Aaanyway, we treated about 550 people A DAY for five days. I was very exhausted...by like...the beginning of day three. Each day we saw a different tribe in the beautiful and bountiful city of Chiquimula.
The adult and infant station. Here Women and men learned about basic preventive medicine (ie: wash your hands, drink water, don't put your naked babies in the dirt where the dog poops...that's how they get worms, calendar method, don't chew your nails (another way to get worms),
how to do self breast exams, and similar topics.)
The elementary age kids section. Here they learned proper hand washing technique, when to wash your hands, teeth brushing technique, and to try and drink lots of healthy water!
(Even parasite water is better than no water.)
This litter girl was my favorite. She was throwing a fit and her Mami was trying to calm her down there on the side with little success....so I handed her a "rattle"....which was actually a bottle of pills. Probably wouldn't have flown in the states but both mom and fussy little girl were VERY thankful for the fun distraction. (the bottle is what she is holding in her hands looking right at me.) What a cutie.
Can I just say, Central American babies are THE MOST GORGEOUS I have ever seen?! All of them so tiny with the fullest little heads of dark dark hair!
Here I am giving that same little girl some anti-parasitic medication.
Poor babies tummy was all swollen, no wonder she was fussy!
This specific medication will keep her parasite free for 6 months!
I would definitely say, this mission, was where my Spanish skills took leaps and bounds in comparison to any other environment I had been apart of in months prior. The people laughed, giggled, nudged, and stared at my accent....but they understood me so I didn't mind at all. I would joke and laugh with them when I had the time. They enjoyed having me repeat words to hear the funny way I said it....so I had to find some English words that made them look silly too. ;) My favorite was having them say "Bird" because their accent made it sound like "Beard" so after laughing for a bit I took the time to explain that "Birds flew in the sky and a Beard was hair on a mans face." (the wording for how I knew to explain it in Spanish. It's allot of working around the words you do know to describe words you don't.)
We had the privilege of working side by side with some members of the Guatemalan Military. A couple of them spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish, so we got to help each other ALLOT! They were so fun to work with and we had a blast comparing cultures.
The woman next to me is Sandra. We got to be pretty good friends that week!
This guy was HILARIOUS. His name was Leon.
He gave me some cool patches and said "Beard" the most trying to get it right. hahaha
(Side note, the people of Chiquimula are VERY short. Leon is tall in his city.)
After the people, and the perfect environment for forced new language practice, my next favorite thing was DEFINITELY the ORANGES!!!!!! They were delicious and EVERYWHERE just falling off the trees like no ones business!!!!! They were sweeter than tang when they were still green! I seriously don't know how I kept from getting sick after how many I ate every day. I will never be able to take oranges in the states seriously again. Even the white part of the orange (you know, the bitter part you peel as much off of as you can?) was necessary to the whole orange and helped cut down on the sweetness a little. We would cut them in half, like a bowl, and scrape the insides out with our teeth...or just eat the whole thing! SO. GOOD. The mothers standing around would laugh as I tried to cut one with my Gerber, take it from me, and have it peeled Central American Style in a matter of seconds.
I had a good laugh because the "Oranges" were green and the "Lemons" were orange! These little orange fruits were so sour every one else cringed when I said I wanted to try one. haha
Oh! I also got to ride in a helicopter for the first time! It was a long and exhausting trip, but there is no better way to see so much country in just four hours.
It was pretty crazy how close we flew to each other!
Our Pilot! He was funny. :)
Here is a picture of the world's most traveled fly on that day in history.
Watched him fly inside the hawk in Central Guatemala, and fly out in Central Honduras!
Okay, okay. So now I get to brag a LITTLE. I briefed The Guatemalan Ambassador on our mission and made it on the Guatemalan news. Everyone said I did a really great job and it felt pretty good.
Me thinking "oh this is cool, I can do this...."
aaaand this is two seconds later when all of his security and camera crews surrounded us and made our available space pretty much none. That poor mother there just wanted some vitamins and to de-worm her baby....she ended up waiting a little bit!
At first I thought the whole thing would be a silly photo op with this guy who is supposedly super important barging in, interrupting the mission, and wanting to take credit. I couldn't have been more wrong. He was so so kind and I could really see his love for the people.
Truly an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life!
The whole trip was such an adventure!
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