Weekend News

Thursday, our friends from the SOS Eye Team moved into the dorm. They were here in Quiche all week, but stayed in a local hotel while they were doing clinics in nearby Chinique. This coming week, they'll be operating on the patients they collected and are staying here in the dorm.

They have been working here in Guatemala for several years and have a very deep understanding of the people, the culture, and the way things happen here. They spent a good part of the day yesterday putting together "goodie bags" for each patient. The hospital does not provide items such as toilet paper, toothbrushes, drinking water, etc. (who needs that stuff, right?), so the group gives each patient a bag with their own.

There is a team of Guatemalan eye doctors that comes to Quiche two days every two weeks. They have been operating all year on some of the supplies that the SOS team brought them last year. And this year, SOS is bringing even more! Which is great, because the Guatemalan team will be coming two days every week in the coming year. This is the news we're always looking for - when Guatemalan people are responding to Guatemalan needs. Yes, Americans are helping with supplies, but a need has been identified and the local people are stepping up to the plate.

Tomorrow, some of these Guatemalan eye surgeons will come in to work with the team. We're not sure yet if they'll be staying here with us or in a local hotel, but we'll play it by ear.

The first night the team was here (the night Matt was working to get the green truck back to Quiche), Heidi cooked chili. The next night, they treated us to pizza. Last night, we went to Pollo Campero. And tonight we went to their favorite local restaurant, La Martita's. We'd never been to that place, but it's quite nice. The proprietor, a woman, had spent some time in California and understands how sensitive our gringo guts are!

You may be wondering why we were in town this weekend. Well, with the wedding and everything, we and the Fickers cancelled our clinics to get a few days to breathe. So the Ficker family was at Lake Atitlan, enjoying a few last days with their two children who live in the U.S., and we were here with SOS (Sending out Servants).

One nice thing about being at home for the weekend was that we got to go to church in Chichicastenango. That is always a nice experience and we wish we could go more often, but there are those 100 or so people we always see in San Andres...

Tomorrow, we have clinic in Chinique. Thanks to the Fickers, we have a vehicle to get there. To those of you who already have Toyota Tacomas, congratulations. What a great truck! If you don't have one, get one. It is a completely superior driving experience, especially if you have to take a really bad dirt road to get around yet another semi truck accident between Quiche and Chichicastenango. Not that we've had to do that recently or anything...

In vehicle news, when we last checked with our mechanic, the green truck motor had been torn down and was being cleaned, revised, etc. Once he gets it cleaned and back together, we'll have a little better idea as to what is going on with our lack of power. And that really horrible clunking sound that we get from the front right side every time we hit a pothole (about every six feet on most of these roads) will need to be addressed, too. Matt, David, and Aaron couldn't find anything broken on inspection last week, but the torsion bars look about spent. It's a cheap, easy fix if that's what it is - and if we can find some torsion bars for a Nissan here in Quiche.

In Isaac news, he weighed in this afternoon at 12lbs 8oz - the same size as Jake, our cat. Big milestone - when you finally catch up to your cat! He has his first little cold, though, so we're trying to get him through that. When your parents do medical clinics, you're bound to eventually pick up something, no matter how hard they try to keep you away from it. Good thing Mommy's a doctor, right?