Sunday-Wednesday

Sunday, Heidi was in clinic in San Andres and Matt stayed in Canilla with Isaac. Matt left a few minutes early this time to have time to swing by the Torre Fuerte (Strong Tower) church and take a look at their sound system. Rodi, the pastor, has been looking for some help in getting some more equipment and some more power out of his existing system.

Based on a cursory inspection, it looks like we should be able to get lots more volume out of the system they're currently using. Some equipment upgrades will eventually be necessary, but for the moment, we should be able to get a drastic improvement with just a few changes in wiring philosophy. Matt will bring his "bag of tricks" with him this weekend and will spend the entire morning on Sunday working with the band and the sound system to see what can be done.

On the way back to Quiche, we got stopped by some big trucks that were unable to climb the mountain and had managed to get stuck directly in the middle of the road. We waited about half an hour until they finally got rolling again. We got past them and then got stuck behind a two wheel drive truck that failed to climb another hill. Luckily, they left enough space between themselves and the rock wall for us to squeak by. We finally got home just in time to get diverted around the town square where one of the presidential candidates was making a speech. In the United States, we expect our roads to be open and passable. Here, it's not really an expectation. Just another cultural adjustment we have to make. And we Americans are not really known for our patience!

Monday morning, we got up and headed to Nueva Santa Catarina for our monthly clinic there. Matilde told us he had sold 24 numbers. When we were seeing patient number 35, we asked how many numbers he had actually sold. Just three or four more. Seven patients later, he told us the next one was the last one. Two patients later, we finally got the last patient. It's not that 42 or 43 patients is really a problem, it's an issue of expectation management. If you're going to see 40-some patients, it's better not to think that you only have 24. Again, a cultural adjustment... There weren't really any remarkable patients, but we did have a few prenatals, a pregnancy diagnosis, and several of our chronic (diabetes, hypertension and/or seizure) patients who we've gotten to be good friends with.

After leaving Nueva Santa Catarina, we drove to Guatemala City to spend the night and wait for Heidi and Gail to come in on Tuesday. So we had a nice, relaxing night in our hotel room (we just picked up Burger King rather than let Isaac scream through TGIFriday's again!) and then a nice, relaxing morning on Tuesday. Isaac does a lot better when he can just lay around and get a morning nap. Unfortunately, we're usually dragging him to a clinic and his nap schedule gets completely scrambled. He's normally nice enough to let us know how he feels about it, though!

Tuesday afternoon, we picked up Heidi and Gail, went to Antigua (had a few errands to run there), had a nice lunch and did some shopping, then drove back to Quiche.

This morning, the girls went to market in town then went down to Chichi for a surgery Heidi had to do (vaginal hysterectomy and anterior repair). Matt and Isaac came down a little later for a special mid-week worship service set up by Matt Capehart at the Casa del Rey hotel. The Fickers were able to come in and worship with us. Matt got to play with the worship band and Rachel got to meet some gringo kids about her age. The Fickers will spend the night in the hotel and drive back tomorrow. They told us that the road from Quiche to San Andres is now closed between 8am and 4pm with the exception of an hour for lunch. Good information! We'll have to drive through Zacualpa on Friday afternoon as we head over a few hours early this week.

We got to hear from little Diego, the hydrocephalic little boy we met in Chicabracan last month. His dad said he got his surgery this week on his first birthday. We're so excited to see him and see how everything went!!! Thanks for all your prayers on this. (We're also interested to see what kind of bill we get presented with, but we know that God will provide in any case.)

As most of you know, tomorrow is ASELSI, then we'll go into town for the tourist market with Heidi and Gail and to round on Heidi's patient from today.

Pics:
1. Matt and Isaac in clinic in Nueva Santa Catarina
2. Heidi, a patient, and Matilde in clinic. When Matt's keeping Isaac happy, sometimes Heidi gets stuck with running the computer and seeing patients. When Heidi's breastfeeding, Matt gets to run the computer, do some cursory exams, and get count pills. It's all a team effort!
3. Matt trying to get Isaac to fall asleep in our hotel room. We're not sure where the "struggling to stay awake" thing comes from. We both ENJOY sleeping!
4. Isaac sleeping in his "old man" shorts. He does look SO grown up when he wears "big boy" clothes instead of sleepers. We're not sure which we like better, the grown up look or the little baby look!!!