Finishing up the second team

Today is the last day of work here in the village. The team will be heading to Guatemala City tonight for a red-eye flight home.

The clinic team has seen many patients and done well child checkups on almost all of our sponsored children. Only 5-10 children have not been seen. That is a huge help to us making sure our kids stay healthy.

The construction team has worked really hard all week putting up the walls of Dulce's house. They have also almost finished the bathroom for the other family in our sponsorship program.

Rebecca in the hole - digging dirt to fill in Dulce's house

we brought corn to the mill yesterday to make the dough for tortillas

the tortilla dough

two team members with adorable kids

Elida and Lesly - sisters

Continuing Well Child Checks and Construction

This second St. Joe's team is working hard on construction. They are putting up the walls of Dulce's house and have started a bathroom for another family in our sponsorship program. They will finish the bathroom tomorrow.

the start of the bathroom

construction materials being stored in the family's kitchen

the team eating lunch with our guatemalan staff

Hector in for his well child check

progress being made on the bathroom

Mailin -  a little girl from the family who is getting the bathroom

In the clinic we are almost done with the well child exams. The nursing students are getting experience triaging for the two Rns and our guatemalan doctor.

Here and keeping on

We said goodbye to Saint Joe's last weekend and shortly afterwards Gordon College from the north shore of Massachusetts arrived. Also 3 RN's from the new england area arrived. The college has been working on a few houses in Canaan, as well as finishing the local toilet that Saint Joe's started. One of the student team leaders from Gordon is Haitian-American. It was fun to see her sharing her favorite Creole songs and giving language lessons with her team last night after dinner. Today sthe visiting American nurses are helping in the clinic and the rest of the folks are out at construction, minus a few who stayed back to work on on-site projects.

Phillipe, Mo, Nick, and Farnel (in background).

RN Sarah and Gordon student team leader Pharvyana (translating for Sarah)

In between teams

Today the team worked in the village in the morning then came back to the hotel. They had pizza for lunch and then loaded into the buses to drive to Guatemala City. They got to go to the zoo in the capital before getting dropped off at the airport. It was a great team and they got a lot of work done. They were kind, caring, hard-working and fun to be around.

The second St. Joe's team arrived this evening along with Kelly (a clinic rotation nurse) and the Hackman family. They will continue the well child checkups, see patients, and work on construction.

We are looking forward to another great week.

Feliz Año Nuevo from Guatemala!!

Happy New Years!!

Yesterday the team worked in the village. The nursing students along with their advisor were flying through the well-child checkups.

The construction team started mixing cement and pouring the foundation. Today they finished it and started with the cement blocks.

Since today was a national holiday (New Years) we had a little bit of change in schedules. And we learned a few things:

1. We learned that the chicken buses do NOT run on New Years. Luckily we know a guy with a pickup truck who does

2. In the children's program we learned how to make wooden spoon puppets and how to control many kids who all wanted soccer balls

3. Some of the team learned how hard it is to put tape in a straight line 

4. We learned how to make a traditional guatemalan dish - Pepian Chicken with rice. They made and delivered 16 plates to elderly and sick people in the village. 

5. We learned that practice makes (almost) perfect

6. We learned that we need a LOT more practice at making tortillas

7. We learned that it is harder than it seems

8. We learned how to distinguish a guatemalan tortilla from a gringo one

9. Colleen learned the technique

10. The team learned how much kids love a piñata

Welcome to 2015! May we keep learning from and loving the people that PID is serving.