testing because the family would worry. I said that, again, it is best to focus on what can be done and what is happening now because it is in the best interest of the child. We talked for about an hour and a half and then I said I would come back on Sunday to work with Aldrin. And we said good night.
We left on the bus for Columbia at 7, arriving at 7:45am. The clinic opened at eight and the doctor on duty saw us. I had come the day before and explained the baby's situation when Bangwon had come in with fever and infected bug bites. The doctors took care of Bangwon with antibiotics and pain reliever with codine, and with my broken spanish and thier broken english, we established the pediatrician would be in the following day. So, when we saw another doctor at 8am, he told us the pediatrician would not be in until one o' clock but I had not understood that. So, we waited outside until one o' clock when the pediatrician arrived. The saw the baby and did some physical tests and talked to Adelina about the birth of the baby, how she gave birth, was the baby blue (no), did the baby cry when born (not at first), did the midwife have to stimulate the baby befoere he cried (yes). He asked some other questions and then asked me if I knew the English term Cerebral Palsy. I said yes. He explained as best he could with his heavy Cuban accent that the baby, he thought, had this disease and more testing needed to be done and asked Adelina if she could pay for this. (Adelina and her husband met when she was 14 yrs old and he 16. He saw her while she was in another village and fell in love with her. He then sent his parents to find her parents and asked to be engaged to be married. Her parents said yes, and so at fourteen, Adeline moved in with Santiago, settling near her parent's house. He left his own village to be with her and he started subsistence farming on 2 acres of land with her father. They cannot afford the three to four thousand dollars it would cost to have a celebration and ceremony to marry so until now they have yet to marry but have been common law for four years and have two babies, Darlie,3, and Aldrin.)
Adelina said her family could not afford to have testing done and the doctor sighed. I asked if they could learn to communicate non-verbally. ( I remembered this from time spent watching Angela at Heart of Hope with Wilson, with similar communication challenges. She would show him flashcards with pictures and words or use sign language). I noticed Aldrin would move his hands in a clapping motion above his head which looked like he was trying to communicate, although no one could speak his language yet. The doctor said yes, to try this, and also to mix his food with water so he can start getting all the vitamins and nutrients from solid food sources. He said not to let the baby swing in the hammock fo rlong periods of time, it was very bad for him. His joints need bending and flexing and his muscles need physicla stinulation by hand. He needs physical therapy and since his mother cannot afford this, she will have to this herself during the day. The doctor then gave Adelina a prescription for the babies seizures and told her to come back each month to get it refilled.
The next bus did not come back until five o' clock, so we walked the four miles back to San Miguel, taking turns carrying the restless baby. She and Aldrin turned off the road for thier house. I had a meeting with our Co-project leader as soon as I arrived home. We spoke for an hour and a half about our upcoming week's plans, then a motorcycle lesson as Finity (co-project leader) wants me to drive the motorcycle at night instead of riding the bicyle 15 miles in the dark from Indian Creek. I practiced in 1st and 2nd gear for about thirty minutes around the super muddy foortball field. Then back to Adelina's parents house to invite them to thier daughter's house to discuss what the doctor said early in the day.
I tried to explain Cerebral Palsy in a way they could understand because there is no equivilent translation in Q'eqchi' Mayan. Aldrin wanted to know if Humana could support his babies treatment. I said I didn't know but here was a list of things that could be done presently and that waiting for money would be detrimental to Aldrin now. I suggested we try not to focus on what they didn't have and instead focus on what we have to start with now, which is better nutrition, daily physical stimulation, and communication development. The grandfather said he didn't want his daughter and baby to have to travel fo testing because the family would worry. I said that, again, it is best to focus on what can be done and what is happening now because it is in the best interest of the child. We talked for about an hour and a half and then I said I would come back on Sunday to work with Aldrin. And we said good night.
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