It's been two years, which means we've spent somewhere around 100 weekends there. If you count extended visits (planned or otherwise) and the times we've spent together during the weeks, we've spent nearly half of our two years here with them. Certainly enough to really feel like family. So it's hard to leave.
We did get a minor adventure on the way out, though. It was mostly smooth sailing all the way through San Andres. The roads are a long way from good, but since there was less rain than usual during the week this past week, they were at least passable. After the 3/4 point, though, we came up on a line of cars that were not moving. A short inspection showed that a big truck was buried all the way up to the frame in mud on one side of the road and the people who were trying to get past it on the other side of the road were not having much success.
Matt parked and walked up to see if he could help. What he found was that all the way on the right hand side of the road, it was muddy but more or less solid. In the middle, it was over a foot deep of just slime. The problem was many-pronged.
First, there was a crowd of Mayans standing around - most of whom do not own cars and have no idea how to drive - who were offering advice.
Second, the pickups that were trying to get through were not four wheel drive. Guatemalans, for some reason, really hate running their trucks in 4x4 mode. They feel like they're wasting gas or something. Yes, we're paying about $5.50 a gallon here, but tires are expensive, too. And when you have to rev like crazy and smoke your tires to climb a rocky hill, you might have saved a dollar on the trip up to that point, but you just spent $10 by refusing to lock in. But we digress.
Third, again, mostly for fear of breaking something, most Guatemalans, when presented with a muddy patch of road, will inch into it as slowly as possible and as soon as they start to bog down, they shut the whole engine off. This leads to a lot of stuck Guatemalans.
Matt watched for a little while and helped shovel some loose dirt into the muck, but mostly observed while a few people tried to get through - all unsuccessfully - and had to be pulled out by a crowd of 30 or so people and ropes.
After one particularly pushy Latin guy cut in line in front of us (in a Nissan, 2 wheel drive, automatic) and remained stuck for about 40 minutes, all the while shouting instructions to the Mayans on how to pull him out, Matt offered a better suggestion.
Why doesn't everyone get out of our way, let us drive through (which we're pretty sure we can), then we'll help pull the rest of the cars through when they get stuck? So that's what we did. Turns out you just need 4-wheel drive, good tires, some technique, and some guts. Below are four videos Heidi shot while Matt was pulling cars through. Yes, the last one is a LandCruiser, which had no business being stuck, but apparently nuns aren't the gutsiest drivers in the world. Plus, if you look closely, you'll notice that they're not even in 4x4 mode!
Anyway, our trip to Canilla took about 3 1/2 hours, instead of the normal 2, but we got some good movies for our trouble!
Clinic was relatively routine. We got to meet John and Alex, a father and son from St. Louis who were down to help out. Also, our friend Adrienne was here for her yearly visit. Martin and Gloria surprised us by driving out to share lunch with us and to say good-bye (even though Matt and Martin will get plenty of quality time later this week as they drive through Mexico together).
We also got to go down to the river for our last sand volleyball games together. Driving through the river was less challenging than last week (it rained less this week). Last week, even on the big 4-wheeler, your butt got wet riding through... Yeah, pretty deep!
We had a really nice worship service last night (thanks, Craig and everyone else) and got up this morning for breakfast and more clinic.
Heidi had a pretty funny patient today - perhaps her funniest of our entire time here. A 40-something-year-old man came in complaining of a problem with his hip or rear. He pulled a wilted plant out of his man-purse and handed it to Heidi. Eventually, the story came out that he had used a plant like this, well... like toilet paper about a year ago. It gave him a wicked rash. He came to clinic, we gave him some cream, and it went away. Just last week, the rash "came back". Knowing how much Heidi likes patients like this (there's a reason she's a gynecologist), she asked Katie to help her with the physical exam - after discarding the plant and washing her hands VERY thoroughly!
The end is a little anti-climactic. It probably wasn't another plant rash - maybe just some dry skin or something - but how great is it to HAND your doctor the plant that gave you some butt-rash last year? Leslie picked a bad time a few minutes later to ask Heidi if she was sure she wanted to leave...
Anyway, tomorrow is our last clinic here in Guatemala (as far as we know). We'll be out in Chicabracan. Then we'll drive to Totonicapan to have dinner with the Savior's Sons group. They were here at the house last night and we missed them (we were busy playing volleyball - all work and no play.... you know)
So please enjoy our videos and pictures... Oh, one picture that probably deserves explanation. You'll guess which one. That thing is part of one of Heidi's favorite trajes (traditional dress for women). The girls went to market in that village and bought one for Heidi as a going away present...
P.S. Okay, the videos embedded, but in low-quality. If you want to see the higher quality videos, go to youtube.com and search for "Pulling out trucks in guatemala" or something like that...
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