Weekend Trip

Well, Matt made three trips to Guatemala City this week. The first was to take the truck to the Mazda dealership on Tuesday. He managed a ride back to Chichi with Dr. Hoak that day. Wednesday, we got a call from the dealership that they wanted to do about $1100 worth of work to the truck. So, Thursday, Matt rode down with Leslie and Sonya to look at the truck and decide what needed to be done this week and what could wait (i.e., be done by Martin).

Friday, Matt was going to go BACK to the City to get the truck by himself (somehow) then drive it back. But Heidi had a short day at Buen Samaritano, so we all went together as a family in the green truck. We picked up the truck, paid the $500 tab, dropped off a truck part for Matt Capehart at the Land Rover dealership, went shopping at a mall, had dinner at Applebee's, and went to our hotel in Guatemala City (who now knows us by name).

However, at 4am, we got up and headed to Canilla for clinic. It was a nearly five hour drive and the road between Zacualpa and Canilla was as bad as we've seen it. There was at least one occasion when we BOTH thought we were going to be stuck and more than a few occasions when at least Matt thought we might get high-centered on some large rocks in the road. But, with some divine assistance (which was frequently called for), we made it. David Ficker even admitted that he had been waiting most of the morning for us to call and ask him to come get us with the tractor! Welcome to Guatemala!

Well, last week's clinic was cancelled due to the Fickers being stuck in Guatemala City, so this week's was about twice as busy as usual. Nothing terribly noteworthy, but nearly double the normal load of patients.

The boys spent the day working on the back of the hangar (Aaron and Katie's soon-to-be house) mostly building a roof over their patio.

Today, there were about 80 patients in San Andres, a pretty average day there, but some VERY sick people. We didn't get home to Quiche until after 5pm. At one point, David had to make a run from Canilla to San Andres on his dirt bike to take some NG tubes for a severely malnourished baby. Heidi saw a boy with some very disturbing markings - possible leukemia. About half of Leslie's nutrition kids were sick with possible pneumonia. Mostly just a bunch of really sick people.

Tomorrow is our clinic in Chicabracan. Tuesday is a day off - Matt will try to go back to Guatemala City and get the green truck we left there on Saturday morning (there's NO way it would have made it to Canilla on those roads). Wednesday is a "trial" clinic in Totonicapan (a local pastor called and asked us to come do a clinic there - maybe God will lead us to make this a regular stop). Thursday is ASELSI in the morning and and two surgeries in the afternoon. Friday is clinic at Buen Samaritano.

We forgot to send the camera to clinic with Heidi this morning, so you get some pics of Isaac hanging out while the boys were working at the airport. He's sleeping in two of them and just chilling out in the other two. Note the different outfits. Those of you who have kids will know why.