Sunday, 1 March 2009
It drives me nuts to read blogs where each entry begins with "sorry it's been so long since I've written..." However, my goal has been to have something new at least every week. Therefore, I won't apologize for having over a two-week gap, but I thought I would just mention it.
As of Friday, the organization of the pharmacy is complete. Thankfully, we received five large boxes of medicine from another mission group (Children of the Americas) that was at the hospital over a month ago. We've finally got these sorted and organized. It is so beautiful that I haven't yet taken a picture. However, there is still the "back room" which is full of surgical supplies and stuff. This will be the next organizational project.
We are still working on filling our clinic schedule. A week ago (or so), we visited an small village that was the most beautiful area that I have seen in Guatemala so far (except perhaps Lake Atítlan, but that's a tourist area so it doesn't count). We plan to do a clinic there in the next couple of weeks. The church sits on the mountain on one side of a beautiful valley with river running through it (currently dry since it's the dry season--as I currently listen to rain outside for some reason???) From the church, you can see most of the houses in the valley and up the next mountain. It was so beautiful that I forgot the camera.
Today we led worship with the pastor of a nearby church called Torre Fuerte in a town called San Pedro Jocopilas. We've felt that God is leading us there as our local church. I'm excited that God has opened the door for us to use our musical gifts. We were on the ball to ask to the pastor's wife to take a few pictures.
Other (Not So) Brief News:
Last Sunday we attended a special service celebrating the translation of the complete Bible into "Quiché of Joyabaj". It is the result of a missionary named William Vasey dedicating over 30 years to perfecting the dialect and translating the Bible into it. We live in the "department" or state of Quiché. There are several dialects of "Quiché." This translation of the Bible is specific to the town of Joyabaj. For example, the similarity of the dialect where we live (about an hour away) is less than 65% of that of Joyabaj. Bottom line: I speak better Spanish than the majority of the patients we see in our clinics. Sometimes we have formal translators. Sometimes people bring a friend who speaks enough Spanish to translate for them. I would love to learn the "local language" but the problem is that there are so many different dialects among the people we serve.
A week ago, I got to experience a Guatemalan civil protest. A bit of rhythm breaker. I finished one of my clinics a little earlier than usual only to be trapped in the town. After, I waited two hours in traffic watching black smoke billowing above the tree line ahead, I finally decided to investigate. I figured if it were a car fire, it would have burned out by then. It turned out that some people weren't happy (about what I have no idea nor do I care) and were blocking the road with burning tires. There was plenty of space on the side to go around and I almost tried to run it while putting on my naive gringo face, but the guy with the machine gun said that there was "no pase" and unfortunately my Spanish returned to me. So I decided to turn around and hang out until the party was over and then went home.