More randomness!

All the funding for NPH comes from donations (mostly from Germany, Canada and the States). Aside from one-time large donations, we also have a Godparents program where folks can "adopt" a kid here, write letters back and forth with them and get pictures once a year (all for the low price of $25!). All of the money that's collected goes towards the basic upkeep of the kids: food, housing, bills; all the boring stuff. If the kids want to do other stuff during the year they hold fundraisers. The fundraisers pretty much go on all year long and most of the kids mostly sell homemade ice cream, cookies and desserts. Needless to say, I love it when I see the fundraiser kids walking by. This week we've had a few kids in the clinic recovering from various operations so Tia Rosa has been buying up bucketfuls of ice cream to give them (she's really sweet :) She always gets one for each of the staff too, so we've been having a mid-morning ice cream treat almost everyday this week :D

The ice cream is so organic and lovely. It's made by toasting fresh coconut, adding cinnamon and fresh milk from the cows, mixing it all together in a small plastic bag and freezing it. The Guatemalans have integrated plastic bags into their culinary scene; a lot of times when you buy juice or water from a deli or restaurant it comes in a sandwich bag instead of a bottle/cup. They also serve jello and ice cream like that. The way to eat/drink these things is the same: you bite a hole in the corner of the bag and suck out the contents. It took me a while to get used to it (and I still usually manage to look like a slob during the process) but I'm definitely more accustomed to it now.

Anyway, this coconut ice cream is hands down the best ice cream I've ever had before and an absolute STEAL at .15 cents a bag.

Me enjoying my treat :)

Okay, more randomness. We found a cool used bookstore in Antigua. Actually I take that back, it's not that cool because I feel like their books are grossly overpriced ($14 for a book?! What is this, the US?!) BUT they do have a cool policy that guarantees they'll buy back your book when you're done for half the price. They had a cool light in here that I thought my Mom would get a kick out of. It's an armadillo shell!

Turns out my declaration of the start of the rainy season was a bit premature. We haven't had a good storm in two weeks, only a small sprinkle every few days. It's cool though, whenever it's about to rain the sky gets this really pink cast to it. It makes everything seem very clear and crisp.

Here's Gustavo, one of the special needs kids who lives integrated with the other kids. I don't spend a lot of time with him but he liked my hat the other day and wanted a picture with it.

The boys have been playing with my Photo Booth. It's so easy to entertain teenagers.

I don't follow soccer but here its HUGE (please read that in a Donald-Trump-impersonation since that's how it sounded in my head). There was some big game between Madrid and Barcelona or someone else, I don't know. All I know is that all the kids piled into the cafeteria and we played it on the projector. Talk about a loud cheering section. It was funny to watch their reactions though.

I'm still researching Homesteading a lot, especially in terms of small-scale mortgage-free housing. Look at this awesome dude! I want to be just like him when I'm older :)

Taking full advantage of some cuddle time

Food: A photographic journey

It's funny how when two normal events line up just right in your life, they can become truly magical. As I've been bitching about for the last three weeks, my wallet was stolen. There have been several consequences to this event, one of which is an inability to buy food. Do not fret! I have not wasted away yet (though I HAVE earned the nickname of the Pauper). The school supplies me with enough food to survive, though it's not a joyful existence... Ah, but I jest. The food here is fine. It's not good, but it's fine. Adequate. However, this means that I now have no choice but to eat rice and beans twice a day and the supplemental "real food" is a thing of the past. No more chicken stir fry. No more tuna fish sandwiches. No more scrambled eggs. It's been rice and beans for two weeks now and I'm not very happy.

Luckily I have my visit home to look forward to and as luck would have it, my family has asked me to compile a list of foods that I'd like to eat while I'm back. This couldn't come at a better (worse?) time. Forget my homesteading blogs, forget facebook. My new time killer is looking up pictures of food on google. I stare at the forty images of pasta in front of me and imagine the taste of it; knowing that SOON it will be mine. Without further adieu, I present to you... my food list.

I don't care that there isn't a healthy item on this list. I plan on having a week and a half of unbridled indulgence; a reminder of all the amazingly awful things that await my return. I hope you all join me (and bring me gifts of food)

My really, really near-death experience

I originally planned to keep this story to myself since it involves yet another really dumb-ass move on my part, but then I reminded myself that part of the reason for this blog is to look back and reflect on all these events. It doesn't matter if I'm an idiot; I have to learn from it and move on. So let me start by assuring you that my lesson has been learned: I will no longer ride the bus when it's full. Let me tell you how I reached this conclusion.

Way back when, I mentioned that another part of the volunteers' responsibilities was something called Proyecto Familiar. Though I'm lazy and would rather stay home, I actually do really like this part of my job. The basic function for Proyecto is to take a group of brothers and sisters out so they can spend some alone time together away from all the other kids. Since I'm super tight with my siblings, encouraging bonding between the kids like this is really important to me.

Each month we have to do two Proyectos. Because of Kermes two weeks ago, I had to postpone my Proyecto to today. The kid I was assigned to this time around is actually a really nice kid. He works in the kitchen and seems like a friendly enough guy. He approached me a few days ago and asked if we could have our Proyecto in Chimal, the small city that's nearby. Normally we do our activities either on NPH grounds or in the local town, Parramos. Going to Chimal means that we would all have to take the bus which is a big pain in the butt. He and his brothers wanted to meet up with their sister too though, and since she is currently attending high school in Chimal, I agreed that we could meet her where it would be convenient for her.

After that was agreed to, the kid told me that he wanted to do go out to a restaurant. I straight up laughed in his face. Each kid is given Q5 for Proyecto, equivalent to about .80 cents. Usually each of the kids can buy a soda or an ice cream for that. SOMETIMES a volunteer will supplement the Proyecto, but I was definitely not in a financial position to do that, plus I barely know the family. I tell the kid I can't afford it and he assures me that he's going to take care of it. Immediately I can see how this is going to end: me trying to apologize to a waiter in my broken Spanish while the kid coasts out of there unscathed. I asked him again if he had enough and he said he did and all would be well.

So this morning we meet up and set out. It's three boys in total, ages 8, 11 and 17. We're running slightly behind schedule by the time we get going, so I ask the kid what time we're meeting his sister. "Oh, I said we'd meet them at 11:30." Hmmm. I asked who was "them" and he casually informed me that the reason we didn't have to worry about paying for the meal was because his family was going to meet us there, namely his father, step mother and step siblings. Now let me just remind everyone out there that while NPH was once strictly a home for children without parents, it has since evolved to allow all children without mothers in. From that point, it has AGAIN evolved to be a place for children from abusive or neglectful families. I do not know this kid. I don't know why their family was placed here. Is dad a raging alcoholic? Is step mom abusive? Not a clue. I immediately start cursing to myself and wonder what my best course of action is. I'm pretty sure that this is against the rules of NPH, but I'm not TOTALLY sure. I don't want to cancel the trip and make the kids go home if I'm just overreacting. I ask them if they had ever met their father on a Proyecto before and they said that they had. i knew that didn't necessarily mean that it was allowed, but at least it fed into my doubt enough to decide to go on.

We get down to the bus stop and wait. And wait. And wait. usually the buses run every 15 min, but for whatever reason they were super slow. We waited 45 mintes before a bus finally came, and by that time there was a huge crowd waiting to board. The kids were all freaking out because we had no way of contacting the family to let them know we were running late and I could feel my anxiety getting crazy as well. When the bus came, everyone piled on and it was clear to see that we weren't going to fit. I had to tell the kids that we had to wait for the next bus. Definitely not good news, but we had little choice. Luckily, the next bus came just 10 min later. The three boys jumped on the bus and I waited to board. Guatemala is kind of awful when in comes to waiting in lines. It's pretty no-holds-barred; when the doors open, the line turns to a blob and people try to push their way through. I'm not a very domineering person and I'm certainly not one to push a woman and baby out of the way so I can try to get a seat on the bus (even if they are pushing me and acting like total jerks).

So the kids are on the bus, looking at me standing on the ground letting other people board and they start freaking out telling me to get on the bus. I tell them it's ok, to go sit down. I figured even if I let all the ladies get on, I can always be the last one on. And eventually that actually becomes my goal, to be the last one on the bus. The ladies are pushing their two and three year olds onto the bus stairs even though there's CLEARLY no room. It was even to the point where the bus-helper-dude told them it was a bad idea and they should wait for the next bus (and I've NEVER seen that happen before. Those dudes are blood thirsty for money.) I saw the little kids getting on and thought, well they certainly can't stand right next to the open door, I'll stand here and keep everyone inside. Yeah, well kudos for good motivations Shawn, but you're an idiot. The bus was so packed that even all the standing room was taken up. There were probably about 20 people crammed on the stairs alone. By the time I "got in" the bus, really the only part of me that was in were my toes. I was standing on the very first step up with my toes, the rest of my foot dangling above the road. I had watched the bus-money-dude take this position tons of times before. I knew there was a little piece of metal that hung out above the front wheel that I could put my foot on, plus there was a bar on the inside of the bus above the door. I grabbed the bar and away we went.

It took all of about five seconds to realize how horrible this position was. The only thing keeping me inside the bus was my upper body strength (of which I have none.) The first time we went around a curve and I had to grip on for dear life, I went into a mini panic. There was no where for me to go; no way to get a better grip than the one I had. I started freaking out internally which in turn made my hands sweaty. Every time we went around a curve I would stare straight ahead at the kids and focus all my strength into my arms. I looked like a weight lifter; clenched teeth, bulging veins. When we would get to a straight away I'd wipe my hands on my shirt to try to give myself a little better traction. The people on the bus could see I was in trouble, they were all staring at me wide eyed as if they knew what was going to happen. I considered telling the driver to stop even though we were in the middle of nowhere on a curvy mountain road, but then I'd be abandoning the kids on the bus. I didn't even know how to get to this restaurant, it's not like I could meet up with them. I said a prayer for my family should anything happen, then I heard a noise and looked up. The bus-money-dude (who had been riding on TOP of the friggen bus this whole time) reached down from the roof, grabbed the frame of two of the windows and then swung down like Spiderman. He literally had his two feet flat against the side of the bus with his hands grabbing the window frames as if he was going to spring off into the woods. I thought, "This man is going to save my life. He used his Spidey senses to know I was in imminent danger and now he's going to perform a miracle and make enough space inside this bus for me to get inside. He does an impossibly graceful swing to where I'm clutching on for dear life, holds out his hand and asks for my bus fare. It took about 0.5 seconds for me to use my laser vision on him and burn a hole into his face. He must have gotten the hint because he then bypassed me and started collecting from other people. Mind you that there was no room for him to actually enter the bus, so he did this by swinging from window to window on the outside of the bus and having people pass their money out to him.

Two minutes later the bus stopped and a ton of people got off. I clawed my way inside and told the kids I hated the fucking bus and would never ride on it again (which they thought was simply hilarious.) We got to Chimal without further incident and ended up having a nice lunch with his family (who turned out to be really great folks.) They brought me fruit as a thank you for helping to take care of their kids. These are some kind of lychee. The asian ones don't have the fuzzy look going on, but they taste pretty similar.

Here's one of the brothers enjoying some pizza

A family shot

Agh! A giant!! (Sorry, this happens so rarely, I need to take full advantage while I can)

So end of story: nice family, horrible trip. Going to stick to NPH property for a while and try to keep myself alive (at LEAST until after my vacation back to the states)

Baptismo

Originally my plans for todays consisted of laying in bed and reading with the ocasional snack break thrown in, but as I was showering this morning I heard the other volunteers talking about the fact that the babies were getting baptized today so I figured I would check that out (and yeah, there's very little privacy in our bathrooms, the door is more for show than function).

The baptism is done once a year, so there was a rather large group of kids. Some of the staff brought their own babies too which was nice, it was a good way to reinforce the idea that we're all family here. You'll notice that the ages of the kids vary a lot, that's because this is for all the kids who moved here this year and weren't baptized already.

Juan Carlos and I try to keep ourselves amused while we wait for mass to start

But luckily we had Emerson and Alex at hand to distract us

Here's Aury in her little dress! So cute!

Because there were so many people, the priest kind of did all of them as a group. Actually now that I think of it, I think that's how they do them in the States too. He did a blessing over each kid and then later did the water part individually, but all the question/answer stuff was done together. I love all their outfits. Adorable.

The altar boys get ready to the lead the group up

And all the kids marching up to the altar.



After the baptism I went down to my house for breakfast (yay!! Juan Carlos paid me yesterday so I bought eggs! Delicious). Afterwards Martin and Alex visited and we played a German card game called Ligretto. It's kind of a game of Uno if you had to think fast the whole time. It was super fun, I'm going to order my own set. It was kind of funny to see how people leave their mark here too. An old volunteer had given it to them and here they were teaching an American to play a German game. It was pretty funny.

I spent the rest of my day watching Wall-e with my section. It was a fun day but I need to make sure tomorrow is more relaxing (though that's already looking doubtful). I don't like it when weekends go by without any down time :(

Torture

I have been waiting patiently for the last two years as Blizzard put the final touches on the newest installment of the Diablo video game. WHY must the internet put banners everywhere rubbing it in my face that it's being released next week and I won't be home to play it for another 8 months?! I wish the internet connection was better here :( And I wish I could rationalize paying $20/month for a game subscription while I'm technically unemployed.

A really long-winded five month check in

It seems kind of funny to be writing a five month check in the same week I turned in my three months evaluation, but that's the truth of it (since I came a month early for my language lessons and since Guatemala in general runs at a much slower pace). Based on the grumbling I heard this last week, I'm one of the few people who thinks the evaluations are a good tool. I spent three days completing mine and while I didn't shy away from how my experience was going, I didn't want to use it as a venting session either. After all, why bother keeping a blog then? :) So here's my totally honest five month evaluation of my time in Guatemala (btw, for those who are wondering I'm on day 151 of 416, so about 36% of the way through).

First of all, let me say that I was definitely unprepared for what to expect here. I can't blame NPH on this (though I DO think they should have more support/education for folks before they come to the country.) I think the best thing I could have done for myself would have been to do more research about Guatemala before I left. I checked their laws around GLBT issues just for safety's sake, but other than that I was completely in the dark when I got here. I didn't understand the issues facing folks here (even now I'm only starting to learn this) so I feel like I made some mistakes in the beginning of my trip that I would avoid making now. For example, despite the increased privacy and convenience factor, I wouldn't have switched back into living at the school for a whole month. As the main means of income for the host family I was staying with, me leaving after a week when they were under the impression I was staying for five probably had a significant impact on them. I know you can't learn everything from the internet and being here on the ground learning first hand is way more powerful than reading a blurb on Wikipedia, but I feel like starting this trip with a little more preparation under my belt would have been helpful.

Speaking of preparation, language, language, language! This has held me back more than anything else so far. At five months in I feel like I'm FINALLY at the point where I can have a normal conversation with someone. Ordering food, buying things from the store and running errands are a breeze for me now; I can easily carry on friendly conversations with store owners and people I meet along the way. I still have some problems with more complicated things, like navigating doctor's appointments and answering phones. (For some reason my comprehension level drops in half when I'm on the phone. I guess it shows that I'm relying a lot more on body language and environmental factors than I realize). Also my hearing sucks, even when I'm speaking English on the phone I have to ask people to repeat themselves all the time. But anyway, five months. It took me five months to get to this point, which means for the last five months I've been floundering around sounding like a kindergardener with a speech impediment. I've now graduated to the weird uncle who says things at inappropriate times. When the kids say something I don't understand I just ignore them and ask if they want to hear a joke instead. The point is, I'm finally building relationships because I can talk to people and they can get a feel for my personality. I'm almost halfway through my trip and only now am I starting to bond with people. I feel like I stunted myself by not having a good handle on Spanish before my trip. If I could go back I would come to Guatemala a month earlier and spend two months in full-time language school.

The last thing I wish I could do-over is my wallet escapade. Dear Lord, it's hard living without money! I have the $15 a week that I get here but that's gone within a day, usually on buying popcorn or snacks for the kids. My fridge has been bare for weeks so I only eat what the kids eat in the cafeteria (the food has surprisingly been growing on me). I dream of buying a chicken sandwich at Burger King. I miss sitting in cafes on the weekend and updating my blog over a cup of coffee. But naturally there's a plus side to this, too. I feel like the ease in which I could switch from volunteer to tourist has been stripped from me, forcing me to live like the kids here. I no longer have the option to go out with my friends and have dinner or drinks. If I want to do something, I sit outside and read or play cards with someone. I don't think it's a coincidence that I've made several more friends here in the weeks since my wallet was stolen, it's forcing me to socialize more. Rainbows and butterflies aside though, I want my money back.

Okay, I didn't intend to only talk about things that I wish I could change. Let's get down to the real stuff now. I had a few goals when I chose to take this trip: help kids, become fluent in Spanish, get experience working internationally, and decide if I want to go back to school for public health and work internationally in the future. There are a lot of secondary goals too like setting a good example and learning about a new culture, but those are the big ones.

So, helping kids. I can check that one off, I definitely feel like I'm helping the kids here. In some ways its been harder than I expected. It's tough to spend all day working for no pay, then have a bunch of kids call you names and give you shit. It's hard to do keep my motivation up when I feel like the kids don't care that I'm there, or (on really bad days) when I feel like they don't deserve it. But then I'll get one kid who says thank you to me and that keeps me going for a while longer. I'm starting to get to know the kids better now and choosing to spend more time with the kids who are appreciative, shy and polite. Those are the kids that I want to dedicate my time to helping because they're the ones I can relate to (though I know the troubled kids probably need even more support). Bottom line is, I go home feeling good about my day far more often than I go home grumbling, and that's a good thing.

As I mentioned before, my Spanish is definitely improving. I can carry out a conversation with little problem. I frequently need people to repeat what they said, but I can usually get it the second time around. I'm not to the point where I would consider myself fluent, but I'm confident I'll be there before the end of the year.

I'm getting tons of experience working internationally which has been pretty much exactly as I imagined it. There are struggles to working in an under-funded, donation-dependent clinic but I feel that my personality is well suited for this kind of environment. Working in home care was definitely a good foundation for this kind of work. When you're in someone else's house caring for their children, you need to learn to balance your medical knowledge with the family's wishes. I've had homes without adequate supplies who need to reuse items in order to make them last through the year. It's something that wouldn't happen in a hospital but when you get under another person's roof you need to understand that the same medical rules are in place but the referee has changed. Things are going to be allowed now that weren't allowed before, and as a nurse you need to understand the medical rational behind enforcing these rules and try to perserve them under less than ideal circumstances. That's the same thing as working in a clinic. You don't always have gauze to clean wounds, you dont always have bandaids or syringes or even the medicine you need. You do the best you can with what you're given. The other way that this is similar to home care is that you need to work within the boundaries of someone else's lifestyle, you need to take the environment/culture/education into account when trying to care for patients and offer care that falls within their guidelines and is more likely to be accepted/followed up with. It would be silly to tell someone here to buy multivitamins for their kids because they can't afford them, its not going to happen. When we develop a care plan for someone we need to take into account that fact that they might not have access to clean water or electricity. Unless we're handing them medicine, chances are they can't afford to go buy some. Many people here are unable to read, so handing someone a flyer with instructions isn't going to help very much. It's challenging and I enjoy that.

That said, as of right now, I don't think I'm going to pursue this as a career. I enjoy the work, but it's hard. It's hard to work all day and then go home and miss your friends and family. I'm glad for the experiences that I'm having here, but I find myself more focused on going home and getting back to how things were. I miss my family, I miss dating, I miss eating something that is far removed from black beans.

I'm interested to see how the next few months of this experience will be. They say that the homesickness wears off around the halfway point and I can see the impact that my language is already having on my relationships; I'm sure that will continue. Maybe as I make more friends here I'll like it more. I see the other volunteers, the ones who will be leaving in two more months, and so many of them don't want to leave. I wonder if I'll eventually swing over to that side. For now, I'm happy to take what I can from each day and continue to count down the rest of my time here.

Disembowelment at the clinic

First of all, the kid who had his appendix taken out the other day is doing great. Everything went well with his surgery and he came back to NPH today. He's going to stay in the clinic for a week just so we can keep an eye on things, but he's in good spirits and his wound looks clean, so hopefully everything will be routine with him. He won't be lonely because right now the clinic is filled to capacity. We have a couple girls with fevers, a boy with a sprained ankle and another boy who had his appendix taken out at the same hospital on Friday. This is a story about that boy.

So this kid ALSO had his appendix taken out last week, only his had already perforated (popped) and spilled the infection into his abdomen. They took out the appendix and put him on antibiotics. Things looked good for the first few days here except that he was complaining about an unusually high amount of pain. We thought he was just trying to milk the attention, so we spent a little extra time with him and just kept a close eye. Well, today after I worked a bit, I went to say hello to him. He tells me that he has more swelling around his incision site so I tell him to lift his shirt. It looked like this kid swallowed a ferret. There was so much swelling behind his incision site that it was pushing his skin out a good two inches. The swelling went down past the length of the incision, in total a length of about six inches. I knew that he had one hell of an infection brewing back there. I noticed his stitched had been taken out and he told me that the doctor had seen him this morning to remove the stitches and knew about the swelling. The doctors have already left for the day, so I figure I can talk the doctor in the morning to see what the game plan is for him.

I always feel bad when the kids are in the clinic since it's painfully boring there, so I bring in my computer and we all pile onto the beds to watch a movie. Felipe is sitting next to me when all of a sudden I hear him say "Uh oh." I look over. His hand is clutching his side and blood is pouring out of him. There was so much pressure behind the wound that it popped open the incision. The whole bottom of his shirt is already saturated in blood. I grab his hands and walk him to the examination room. By the time we get there, puss and blood is streaming down his legs onto the floor. I lay him down and the other nurse comes in to help me. The poor kid was freaking out so we had to try to calm him down while we drained the wound. The nurse would put a gauze underneath the wound, push on his abdomen and a quarter cup of vanilla custard would come out. It was without a doubt the most disturbing thing I've seen as a nurse so far.

After about ten gauzes, we were finally getting only blood back. This is usually a good sign, the only problem was we couldn't get the bleeding to stop. We both looked at each other and went to the other room to discuss our options. We both felt that he might have popped his internal stitches and needed to go back to the emergency room, but when he heard this he started getting really scared and upset. We called Doctor Nicole who is actually a surgeon in Germany. She came to check on him right away and decided that he didn't need to go back to the hospital (much to all of our relief). She had to tear open his skin a bit to let the wound drain (which looked really really fucking painful) but he was feeling much better in a few hours.

Ok, so it wasn't technically a disembowelment, but it was still pretty cool. By cool, I of course mean educational and interesting, not cool that the poor kid's stomach exploded. And I had to explain to the other poor kid afterwards that that was NOT going to happen to him, so he didn't have to worry. But it looks like that other kid just bought himself an extra week in the clinic :/