Apologies for My Brevity

So after procrastinating entirely for two weeks, I decided the only way for me to catch up with all of you was to merely open a new blog entry and write. However it's a thing that is significantly easier said than done. As I spend more time here and my life becomes normal, I find myself writing less and less and forget that all of you have no idea what I am doing. Thankfully, after four medical teams back to back, I have a week long break. I decided to spend it mostly on my own to make a short trip to a town spoken highly of. I've been in need of a break for a while and have a newfound respect la Jefa (the boss), Megan Albertson. She's been doing this for nearly three years now and keeps going with stamina I've seen in few people. I thought I had a high tolerance level for a rapid lifestyle, but I must admit I was tired after four trips. It is refreshing to be away from everything HELPS for a week and have time to just be and spend time in a new place.

I arrived in Xela (Shela) or Quetzaltenango (kate-saul-ten-an-go) on Sunday and was taken to la casa de Doña Hilda, a woman in her seventies who reminds me much of my Grandma Rosie. Her decor (sp?), mannerisms, even the aging radio in the kitchen are uncannily similar. She travels the ten or twelve blocks to church by foot in the mornings and uses a gas stove to make sure I always have too much food on my plate. Though Doña Hilda's house is her own, it is always filled with a bustle. Aside from myself, she takes other students from the school and has two young tenants as well. Additionally her children and gradnchildren are constantly dropping by for meals. It's bustling and she alway comments that I haven't eaten much (especially because I don't eat meat), asks whether am going to church with her in the morning, and how quickly I need to leave for my next endeavor. She never lets me touch the dishes and makes cauliflower much like my mother's.

It's good to see the middle class of Guatemala as well. In contrast to an earlier entry, ít does exist, though in a significantly smaller quota. I've now had the opportunity to talk with people spanning from the villages to the ritzy part of the country and am beginning to develop a much larger scope of the life here.

We spent our last medical jornada in Solola, approximately three hours from the city and a half an hour away from Atitlan, a beautiful lake for which the country is known. My father and I will be there for a day while he's here. However, not to travel a tangent, the team from Oregon who stationed themselves in the city of Solola also manned what we call a stove team. This stove was developed by a man who previously traveled as a McGyver (mechanic) on medical teams and was searching for a solution to prevent so many of the chronic eye and lung conditions and burn cases the plastic surgeons see. Often children burn themselves in fires while their mothers are cooking and find their hands or arms fused shut and disfunctioning. This stove however, costs the family 23 dollars to purchase, and our teams come in to install them with the people.

I was able to go out on a stove team one day last week and work with four middle aged men not so unlike my father. Within twenty minutes of our day, they were already concerned for the kind of man I might love and marry. It's nice to know someone is always watching out for you. A couple of them shared my enthusiasm for cameras and gave me a few pointers as well. These men and I had the rare chance to actually go into the homes of families and know them well. Out of 14 cinder blocks, a few pieces of aluminum, gravel and limestone we create two stoves that cost significantly less to use. On average, these stoves save the woman of the house seven years per year worth of time they would have spent gathering wood or manning a stove. The ONIL stove burns on sigificantly less fuel than a typical house stove and therefore gives the head of the household more time to spend on other endeavors. Most families in the villages live on approximately three to seven dollars a week, and this stove saves much of the money the might have spent on wood.

The smiles on the faces of people recieving the stove are undescribeable. We joke and attempt to speak a few words of Kachiquel, the local dialect with them. The children are excited and giggle and wrestle for the gringoes (white foreigners) in their house and their mother beams with excitement and care for her new appliance that burns cleaner air through a chimney out the roof and relieves the family from smoke in the kitchen. It is beautiful work.


I've also been translating more frequently and have found a new love of words in the Spanish language.

Se quiero ustedes mucho.