To the Lake and the coast

Man! So much has happened in our story since I last wrote. Where to begin is the real question...

 

Well, Saturday Garrett and I went to clinic with Sherri and then had lots of time to chill at home and hang out with the family. All of the chickens were safe this time though...Sunday was really exciting in a lot of ways. We went to Chi Chi to go to the market and shop. I was able to find some good stuff at "good prices" from some very friendly vendors. Then we went to the hotel and showered again! Highlight of the day...lol. We got home just in time for them to dress me up in their Mayan garb before going to church. This consists of a top that tucks into a wrap around skirt that is tied with a very tight belt around your natural waist. While it was fun for a while, it occured to me later that the top dyed my hands, watch, and arms a light pink color...Oh well. The more color on me the merrier...right?

 

After our 2 and a half hour church service, I thought I was going to get to go home to change but boy was I wrong. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable and I w feeling a little faint and my stomach hurt, but I climbed into the back of a truck as instructed with my family and we went down the hill. We went to a funeral for the mother of one of the elders at church. No one paid attention though...the kids in my family ran around crazy and my family just sat and talked. By the time we left, I was feeling really quite faint and didn't know if I could make it up the hill to get home. It was steep. But I did and when I got there after a few more pictures, I took off the skirt and top and put on some scrubs. I thought I would feel better but I didn't. To make a long story short I got pretty sick that night and didn't feel good the next day...

 

The next day though, we went to Lake Atitlan for our "tourist day". Although I didn't feel quite right, it was so much fun. We went on a boat ride  to some hot springs that were really just a warmer side of the freezing cold lake. We had lunch (they had lunch) and then we shopped. Luckily, Garrett didn't feel like doing much shopping either so we kinda sat and wandered around at a good pace. That night I had so much fun with my family though, they were so great. They wanted to learn some English and the ladies knitted with me (I taught them) and that was just great.

 

Tuesday was our last day in clinic in the highlands and I got to be a denist again. I really like that (maybe too much). I got to give three shots (in the mouth) and then got to pull more teeth. It was great! We got home early so I rested and packed. That night, for our last night, my family asked me what I wanted to eat and then ended up makeing the most amazing fried chicken I have ever had! It was soooo amazing but i couldn't eat too much of it. I took lots of pictures with my family and then said goodnight! It was a little bit sad, but I was ready to have a new bedbug-free bed. For those of you who were wondering, I had bed bugs and those were the bites that I have talked about. i am sorry for that oversight as far as blogging is concerned.

 

Wednesday we switched with the team at the coast. We me at Wendy's and had a great burger before heading out to the coast. After that we went to church in Chicacao and then to our new homes. My new home is so amazing!!!! It has a floor, a ceiling, a TV (world cup starts tomorrow), a fridge, and so many more things that I love I can't even count. I had veggies last night and pancakes this morning! I love it!

 

Besides the house, my family is great! Everyone is so nice and I have a little brother that is so precious! He is 11 which means he is the same age (more or less) as my mom's fifth graders that I love working with. They love soccer and there is a TV in the eating room so we aregoing to be watching a lot of soccer. They told me that I should skip clinic tomorrow to watch the first game! Lol. I can't but that would be fun. They are soooo nice.

 

Today was also amazing! We got to come to Clinica Ezell and watch surgery. I got to scrub in on one case and feel the muscles and arteries inside the girls arm. It was amazing!!!! Then I got to cut the sutures and I just love love love it. I got to watch some other cases and have been doing a lot of translating. It is good. I am able to do some of my chaplaincy stuff in Spanish and it is great! I talked to them as they were going to sleep and waking up because the nurses with the team don't speak spanish...it is good for us though to practice.

 

anyway!! I am doing good. thanks for the prayers!!! Love and miss yall!

What a ride! My life among the Mayans!

Well, the last few days have been really interesting. Ever since I got to Chichi (in the mountains) I have done so many things that I never said I would do:

1. Start a prednazone pack for 193 bedbug bites all over.
2. Each hot cornflakes soaked in corn juice.
3. Take a 5 minute hike to the corn mill at 6 in the morning.
4. Participate in a 2.5 hour church service on a Sunday afternoon.
5. Eat multiple internal organs.
6. Hit my head (repeatedly on door frames).
7. Go for four days without a shower (baby wipes don't cut it).
8. Eat at least the equivalent of 4 corn tortillas at all three meals of the day.
9. Get good at chugging hot corn drink.
10. Kill a chicken. Yep, last night was my turn to help make dinner.

Although our village doesn't have water yet and we are at a hotel this afternoon taking showers, I am still loving my life. I have learned so much about myself and God and his provision. We have survived a volcanic erruption, a hurricane, mudslides, sinkholes, floods, downed roads, and now an earthquake. The hand of God and that alone has shielded us over the last week.

I am happy to say that I am recovering from the bug bites and now that I have new bedding, I am not getting new bites! I am lucky to work at a clinic though, that has medicines and doctors and nurses all around.

Here's a little bit more about my day to day: I get up at 5:30AM and get dressed. Then I help with chores, what I can, and then eat breakfast with my family (usually not "breakfast food"). Then we pile into the trucks and drive between an hour and three hours to get to the village that we are doing clinic in that day. Then we get out, get out all the stuff, and set up shop. Patients come and we take vitals and talk with them during consult. Then we pray with them and get their medicines for them. After all the patients have been seen, we load up and drive either to Chichi for some internet time and or food. Then we take the 45 minute drive up a non-paved road back to our village of Paxot Segundo. I get home and help with more chores or watch a movie with the kids (last night I killed a chicken for us). After we eat dinner and I sit there not knowing what they are saying. I politely excuse myself, take a baby wipe shower and crawl into bed. I journal and read and then go to sleep...The next morning we do it all over.

I love my life right now though (not the not showering part) but I really do. It is so interesting and our patients and family are all so sweet. I have not been too homesick, but I am ready to get to the coast where they have water. The good news is that they opened the airport again yesterday! Haha. We laugh so much about the little victories like no new bites, hearing English songs, and getting a shower after four days!!! We were sooooo excited...yes!!

So yeah, just be in prayer that God continues to be with us and our patients! I love all of you and can't wait to give you details when I get home!

Volcano, Hurricanes, Prayer, and Kate

Well , readers, I am alive. We have survived a volcanic erruption and hurricane Agatha, and mudslides. My house in the village is just under the church, so we are pretty safe but please prayer forour friends and neighbors that did not fair so well.

I love being in clinic though. I realy do. I am now doing vital signs and glucose and today I was a dentist. I got to pull some teeth and help with fillings. It was really exciting.

Our village doesn´t have electricity or water right now, so we are bringing pure water up everyday. We can live without electricity though...so yeah. Everything has been so overwhelming the last few days with the storm and all I don´t know what to write.

Sorry for the short post butI am out of time. I miss you all and love you. Please keep praying. We will talk when I get home...I promise. i have so much to share that I just ´can´t type out right now. I am journaling it all though!

k'baby

Chichicastetenango

Nope...that´s the real name of where I am right now. We are here in the middle of nowhere Guatemala for the next two weeks and it is really different. My family doesn´t really speak Spanish, which is interesting. They all speak Kíche which is a Mayan language. Here are the top five reasons I could not ever pass for a Mayan

5. I am about 2 feet too tall for an average woman
4. I know nothing about carrying children on my back
3. I don´t know how to wash my face and brush my teeth while holding a flashlight.
2. I don´t cherish getting up at 5 in the morning to take the corn to the corn mill. I do it, but not quite with a spring in my step.
1. I am miserable at making tortillas.

Where as rice and beans were the flavor last week, this week is corn. Corn drink, corn tortillas, corn flakes, corn tamales, corn for the chickens, corn for the turkeys, corn husks on the table...you get the picture. Corn is really big.

Ah, what else...well, yeah, I started work this week. I am taking vitals and blood glucose levels, and sitting in with consults. I have really enjoyed every minute in the clinics so far. I am so at home with all of that stuff. Today I saw two female patients recieve pelvic exams and a male patient who was suffering from a hernia...yeah, gross, but it´s life and I am glad those patients were able to make it in to see us. We give a lot of vitamins and the people are so grateful for what they get.

I am so grateful to love what I am doing so much. Life at home, my Guatemalan home, is a little hard but I am getting through. It is just the food and the language barrier that get to me. I am getting better at eating the food though...little at a time. Please pray for me and us though this week as adjusting to living out in the country in Guatemala and 5 foot ceilings can be difficult at times.

Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Last Day at Ezell

Well, readers, as interesting as my life usually is, today has...well, not been an exception. We did the very last bit of orientation, picked out scrub tops, and are just getting ready to hit the ground running tomorrow. I will hopefully get to still write when I get up into the mountains of Chichicastenango. Apparently, there they don't speak much spanish, they speak K'iche, Mayan dialect. It is going to be interesting. The Mayan people are on average maybe five feet if they are lucky. The shower facilties may be really interesting...I am excited about being there and being in clinics though. We will live more than an hour away from where we work, so we are going to be getting on the road every day for the next two weeks around 6AM, that's 7 Texas time, but still...pretty early. I don't really know what I am going to be doing in the clinics but I will let you know when I find out!

 

I am excited yet hesitant in a lot of ways. My MCAT score is supposedly going to be released tomorrow, so I would just ask for prayers, that if it is good or bad, I can still focus on the work that I am doing here. I would ask for prayers that help me stay in the moment here and not worry so much about what is awaiting me when I get back (for better or for worse). Also prayers for Garrett, my new friend, who is also pretty nervous about his scores. He's super smart though and most likely going to blow me away with his score. Oh well, though. Life goes on. I thank God for the peace I have already been granted with this and that it continues.

 

Tomorrow is an early morning so I have to get to bed, or to play cards...in any case, thanks for the prayers and support and I hope this blog fines you well and content with wherever God is using you in your life right now.

 

*K-baby

Moving from Xela to Ezell

The last few days have been absolutely amazing. I am going to start with Thursday and bring you up to date. 

Thursday, we went to language school for the normal five hours and then went home for lunch. We met in the square in Xela and took off for the volcano. Baul is not an active volcano, so it was pretty safe, but we climbed it. That's right...we climbed a volcano! It was beautiful and amazing. At the top there was a giant slide into the bowl of the volcano! Not 100% safe but so much fun. After that we had a devo and talked about our last semesters and where we are spiritually right now. It was really cool to see how all of us were at almost similar places between applying for school and being super busy. It was a huge blessing. I was tired when we got down though, so the conversation with my host family was quite short that night. 

Friday we packed up and went to our last day of language school. Nery, my teacher was nice and fun, but he REALLY liked to make fun of my accent. He thought it was really funny. For the last hour, we took a break from subjunctive and played charades with some of the other students. My phrase to act out was "Hasta la vista, bebe!" It was great. Nery and the other teachers were so funny! Loved it. Then we had a big lunch and it was more food than I had seen all week. It was a real sized plate, not a saucer, but I couldn't eat it all. Then we got in the van and truck and left for Clinica Ezell on the coast. I didn't know what to expect, but we are like staying at a resort. It is so much like Samoa, I can't get over it. 

Right when we got there, we got into our rooms and then walked around the grounds and found some coconuts. We played some rugby with them and then took them to the guards to open for us. They were glad to and the water inside the coconut tastes so good. Very refreshing. Then it started raining, so what did Nate, Carrie, Garrett and I do but play soccer in the torrential downpour. We had a lot of fun, per usual. I hope that we can do that again. We got completely filthy in the mud and it was excellent. :) 

Then we had dinner and started orientation. We had a devo and learned that most of our group really likes to sing, which is really fitting for me. Then the next day we went on a scavenger hunt around the town that we are in and then to a...get this...chocolate/coffee/pineapple farm--can you imagine anything better for me?? Awesome!! We stopped in a little town on the way home and saw a "zoo" that had monkeys, turtles, an alligator, a coati, and a racoon! It was so weird! The racoon and the coati shared a "habitat"... I have pictures that I will put up eventually. It was Andrea's birthday so we stopped at an ice cream place and had some great ice cream. They dipped it in chocolate (like Dairy Queen) and then rolled it in nuts! Love it! Dulce de leche once again! It's bad though, I can't stop talking about South America.... 

After that we did more talking about medical evangelism, why we are here, our spiritual histories, and all sorts of intense stuff. It is such a huge blessing to be around these kids who are in such similar places right now in their lives. Garrett and I actually get our MCAT scores the same day and have dedicated to going to the internet cafe next week in Chichi to finish our applications together. Perfect! It's just so encouraging!

Today we got up and had orientation and then church with the locals. They sing like the Samoans too! At the top of their lungs and completely off pitch. It's hard to sit through musically, but it is so joyful, I can't help but smile. Then we had lunch and more orientation. We have gotten to know the directors for Chichi and they are so nice to talk to. We had a lesson on k'iche (the Mayan language today) and it was sooooo HARD. My Spanish is improving, but my k'iche is completely hopeless...

Tonight we are going to do more of the same thing and hopefully more singing. There is a girl in my group that really likes to sing too, so it might not ever be silent ever again! We ship out to new families on Tuesday...I'll try to keep you updated. I can't wait to be in the clinics!! Ahhh! Living the dream. Thanks for the prayers and support! 

*k-baby

Hot Springs!

Hey there!

Well, third day in Xela, Guatemala. Today we went to the hot springs and it was really fun. We got in the bus after class and drove about 40 minutes to the springs. They are hot because the water is heated by the volcanoes that are the mountains around us. We got up there and then ate lunch. I had a ham sandwich...and coke. Pretty good stuff. Then we got in the springs and they were so warm. I love this group because they are all nerd like me. We talked about TAQ polymerase being able to live in the springs because they are so hot and some about the MCAT...these kids are smart. Then we played mafia on the way back and I am now sitting in my favorite little cafe. They have american tasting brownies and good coffee. I have had between 5-6 cups of coffee a day because that's all my "mom" gives me to drink with my meals.

Here's some about the cast of characters:
We have two groups, A and B and two groups Cafe and non-cafe. The cafe kids (myself included) have been going to this cafe every day.

The cafe crew:
Nate (tall, brown hair, glasses)- ACU, pre-med, super intelligent, knows Spanish, friendly and street-smart
Sarah (big curly dark hair, almost Columbian looking)- A and M, EMT, a little loud, but super friendly
Andrea Jernigan (tall, dark hair)- graduated from Harding, PT, super precious and easy going and engaged!!!!
Garrett Rampon (French, dark hair, looks like Jacob from Twilight--no really, he does--)- Libscomb, pre-med, reminds me of my cousin Liam but older, has traveled Europe, not afraid of foreign cities with potentially high crime rates, gets MCAT score the same day I do
Kate- ACU, pre-med, only blonde on the trip (in a couple of different ways)


...to be continued...

Anyway! Love yall!

Thanks for reading (and commenting)

*k-baby