...this was our third tarantula of the day. 

Bob vs the Mayan temple. 

Ruins above the jungle top 

Jaguar temple in Tikal 

...and we,re back!

That's right. Our feet are firmly planted in North Carolina again. We had a very relaxing last day in Antigua. We got to see Bob in action at La Merced (the big Catholic church in Antigua) on Sunday morning. He read a passage from Luke nearly flawlessly for a crowd of about 1500 people. Got some exercise ine. We had lunch with Greg and Anita (missionaries that started the clinic) and their daughter. We bought more Guatemalan wares. We had a wonderful dinner.

And this morning we got into a van at 5am and drove to airport. From there it gets really boring. Two planes later we were back in NC.

We'll put some more pictures up on the blog in the next few days, so if you want to come back and check it out, please do so.

Sorry for the long absence...

I'm sorry we've been neglecting the blog this week. The last week's been pretty hectic with finishing school and helping out at the clinic. This will be the abstract update...tomorrow we'll include the full article.

We both finished at school on Thursday. We were able to finish the 3rd grade (Grade C) without having to take a test.

We worked at the clinic all day Tuesday and Friday. Both were very long days, with lots of sick patients. But our follow-up with past patients showed that they were getting better. Very encouraging. Diagnosed probable TB vs. lung cancer, possible lymphoma, and saw a little baby with a cleft palate/lip.

Hanging out with the bomberos makes you very popular in Antigua. I see some of them almost everywhere we go, and they always come out and talk with us and give us their cards to contact them later on.

Today we went to Tikal ...amazing. Mayan ruins towering in and over the jungle. Animal count - tarantulas: 3, tucans: 1, other scary big spider: 1, howler and spider monkeys: too many to count. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Tomorrow we're meeting up with Anita and Greg (the clinic founders), relaxing, packing our bags, and saying good bye.

This has been a great trip. Thank you everyone for your comments on the blog. They've really been great for us to see that so many of you can keep up with us. And we've enjoyed what you have to say. Thanks for your prayers. We've been very safe and felt protected the whole time we have been here.

We'll be home on Monday, but I'll keep adding to the blog as we remember stories and have new pictures.

later...

Go Red Sox!

I'm not really a baseball fan, but even I realize the significance of the amazing comeback the Red Sox pulled out over the Yankees. This one's for Bob and Nat.

Pearls from Guatemala...if you ever come here #4

Power outages.

They don't usually last very long, but they occur frequently. So it's always good to have a flashlight or candle handy.

That's all.

And our friend, Dana, suggested you could probably apply these tips to most other Central American countries.

 

Aye carumba! Calicia (la perra) munching on a nacho. It doesn't seem to be curing her "shakes" unfortunately...or putting any meat on her bones for that matter...Poor puppy :-( 

Los Bomberos! 

Friday night with the Bomberos

Well it's been a few days without an update...

Friday was a very busy and exciting day. We spent all day working in the clinic. We got to do follow-up with most of the people and children we worked with on Tuesday last week. It was extremely rewarding to see that most of them were doing much better.

Then Friday night we did a 12 hour shift with the Bomberos Voluntarios. They are the main prehospital emergency service in Antigua. They're mainly responsible for 911 calls (which are 122 or 123 here) dealing with trauma, pregnancies, medical emergencies, and fires.

They were extremely kind to us. They spent a lot of time with me explaining their system. As you can tell by the name, it's a primarily volunteer service. However, there's a strict training program everyone must go through first, and while we were there the chiefs were teaching a lot. It is a very positive, very structured organization.

Over the course of the night we went out on about 6 calls. Saw one pretty nasty head trauma (who turned out to be a difficult intubation once he got to the hospital), COPD exacerbation, a few pregnancy related calls that I won't go into detail about, and a few others. They said it was actually pretty slow for a Friday night.

Now that we're part of "the team" we can do some other stuff with them. I went to one of their training sessions last night. It's great to see the contrast between their service and ours in the US.

Pearls from Guatemala...if you ever come here #3

Firecrackers.

If you've ever been here, you know what I'm talking about. Fireworks are like saying "Hey!" in America. They go off all the time for any reason whatsoever. Except it's also like saying "Hey!" at about 4am and then every 5 minutes afterwards until everyone you know is awake.

Two days ago it was the birthday of a family member in our house... So at about 6:15am a long round of fireworks went off right outside our door. it was great, seriously...

I found a great description of the firework experience online. Skip down to the fourth paragraph, but the rest is pretty interesting too.

While we appreciate this culture's unique traditions, we're glad to leave this one behind when we leave.Firecrackers.

Pearls from Guatemala...if you ever come here. #2

Chicken buses ...they're the only way to travel in Guatemala.

On the one hand, they are reminiscent of your days in elementary school when you rode the bus (because they really are old US school buses). On the other hand, the bus driver never filled the bus beyond capacity. And when I say "beyond capacity" I mean every single nook and cranny that will maintain life is supplanted with a human being. This means you become much too intimate with everyone around you.

However, they are colorful and cheap and get you where you need to go. And I've never seen a single chicken on one.

Antigua, Guatemala

We had a great day at school and both finished the 2nd grade today. We'll take our exam tomorrow and move on to new tenses.

Yesterday we had a great day at the clinic. Together, we saw 23 patients (80 percent peds) with problems such as conjunctivitis, amoebas, pneumonia, failure to thrive/malnutrition, and regular prenatal visits. Our Spanish is much better and we had great fun!

However, it is hard to witness such poverty and sickness. Apparently, parents in these villages do not name their children until they are one month old, since after that age their chance of survival is greater. Yesterday we saw a 1 1/2 year old who's 1 month old sister died the day before. The father would not allow the mother to take the baby to the clinic even after 2 weeks of fever! We gave the mother money to buy a coffin for the baby, but the father had buried the baby in the ground while she brought her other child to the clinic! How sad! The one that survived had a pneumonia, and we were able to load her up on antibiotics and rehydration formula....hopefully she'll return on Friday. Please pray for her and the rest of the children.

Pearls from Guatemala...if you ever come here. #1

No matter how far you turn the handle on the shower...it will never get hot. Fortunately, all the showers have this strange electric device attached to the spigot that heats the water as it goes through. Therefore, you have to turn the water on very very gently if you want it to be warm. You have two choices: pressure or heat....choose wisely

People waiting to get into the clinic in the morning. 

Children at the clinic. 

Branson at work... 

Branson and Cristy with Anita, one of the clinic founders. 

Branson & Cristy at the lake for the weekend.  

ah...the lake

We had a great night at the lake. It was very relaxing and a nice way to divide the four weeks in Guatemala. Interestingly, Lago de Atitlan is a very "hippy" place. There are a lot of yoga retreat centers and some of the town there are full of "hippy gringos" (as one local put it).

Fortunately, we were able to avoid that scene and stay relaxed in a beautiful plot of paradise for about 30 hours. Hopefully I'll be able to send Becca some pictures later this evening so you all can see where we were. The view across the lake was stunning. There were two huge volcanoes on the horizon, and the sunset was basically right behind one of them.

Now for something completely different...

Just wanted to share with everyone, we've been reading a book called "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. It's a really great book about faith, written in very plain language. It's very funny and very moving. If you have time we highly recommend it.

Branson requested I include this picture...I believe this is Bob the priest in the foreground with Branson. (ps- they're burying their hands in the dirt of the volcano to warm them...)

Lago Atitlan...

We visited Hermano Pedro Hospital this afternoon. A very needy place, but they're doing a lot with what they've got. It's a large charity hospital that seems very nice. We saw lots of children with cleft palate waiting for doctors to come from the states and other places to repair them, and lots of children with cerebral palsy. Very sad, but it is amazing to see how God is working to help the poor and disabled all around the world!

We're taking a short, one night vacation this weekend. We're off to Lake Atitlan. The folks at our school found a great place for us to stay. It's called Villa Sumaya, and it seems to have some incredible views across the lake.

If anyone has friends or family headed to Antigua please give them our email addresses (top right of this page). We'd love to meet up if we can.

We'll post some more pictures soon. My picture poster (my sister Becca) is apparently off lip-syncing in a sorority competition at Player's in Chapel Hill tonight. She'll probably need more prayers than us tonight, so feel free to send 'em her way!

How about that debate last night? Interesting, huh? We thought it was a draw.

We had a great day in school today, but we have a ton of studying to do tonight. There are about 250 verbs we need to know like the back of our hands before tomorrow.

Cristy is getting a well-deserved massage right now. We just had a great workout, and we can't wait for dinner. The señora in our house is an amazing cook. Bob the priest says she makes "comfort" food. Mmmm...

South Beach, Schmouth Beach...

I mean, I'm not really on it anymore, and I've still got my Herculean physique...kind of...

Love you guys, and oh, the Red Sox won Game One handily 'gainst the Lame-gels, 9-3.

Clinic Day 2

So we arose this morning around 5:30 in order to make the trek to our little mountain mission clinic. It was another interesting day. Cristy and I had a room of our own to see patients. We were cranking 'em out much faster today! It was amazing how much our spanish has improved! I think confidence helped too.

Not as many kids with pneumonia today and not as many prenatal visits. We did see a kid with a pretty nasty parasite emesis (along the same lines as ascaris lumbricoides if you're so inclined to know more...obviously we don't know the species but in the same family of organism.) If you have a weak stomach don't go looking that up....otherwise, we have pictures!! (No posting on the website though...but maybe I'll put up a link.)

Your questions: they have no lab capabilities aside from a basic urinalysis. Pretty much every diagnosis is made clinically and based on what is common here. If more is needed then patients are sent to a clinic or hospital in town. They can give IV therapy. We had to rig up 2 liters today for this fellow with a right lower lobe pneumonia (at least that's what my physical exam told me...no x-rays here!) We'll find out about Hanna. We actually never asked about her.

Enough!! We're off to work out. Our legs are still pretty weak from our volcano hike on Sunday, but we're determined to stay in good shape here.

Loads of tortillas and lots of frijoles every day aren't part of the South Beach diet!

Pictures!

Branson & Cristy have given me posting power on their blog...and I am in control of posting pictures!! Here we go...

Becca

Thanks Becca!!

Many thanks to my sister Becca for helping us out with posting our pictures to the blog! Hope you enjoy.

To answer some of your questions: There actually isn't a doctor running the clinic we're in. It's a nurse and family nurse practitioner. But they do the best they can. Every few weeks a Guatemalan doctor or foreign dentist will come to help out. But the missionaries found that the Guatemalan docs were usually pretty crooked...stealing supplies, lying about things, etc. So they try not to rely on them too much. The patients don't pay anything. They try to pay with food and small items but it's not required. The missionaries usually pay for everything themselves. And when the patients need special tests or attention at the hospital, the missionaries pay for it. Only by the grace of God are they able to continue going, but year after year they find a way.

Keep us in your prayers! They're working so far because we're having a blast!!!

 

On Sunday morning, Branson & Cristy took an excursion up the volcano...to get a better view.  

"Calicia the trembling dog...even after many nachos" 

Notice the volcano in the background...? 

A variety of shots from Antigua. 

more of the clinic... 

Cristy & Branson at the clinic. 

Quiet day in Antigua

Antigua, Guatemala

Well, it's a quiet day in Antigua. We went with Bob the priest to the mercado (market) to buy toothpaste and running shorts. That was fun.

I think we'll go watch 'The Two Towers' down the street later on.

What's with all these volcanoes rumbling? You go for years and hear nothing about active volcanoes and then you start living beneath one and every other news story is about a smoking volcano....Maybe I'm just hypersensitive. One thing is certain, the first rumble we feel and we're outta here! :)

Oh! If you want to read about the clinic we're working in, check out this website. www.hands-of-hope.com

Ellos estan muy erfermos.

Today we went to a missionary clinic in the mountains of Guatemala. It's unbelievable how sick these people are! The clinic is only open two days a week, so sometimes children die in between. But that's mostly because the families don't go to the doctor until long after it's too late.

Our first two patients had severe pneumonia and dehydration...very sad. They are so malnourished that it doesn't take much....BUT the nurse we worked with is amazing. Her faith and servanthood are amazing!

One of Branson's patients came to the clinic because the other day she saw a snake and was afraid...and because fear can cause sickness she was hoping we had a pill for her so that she wouldn't get sick. So we gave her some vitamins...after we told her that fear wouldn't kill her, God would protect her, and the vitamins were good for her anyway.

Also, today is a national holiday: El dio de los niños. So the clinic was decorated with balloons and streamers. On our way out of the mountains (where the clinic is...and it's beautiful), Branson sat in the back of the truck and handed out lollipops to all the niños and niñas. This made him very popular among the local mayans, and they are considering erecting a statue in his honor, of course it will be made out of mud and will likely crumble after the first rain (lluvia). But that's okay with me.

Anyway, we could go on and on.....

Which we will probably do more of later. But for now, we are tired. It was a long day in la clinica.