Currently battling....

evil internet problems. My computer doesnt seem to want to work anywhere, so I'm on a laptop at Solomon's Porch.

Anyway, I'm back from Chichi and I am really tired. I would be completely and totally ok with going back to my apartment and sleeping until monday, but that's just not like me.

I think going to work with the Florida HoH group was a good choice. They were cool people and it got me out of Pana for a few days which was nice as well. I pretty much worked triage in their clinics all 3 days that I was with them and that was a lottttttttt of talking. How do you feel? What hurts? How does it hurt? How long has it been hurting? Is that all? Are you taking any medicine? Do you have any allergies to medicine? How many pregnancies have you had? (Along with many more personal questions that I wont go in to)

Other than triage, I got to have a really cool experience last night. I went with Jose and Scott (a Florida Firefighter) to the clinic at Camanchaj to educate the bomberos voluntarios about delivering babies*insert joke here.* I took some pictures and did a little bit of translation help when Jose didnt know exactly what something meant. But I really thought it was great to see more go on with a trip than pulling teeth or handing out medicines (although these are important in building trust with the people, they are not usually long term fixes.) Instead, this was educating those who can in turn go out and help the people where they live repeatedly, and aid in what might not be as easy to do otherwise.

More later,

Parker

Interesting Fact: Although the national language of Guatemala is Spanish, there are 23 Mayan dialects spoken all over the country, and I understand .01 of them. I know a few words out of 2 of them and that is just about it. As a result, any time I get outside of the bigger cities, I can only talk with a few of the people who actually know Spanish. Its kind of frustrating....