Jungle Trip - Post 2

The first pic is inside the clinic building. We had clinicians on either side of the building with a row of benches borrowed from the church next door in the middle with all our meds on them. At night we blew up air mattresses and slept on either side of the med bench.

The second pic is of Charlie checking out a little girl's ear.

Third is Heidi looking a little confused. Armando is there with her, but only speaks K'iche and Spanish. The local language there is Ke'kchi, which is completely different. Since so few people speak Spanish, interpreters are hard to come by - and totally inexperienced in interpreting (which is a lot harder than it sounds - something we didn't learn until we had to do it).

Fourth is a view from the main door of the clinic room. In the back is a makeshift private area for ultrasounds and more sensitive exams.

And last in this post is of Heidi and Isaac next to the sign that welcomed us to town. The community charged Q2.00 (which is about $0.26) for a consult, which is money they kept to help improve conditions in the community. Because their growing season is all year long, they are relatively well fed there, but have very little opportunity to actually make any money. They made over Q400 on the weekend, which is not bad for a village of only 250 people (and, naturally, we saw a fair number of patients who didn't have numbers but only remembered they had a health problem after they sat and watched a family member get some free medicines).