Day Off???

Well, the last time we wrote, there had just been an impromptu jam session/meeting about medical mission teams and the medical community here in general. Lots of stuff to think about. One thing we will definitely focus on is the atmosphere of a "foreign exchange" program where both sides (US and Guatemalan) get to interact, teach and learn from each other. And who better to work on that than a former foreign exchange student? Most of you know that Heidi spent a year in Sweden. So Spanish is really her third language. We are both picking up A LOT of Spanish. Heidi, of course, more that Matt, because she had quite a head start, but we're both getting much, much better.

Anyway, today was supposed to be Day 1 of a weekend, of sorts. The first knock on our door came at about 7:30 this morning. A local pastor brought by one of the boys from his congregation who had a problem with his pena. You can either look it up or guess what that means Matt got to look at first thing this morning. (Heidi was still sleeping, as she's battling a pretty tough cold.) The pastor explained that they had been given some medicine yesterday and it wasn't any better yet. Hmmmm... whether to wake Heidi or not. Well, let's ask some questions. The boy is four. Yes, that thing is quite red. No, mine does not look like that. What medicine? Ah, amoxicilin. No need to wake Heidi. This stuff will take more than one dose to fix your problem, if that's what your problem is. If it's not better by this weekend, we'll conveniently be in a clinic in your hometown.

An hour or so later, the phone rang. Matt's Spanish is improving, but he still uses a lot of sign language. Not so useful on the phone. So Heidi woke up and answered. It was Carrie, from Houston. No problem, we have lots to talk about and we need to talk anyway.

Just as we're hanging up, another knock. This one is Roscoe Canada, an American missionary who lives in Canillá, not too far from the Fickers. Just a "drop by and say HI" visit. Very nice.

Soon after, another knock. This one from someone who wants blood pressure medicine. We get a lot of these now that the Hospital's ourpatient services are closed. We will be doing a clinic in this woman's town in a few days, too.

A few minutes later, another knock. This one is a woman who is having continuing complications from her surgery (performed by the team a few weeks ago). Heidi has been working with one of the local OB/GYNs on her case. She just had a few questions. As fate would have it, we saw her two or three times today.

Soon, another knock. This was a girl trying to find out when there's going to be another clinic. So we broke out the calendar and let her know.

By now, it's lunch time. We have some business to take care of in town, but everything is closed between 12:00 and 2:00 (which means 11:30 to 3:00), so we ate some, sent some emails, then headed into town. Wouldn't you know, we stumbled across a mall. Yup, here in Quiché, a mall. Not a Galleria or anything, but it did have a video rental store. Heidi has been calling herself and her group of gyno-buddies "Mean Girls" for a few years now, but has never seen the movie. Now we have (subtitled in Spanish). We learned some new words tonight. Probably not ones we can use in clinic, though.

Well, that was our day off. There's another one tomorrow, though, so worry not!!

Please keep all of the people who are still waiting for the clinic to open in your prayers. We do what we can in our clinics, but anyone needing surgery that's non-emergent is just waiting....