Communidad Porvenir

Our last clinic day. It was bitter sweet because we are missing our children so much but we will miss everyone we have come to know here also. Our lives have been touched in so many ways by the people we served that what we gave pales in comparison to what we received. The health promoters, nurses, local docs, our group of students and PA's, and all of our patients and their families taught us something in their own way that we will carry with us forever. We are especially attached to the amazing children of Guatemala. Their smiling faces and friendly "hola's" whenever we passed melted our hearts and warmed our souls. We feel so lucky to have been here.

Aaron

Children

Today we were in another small Mayan village. We saw a record 60+ patients and all of us were exhausted by the end of the day because the conditions were difficult for practicing medicine. However, the memorable part of today had nothing to do with clinical medicine. It did have everything to do with healing though. The village, like most of the others we visited had many children. We always struggled with keeping the children occupied, unsuccessfully and usually ended up managing chaos by the end. Today started very organized and a peek outside showed the reason. Amy had all the children lined up playing games, drawing, singing songs and teaching her Spanish and them English. It was fun to see but made incredible by the fact that Amy still has a very rudimentary grasp of Spanish. The smiles on the childrens faces showed that language cannot hamper happiness and love is a universal language.
By the way, the picture shows only a few of the 60 or so children that were there! :)

Aaron

Thanks for the toothbrushes Dad!

Everyone has been so excited and thankful to receive a new toothbrush. There is such a need for them here. Thanks to Dr. Pelton (Dad) for the fabulous donation. Thanks to everyone who has donated. The people here are so grateful. It has been heartwarming to see so many smiling faces over the simplest things. Things that we often take for granted. Thank you. You have all helped in making a difference in these beautiful people's lives.

Communidad San Gregorio

We visited a small community down the mountain in the heat of the lowlands today. We had to use the home of one of the families in the community because the people did not have a community center or even a school. It is so humbling to enter the peoples homes and see how they live. More than this though, I am humbled to see how happy they are. They have so little by way of material resources that we can't seem to live without and yet their lives are filled with other things. They place so much emphasis on family, work, relationships, their land. It is such a great reminder that where our focus is we will find our desires. I am reminded of a quote by Henry David Thoreau,"our lives are frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify!"

Children all over the world

I spent today with the children. We colored together played games, laughed and they helped me learn the language. There was no shortage of love from these beautiful children of our Heavenly Father.

They had a hard time with my name so I just let them call me emily. Today was special! It really made me miss my own sweet kids. No matter where you go in the world the kids are laughing and playing. It makes me smile. I love and miss you Bodi, Noah, Clara and Ireland:)

Sent from my iPhone

American children have unlearned how to work......

Those two people in tonight's pic hauling firewood are not midgets. They are a six year old and an eight year old, brothers who just climbed down from the mountain with firewood they chopped with machetes to heat their stove at home so their mother can cook. I met them while walking back to the San Lucas hospital where I spent the day working with local Guatemalan Doctor Tun. These two boys mirror two other young boys I ran into while running a mountain trail this morning. They were the same age as my sons and were following their father to the family coffee farm about 2 kilometers and 1500 feet elevation change away, to begin their daily work to provide for the family. Here, children are expected to help in contributing to the family bottom line. Often they can be seen helping their parents in the business or taking care of the younger siblings while mother and father work. Unfortunately, many of these children are unable to attend school, which has contributed to the growing illiteracy rate here in the country. It is a catch-22 that does not have an easy answer because these families don't have enough to even eat without everyone working. It is easy to have theories about how to fix the problem but being here and witnessing the struggle firsthand I can say I have yet to hear a theory that would work here. I'm not being pessimistic, just practical. The solution to the problems of the indigenous Guatemalan people will not be found in a distant university study but rather here by the people working alongside them. In the same way, the answer to teaching my children to work cannot be done by someone else. It has to be done by me and others who take the time to work alongside them and find ways to teach for each child.

Aaron

Santiago Atitlan

We spent Sunday getting to know a few of the other towns on lake Atitlan. First we went to San Pedro, just across the lake from San Lucas. It is a smaller town than San Lucas but is situated on a hillside that is rather steep and is populated with a large group of indigenous Mayan people, similar to San Lucas. It is incredible to think these people have been here for 2600 years. The disparity between the significantly more economically gifted ladino's and the indigenous Mayan can really be seen from a boat on the lake. Upper class homes of well-to-do Guatemalan and American owners are interspersed all along the shoreline, hidden among the trees. However, the beautiful multistory structures stand in clear contrast to the poverty they overshadow. Seeing the people in their homes and working in their fields makes our opulent lifestyle in the US seem decadent by comparison. I can't say I want to move my family into a one room cinderblock shack with a dirt floor and no water or electricity (what father would choose that for their children?) but I do need to teach my children to be grateful for what we have, to be less wasteful of our resources and to give back as much as possible.

Aaron