Very amusing staff meeting

Every two months here they have a staff meeting for all the departments. It's about 150 people all together, so it's a lot of folks to keep occupied. Instead of the Director standing in front of the cafeteria and giving us a boring speech for an hour, the meetings are meant more for building team spirit. Every two months one of the departments is responsible for running the meetings (no small task) and lucky us, this month was the clinic's turn!

Since our department is really small in comparison the others, we got to work with the psych department. I have a lot of friends in psych (no surprise ;) so I was happy to work with them, that is until they elected me to put on a comedy skit to open up the meeting. Yeah, not going to happen. I'd rather open up the meeting my eating my own heart. Public speaking is one thing, improve comedy is completely different (and something I'm well aware that I have zero talent for). Luckily I was able to put my foot down on that issue and we agreed on a different theme. We ended up splitting everyone up into teams of 16 and having them compete against each other through a series of games. I was super nervous about the whole thing, but it ended up going really well!

This is game I was in charge of. I forget the name of it, something in Spanish that I didn't understand, but basically each group holds hands in a circle. We hang a hula hoop on a set of their arms and they need to pass the hula hoop around the circle without letting go of their hands. It's a little more complicated than it sounds and the more folks you have, the more fun it is! Totally a fun game for the next family picnic ;) Your next family picnic that is, my family doesn't do this stuff.



This game elicited the most laughs. Each team stands on opposite sides of a barrier (in our case, a blanket). One member of each team approaches the blanket which is then quickly removed. The first member to identify the other person my name wins a point. I suck at names and everyone here knows me since I'm one of the only dudes, so I would have failed miserably if I was playing.



This was the most violent of all the games. Each team is assigned a color of balloon. They tie the balloons to their shoes and then proceed to attack members of the other team by smashing their feet down and attempting to pop the other teams balloons. Whatever team keeps the most balloons wins. It was fun in a totally anxiety-provoking way.



And finally, the bane of fat people everywhere. The thought that this game even existed haunted me through my entire school-gym life. A rope is tied neck level across two points and your team needs to lift each member over the rope until the entire team is on the opposite side of the rope. This can be done with a wall, too. As soon as this game was proposed I argued that it would embarrass people in front of their coworkers and we should choose something else, but they stuck to their guns. I was able to successfully argue a clause where one member of each team could start on the other side of the rope, though. God i would have hated to play that game. It seems like everyone had a really good time though. It was definitely the most challenging game (and did end with at least one employee being tossed over the rope, only to smash face-first into the ground on the other side) but it also seemed to give them the most sense of accomplishment and team congruency.



All together we had an awesome time. The winning team got a bag of shampoo (um, the prize options sucked. We had to use donations) and then we all had some ice cream. I had this weird yellow flavor. It tasted like butterscotch at first but then quickly morphed to this really bitter fruit flavor. Apparently it's some other new fruit that I haven't encountered here yet, but it seemed to be the favorite among everyone so I tried to at least look like I was enjoying it out of consideration for those who weren't able to snag one before they ran out.

Hemoglobin Blues

Since HIPPA doesn't mean squat here and I freely talk about the kids medical issues, I figured it'd only be fair to share my own problems too, especially since they may end up having a significant impact on the rest of my time here.

Apart from seeing my family while I was home, one of the big reasons I had to go back was to see my doctor. For several years I've had problems with my blood pressure and have had problems trying to keep my numbers down despite several types of medication. My doctor has been really perplexed about my body's resistance to the meds and even sent me to a neurologist last year to rule out some kind of brain tumor which may be impacting my pressure (which was ruled out, thankfully). I've been on a regimen of several meds for the last year and it seems to be having a decent effect. My numbers are routinely around 145/85; not great for someone on so much medication, but not horrible either. Well, after arriving to Guatemala my pressure skyrocketed. I was testing myself daily and getting numbers like 180/95, way higher than normal. I went through factors that I thought might be affecting it, but couldn't find anything that made sense. If anything, the change in diet should have been helping my pressure since I was eating a lot less salt (and a lot less food in general). I finally went to the doctor here in the clinic and talked to her about it. She assured me that my pressure was higher because of the altitude and it would settle down once my body was accustomed to it. I had considered this, but since I had been in Guatemala for almost two months at this point, I had thought that my body was already used to it. Sure enough though, after another few weeks my pressure started creeping back down and fell into my normal range. The one thing that persisted was me being red all the time. My face is always beet red, enough to warrant questions from the kids and staff here on an almost daily basis. I've always been really red in the face so I didn't put much thought to it.

When I came home, I told my doctor about the pressure stuff. She agreed that it was probably just the altitude and now that my body was used to it, I'd be okay. She gave me my meds for the rest of the year, ran the bi-annual blood work necessary for my hormone therapy and I was off.

Fast forward three days. While Mom and I were enjoying our own little vacation together to Cape May, she gets a phone call from a strange New York number. She was in the shower so I answered for her, and who's on the other line but my doctor. Now, it's never good news if your doctor is calling your emergency contact number. The doctor was super relieved once she realized she had gotten in contact with me, and proceeded to explain that my blood work had come back and showed that my hemoglobin levels were dangerously high. Short biology lesson: hemoglobin is a protein that's part of your red blood vessels. It's the muscle man of your blood; its job is to carry oxygen around your body. When people live in areas that have less oxygen (like high up on a mountain, like I do right now), their bodies don't get enough oxygen to keep them going. This is why when someone from a lower elevation (like NY) moves to a higher elevation (Guatemala) they get out of breath from very little exercise. Anyone who's been on Skype with me while I climb the stairs here knows all about this. In order to compensate, your body starts making a whole bunch more hemoglobin with the idea being that the more guys we have to carry the oxygen around, the more oxygen we'll be able to get into the body. Makes sense. Another thing that can cause increased hemoglobin production is testosterone. Since I need to take testosterone injections every week, I've always been at risk for high levels. Fun fact: hemoglobin is made up of iron which is what gives blood it's red color. This is why my face has been insanely red for the last few months.

I'm not going to go into detail about dangers of having high hemoglobin levels because it'll sound dramatic. I'm not worried about croaking or anything, but it's potentially bad, so it's important to get the levels down right away. I can't do anything about the elevation issue, so my only recourse: stop testosterone.

Yeah.

So, that's really crappy. It opens the door for lots of interesting/horrifying things happening in the near future. I suppose God felt that this experience was a little to easy for me so he wanted to up the difficulty level a bit :/ I'm hoping that I can water my blood down with liquids and help my levels that way (while watching my sodium levels) so I can get back on T as quickly as possible. My doctor said once I get my levels down to 17 I can start on a teeny tiny dose of T which will hopefully be enough to keep my body in check. (Right now my levels are 19). I'm going to have my blood drawn next week to get an idea of how I stand and then go from there. If my levels continue to be super high even without the T, I'm going to have to look at all my options closely. Health comes first naturally, and sadly living at a higher elevation doesn't leave me a lot of choices. Maybe I can have the kids dig me a hole to live in ;)

Finally some updates!

As you might have guessed by the lack of updates, getting settled back into my life in Guatemala has been a little time consuming. As soon as I got back they asked me to start covering the shifts of one of the nurses since she decided to leave a bit early for her vacation (this is the second time that's happened, guess they're pretty liberal with their vacation time here, or else they're taking advantage of having me here while they still can). I definitely like working the shifts better than my usual 9-5 job, so I'm happy right now. The only thing that sucks is when I have time off I don't feel like doing ANYTHING. I literally lay in my bed or in the hammock and read all day. I'm not complaining because that's pretty much my ideal life, but my blog has obviously suffered. Thankfully today I forced myself to get out of the house and head to Antigua with the sole intention of playing catch up on all my entries.

Today's pretty exciting for me. One of the new volunteers arrived in Guatemala this week and I just caught a fleeting glimpse of him during my shift the other day. I love meeting people knowing full well that they're going to have a huge role in your life for the next half-year. This guy is replacing Mark in the clinic, so we'll be working together every day and then living together in the house. Since we'll be spending a lot of time together, it's important that we get along, and so far first impressions are good. I literally met him for two minutes, but he strikes me physically as someone I would have hung out with in high school. He actually reminded me a lot of a kid Joe Calabrese I used to hang out with when I was younger. They don't look much alike, so I don't know where that came from, must be his energy or something. He kind of looks like this guy from Boardwalk Empire/Hedwig and the Angry Inch:



But his face was rounder I think. Maybe more like Michael Buble:



Every I see Michael Buble it makes me think of a guy Shawn McCann my Dad was friends with when I was younger. They both have baby faces. Anyway, he seems like a shy/nerdy kid which is exactly what I'm seeking in a housemate, so hopefully that'll turn out to be right :) He was only at NPH for one day, now he's in Antigua taking language classes until he starts with us on July 1st. Since I'm off today I asked him to meet me for a cup of coffee in Antigua after his class, so I should know a bit more about him in a few more hours :)

I know I've said it before but I really can't believe we're already halfway through our time here. We have ten new volunteers filtering in over the next two weeks to start their training, then all the old volunteers will be leaving in mid July. I'm sad to see some of them go. While I'm not super tight with any of them, there are some that I definitely consider my friends and I'll miss having them around.

The next few weeks will hold lots of changes here!

School Play in the Kindergarten

This happened right before I left for my vacation, so before I regale you with tales of the states, let me get caught up here with Guatemala stuff.

The title alone should give you a clue about how friggen cute this was. This year is the first year that the kindergarten kids have their own school. A big donor from Germany funded the construction of the Montessori school a few years ago and construction was completed just before I got here. The kids have been taking their classes in the building since then, but this was finally the "grand opening" celebration. Everyone was invited to go to the school for the party. Naturally I went since I need very little prompting to take a free half day of work (especially when cute kids are involved).

The kids were beyond adorable. They put on a play based on a book called "The Giant Turnip." At first I thought it was "James and the Giant Peach" and I got super excited. I was curious how they were going to pull off the rather complex props, but in my excited chatter the person sitting next to me told me that "nabo" meant turnip, not peach. I still secretly held onto the hope that the story was some kind of spanish version of James and the Giant Peach that took place inside of a turnip, but once the kids started coming out I realized it was totally different. My disappointed disappeared immediately because I LOVE children's books and I was totally excited to hear a new one. Let me recreate it for you...

(This little girl was the narrator. And also a duck.)



There once was a farmer who lived with his wife on a small farm. They had one cow, two pigs, three black cats, four geese and five chickens. The costumes were adorable! My favorites were the pigs.



One day when the farmer and his wife were collecting vegetables, they found a gigantic turnip! The farmer pulled and pulled, but it wouldn't come out of the ground. He asked his wife to help. They pulled and pulled but it wouldn't come out of the ground. They then proceed to ask each of the animal groups to come help them pull the turnip one by one.



With all of the animals helping, the gigantic turnip still wouldn't budge. Suddenly the farmer's wife had an idea. She went inside the house and returned with a hunk of cheese. Soon, a little mouse came out of the field. The farmer's wife asked him to help them, and he agreed. Omg, the mouse.



Naturally, with the help of the little mouse they're able to pull the turnip loose. The wife then promptly cooks it into a soup and serves it to everyone as a thank you for their help. It was a super cute story and the kids were really proud of themselves.

Not all the kids who are in the Montessori are kids who live at NPH. Several of the children are from the local community and just come for school during the day. Their families were there to watch which meant lots of random kids running around. One little boy about three or four years old kept running up to where the kids were putting on their show. The mom didn't seem to think that was a problem and didn't say anything to him about it. The Montessori teacher ended up getting frustrated with him interrupting, so she picked him up and plopped him on my lap. I spent the rest of the time keeping him occupied (which was easy once I designated him my photographer and let him have at it with my camera). Since I was busy watching him, I don't really know what was going on here, but I think the kids were doing some kind of farmer-dance or something.

Here's my boy Brayan in his costume! (This is the kid who had the hand surgery a few months ago)



After the dance, the teachers were presented with flowers for all their work and they showed a slide show of the Montessori being built. Then to thank everyone for their support, they served a squash soup! I ducked out of there to take advantage of some quiet clinic time but I heard the soup was awesome.

Randomness

I can't even walk into the cafeteria without someone asking me to take their picture

Ernesto (the kid who had his appendix taken out at the end of April) shows off his impressive scar (complete with eye balls)

I don't think I ever showed the inside of the kids dorms before. Here's the girls' house. Pretty typical, lots of posters and stuffed animals.

Because it's always pretty warm here a lot of the buildings have roofs that don't fully connect to the walls to allow for more airflow. Sadly the birds find this very convenient and decide to live indoors as well. Here is one of the boy's dorms with birds' nests in the rafters.

This is what your pantry looks like when you need to feed 500 people three times a day. Beans, rice and sugar: the staple foods of Guatemala (with corn)

And here's breakfast! I really hate that they get fed this cereal, but it's cheap.

Here's why it pays to be friends with the boy who serves the food: double serving of my favorite food here, pepian. Pork stew with potatoes and rice, so friggen delicious.

We also found an awesome hole-in-the-wall empanada place in Antigua. It's super small and kind of dinky looking, but man do they have good emanadas. Super cheap too! $1.50 for each. These are chicken and mozzarella cheese with a spicy red sauce inside (not that you could tell that by the picture.)

And despite my love for these TWO food items in Guatemala, I continue to be thoroughly disappointed by the culinary options here. On the bright side, I've had to add a total of seven holes to my belt since I've been here and I'm pretty sure I've dropped two pant sizes. That should make future jean shopping a bit less challenging. Here's me showing where my belt was when I arrived here (I've since cut off the excess from the end of the belt, it wasn't always that short)

Right after I took that picture I was waiting for the bus to Antigua with Stephanie and Charlotte. I wanted to show them how much weight I lost, so I walked up to where they were sitting and said, "Hey guys, I want to show you something I just took a picture of..." as I was undoing my belt. They both got wide eyed and panicked looking until I realized how that sounded and assured them I wasn't about to be sexually inappropriate with them.

Flowers! Look how pretty. There's a rose nursery right next to the orphanage that sells rose plants for super cheap, so we have gorgeous rose bushes all over the place. These ones are rather plain compared to some of the awesome bright orange and peach ones that are here, but these blooms were the prettiest of the bunch at the time.

After my awesome Mom sent me some emergency cash, I celebrated by going out to dinner with some of the other volunteer. Crepes? Don't mind if I do.

Me in the position I maintain for 70% of my job: sitting in the pharmacy looking at crap on the internet.

And me giving a charla to the kids

My captive audience

This is what it looks like to prep liquid meds for all the kids. Most get pills, these syringes are just for the babies. (Sorry Tia Rosa, bad photo)

Me prepping meds next to my very petite Guatemalan friend

These kids always visit me while I'm working, but I suspect they're just using me for my movie collection ;)

That's all for tonight! Tomorrow I'm heading home to visit my family and friends for ten glorious days! Time to go pack and get some sleep. Can't wait to see some of my most loyal readers in person over the next few days :)

AHHHH!!

ONE

MORE

DAY

:D

(Also, I need to take more pictures with Jamie and Kayla that don't involve my gut hanging out)

Sex

There are very few things in my life that give me more pleasure than teaching kids about sex. They're friggen hilarious. They think they know so much, yet half the time they've been fed a ton of bullshit and it's my job to sort out the good information from the bad. I thought being in a Catholic organization would make it impossible to do my workshops the way I wanted to do them, but thankfully the woman in charge of psychology here (and therefore in charge of overseeing sexual education) is a totally awesome progressive social worker, so she was telling us to include information about homosexuality, contraceptives and masturbation before I could even ask about it.

My friend Vero and I teamed up for these charlas as well. We figured it would be good to have a girl and guy to answer questions after each class, that way they could get different points of view and hear something from an "expert" on each body (though the idea of me being an expert on male bodies is kind of hilarious). Vero and I volunteered to teach all the kids above the age of 14 (probably close to 160 kids) and I'm also in charge of sex ed for the special needs kids (though I have yet to figure out how that's going to work, so all advice from my Willowglen and social worker friends is very welcome).

We meet each group once a month in their sections (that way they're already separated by age and gender) and present a topic related to sex. After the presentations we have open question time where the kids can throw out any wild thing they want to talk about. This week Vero and I decided to allow the kids to write down their questions so we could read them anonymously, so the kids are being a lot more open which is cool (before it seemed like only the more outspoken kids were asking questions while the shy ones were being left in the dark). I thought I would share some with y'all...

-Is it safe to masturbate?

-Does masturbating give you cancer?

-Can girls masturbate?

-HOW do girls masturbate?

-How many times a day can a guy masturbate before he gets cancer? (Do you see a theme here?)

-Why are some people sterile?

-How does someone know if they're sterile? (I was surprised by how many times this question came up. I guess it's because having babies is such a huge part of the culture here? Not really sure. Interesting though.)

-If I pull out can my girlfriend get pregnant? (the classic question)

-Can she get pregnant during her period?

-If she keeps her underwear on during sex will it block the sperm?

-Isn't it true that if my girlfriend gives me head and then we have vaginal sex afterwards, her saliva will kill all the sperm that come out and she can't get pregnant? (AGHHHHHHH!!!!)

They were in an absolute tizzy when I told them that masturbation was healthy and would help them learn about their bodies. Naturally I made sure to talk about the importance of privacy and respecting others. I was told that in one of the sections the boys "race" each other to see who can "finish" first. I've been warning the other sections against that and today I accidentally told them not to "share" (compartir) during masturbation instead of not to "compete" (competir). Of course they thought that was the most hilarious thing in the world, but then again so did I, hahaha. Overall I'm loving these classes and I love the fact that over the next few months, the kids will continue to become comfortable with me and therefore continue to ask everything that's on their minds.