Lemonadeeeeeee

Last Day in Guatemala

Boy was I sad to say goodbye to Guatemala.

I packed up all my things on Wednesday and tried to hit the sack as early as possible.

That morning I did a lot of last minute errands like arranging my shuttle to the capital to catch my flight the next morning, buying gifts for the family, etc.

One thing I absolutely HAD to do was visit with a family that I met while wandering through the riverbed and came to love. The photo below is Petrona and her family in front of their home. These are some of the sweetest, most giving people I know. Carlos is the little boy in the middle. We got to practice numbers and the alphabet together. I had some awesome conversations with Petrona as well. It simply felt like a second family. What a privilege to know them.

Carlos and his sister walking me back to town after I visited a while. <3

My mini-guides :)

Whilst running errands, I encountered a Chicago Bulls themed Tuk-Tuk...odd...

To celebrate my last day, I treated myself to food out. Tofu/Veggie fajitas. Deliciousssss.

I purchased my favorite Guatemalan drink in bulk since I knew I wouldn't be about to find it in the States... Rose/Hibiscus tea. Amen.

So long Guatemala, you will be extraordinarily missed.


Love,


Cody

San Antonio Palopo

This is a post I wrote while I was in Guatemala, but didn't get to post it.

I took a day trip to San Antonio Palopo and it was amazing. 

 I have pictures to help tell the story of my day:

This is the type of pick-up I rode to the city. It's normal to simply stand up in the back and hold on for dear life. As a true Guatemalan should, I made sure to stand up in the bed and hold on to sack of corn in order to keep myself stable. It was thrilling to say the LEAST. It's about a thirty-five minute drive in total. The cool part is, it's not just any drive. You find yourself flying down winding mountainous roads on the coast of a centuries-old crater lake surrounded by mountains and volcanos. If that isn't enough, you are in the midst of some of the most beautiful foliage you could ever see. Rock cliffs, trees, streams, waterfalls, cattle, gardens, fields, farmland... As we were traveling, I kept thinking of two different movies:

-Jurassic park because of the scenery. If you've seen Jurassic park, you know what I'm talking about. I felt at any moment a Pterodactyl was going to swoop down and steal the corn I was holding on to.

- Apocalypto because of  the scenery as well, but mostly because of all the Mayans who were in the truck with me. They aren't as scary as the people in this movie, but man do they look so similar. It's wild.

These are just some of the pics I took of the city itself. It was truly breathtaking.

                                         A lovely aged church

Lake Atitlan

Pretty door thing :)

Love,

Cody

The Lost Cyst...

My Last Surgery Day

A lipoma the GP and I removed from a 15 year old's neck :) Grossed Out? I was by myself in the OR cleaning up all the biohazard stuff and HAD to take a picture. I said to myself out loud, " Aww... it's kind of cute." Yep...

This is a picture of a picture. It's a UTERUS with a Fibroid tumor the surgical team removed. It weighed a total of 12 lbs. This woman was a mother and wife and was living life with a 12 lb. tumor in her abdomen. What a blessing this was!!! 

This is one of the sweetest gentlemen I know! We couldn't talk because he speaks a different tribal language, but man did we talk without words. I smiled so much my FACE HURT. He had a hernia repaired, and it was so wonderful. This man was so joyful and appreciative after his surgery. It was amazing to behold.

This GP is from South Africa but lives in Canada. He let me assist him with minor surgeries, and it was soooooo awesome!!!! Here we are removing a Ganglion cyst on the hand of a gentlemen who works as a corn picker. He was so sweet and extremely patient with us. He waited for so long and traveled from very far to be with us.

Speaking of Ganglion cysts..... here it is!! Ok, I actually have a funny story about this little cyst. I wanted to take a picture later, so I had to hide it in the OR. I found the gentleman's family, helped the patient to the holding room, did discharge teaching, put his bandage on, got his meds all worked out, and saw him to his vehicle. When I came back to clean and take a picture, I realized I Couldn't remember where I hid the cyst!! I was completely freaked out.  I thought to myself, " Cody, HOW DID YOU LOOSE A CYST???" I just knew someone was going to walk in any minute and ask what I was looking for... I left the room and found Fransisco (the nursing student from triage day) and had to awkwardly explain to him that I lost the patient's cyst and HAD to find it before the next patient came in or worse, the Doc found it. Finally I found it... in a glove on the counter. HALLELUJAH!!!

Take two!

Me, Karen from Canada, Sonia ( Spanish to Quiche translator), and Fransisco

This guy was so, so cute. After his surgery was over, I was explaining to him that everything went super well. He was still quite groggy from the anesthesia. He got a HUGE grin on his face as if I had said nothing at all. He just said... "hola..." He was staring at my face and kind of looked enamored lol. This young man had a testicular hernia. For you boys/men out there that are reading this,  I imagine you can have proper sympathy for this guy. He was starting to have trouble doing daily things without tremendous pain. What a privilege to be a small part of his healing!

Love, 

Cody

Triage Day

Hola, folks! I'm here in my living room...

I wanted to update you guys on what has been going on lately.

Yesterday was absolutely exhausting. 

I was up before the sun rose and didn't get home until long after it set.

I arrived at the clinic and met the new surgery team for the first time. For the most part, these folks are from Canada.

I was asked by the team to work in patient pre-surgery consultations/triaging. I recorded the vital signs of the patients and took a medical history and current complaints report. To say that my language skills were tested is an understatement. 

I had to take everything the patients were saying into my brain in Spanish and record their medical history and explain their need for surgery in English for the doctors. Yikes. For some of you bilinguals out there, that may sound easy. For me, it was a challenge. 

I haven't gotten to use my medical Spanish much in the past (other than what I've studied in books) so as people were telling me all about their hernias, tumors, masses, cysts, and other abnormalities, I was really having the concentrate on exactly what it was that they were saying.

I am so thankful that I had a helper throughout all of this. His story is pretty cool, actually. Fransisco (seen in the picture below) is a 17 year old studying to be a nurse here in Guatemala. He received a scholarship from the organization that is visiting us and doing the surgeries this week.

I taught him how to help me fill out the evaluation form (the stuff that didn't require English) and let him help in me with vitals. It was wonderful. After my brain started getting tired, he started telling me of things I was missing on the form. To say that I was appreciative is an understatement.

After literally an entire day of talking and discussing and asking and translating and organizing almost non-stop, Fransisco and I saw almost 70 patients in total for surgery. That means that those 70 patients will get surgeries this week that will literally change their entire lives. 

Children will have tumors removed that hinder the from doing daily tasks, women will have cancerous lesions cut out, sparing their lives, people of all ages will have hernias repaired that cause ostracization and much pain. It was beautiful. 

I was able to sit down and listen to dozens and dozens of stories of people with fixable infirmities that are being given a new start this week.

I cannot be more proud to be a part of this work.

Some fotos:

This is a little boy who has a tumor growing on the inside of his nose. He was very shy at first when he saw me in my scrubs and stethoscope. I imagine he thought that I might have a needle of some sort. After receiving a blown up glove balloon, assuring him that my blood pressure cuff would only "hug" his arm,  and me finding his ticklish spot, we became pretty good friends.

This is Fransisco, the nursing student I mentioned earlier (Left) and one of our hernia patients (Right).

The rest of the week we'll be in surgery. That means a lot of work and organization on the visiting team's part. Please pray these surgeries go well, and that we will all come through this a whole lot better than when we started.

Thanks for the support, you guys.

Love,

Cody

The Chicken Bus- an interesting read.

Here in Guatemala, public transportation is quite haphazard and consequently, quite the adventure.


There are Tuk-Tuks (Golfcart-esque small town taxis)


Mico-buses (What we would call a mini van in the States, for larger cities. I would equate it to a trolley.) These Micro-Buses pack people in so tightly it is a little frightening... 


People stand in what would have been your "leg space",  squat near the opening of the door, and hang with their bodies outside of the van. I've had a strange man sit in my lap, and I've had to sit on a woman's lap.... Don't worry, this is completely normal. Then, to top it off, everything gets interesting when the elderly and infants are involved... just trust me. It's a sight.


Anyways, another form of transport is the chicken bus.


Here's a pic of one: 

Be advised, this is a CONSERVATIVELY colored one. They are basically school buses from the States, tricked out with bright colors, then packed for the making of money. They travel longer distances,  as in from city to city.


I have a notebook I take around with me everywhere I go in case I see things that I want to write and remember.


I took many notes on my trip from Xela to Panajachel.


 I wrote a list of the things people boarded the bus and offered me to buy while I waited in the "terminal" in Xela. This all happened over a course of approximately 23 minutes.


Here's my list.


1) Cheese and/or Pepperoni Pizza
2) Guatemala Key Chains
3) Trident Gum
4) Herbal remedy that will not only fix liver irritation, but will also cure uterine cysts
5) News papers (from three different publishers)
6) Water
7) Soda
8) Mango Juice
9) Candy of every type you can imagine
10) Packaged cookies
11) Notebooks
12) Mints
13) Ice cream
14) Pens
15) Watermelon
16) Mango
17) Sherbet
18) Freshly baked bread
19) Chips
20) Fried Plantains
21) Biscuits
22) Magazines
23) Chile Rellano
24) Jello
25) Hamburgers
26) Radishes
27) Limes
28) Peanuts/ Cashews
29) Bananas


Can you say sensory overload?


Here are some notes I wrote down while actually on the three hour bus ride back to Panajachel:

" I have never sat this close to a window in my life. The guy in front of me (who is fast asleep) has his window down all the way, and the wind is coming straight back and hitting me in the face.  I think my face is almost completely numb now. If I could move my arms, I would close it without him even noticing..."


" I smell like BO... and it's definitely not my own...this is the pits... See what I just did there?" (I make myself laugh sometimes)


"I just realized a Guatemalan trick. Here's the secret to how we have 6 people packed into our four person row. This is a two seater chair. Across the isle, there is an identical two seater. It goes me, then the guy next to me, then a man who has one butt cheek wedged onto our two seater. In the row right across from us, they have the same set up... There are literally two people with one butt cheek on a seat and the other free floating in the middle of the isle with nothing but counter pressure from the next person holding them in...I repeat we have 5 cheeks in each chair and two cheeks in the isle... I don't even know if I'm explaining this right..."

Oh, Guatemala...




PS- 


Lemme play catch up on some pics:

As a good Southern woman should, I made greens!!! I am going to search and search some more for this specific type of green, leafy vegetable. It's called Acelga here... I have no idea what it would be called in the States.

This is a picture a friend of mine from the first group took. My shadow and I were attempting to salsa dance, but he was a little shy. Instead, we decided  this would be just as fun, lol.

Sacatepequez

So...


I don't celebrate Halloween back in the States, but somehow this year I ended up:


Spending the day in a Mayan cemetery...


The clinic was closed today for holidays, so the staff and I went on a field trip. 
Alls I knew about the event was that it was in a different city and that there would be kites the size of American houses. 
Naturally, I was in.


After a 3ish hour bus ride, then me being the only one getting car sick, then again being the only one who had to pee and making everyone stop, we arrived in the city of Sacatepequez. 


As we walked through the streets on the way to the festival,  I started noticing flowers on everyone's doorsteps (Seen below). 

Apparently, the Mayans believe that the kites in some way signal their ancestors to come down from heaven and visit them. They put flowers on their doorsteps to ensure that the souls of their loved ones find their way to the correct house.

We made quite the trek to get to the festival site, rounded the corner, then.... to my right (below) was this set of tombs... I thought to myself "Huh, that's odd. I wonder why there are tombs at this festival... Where the heck am I?"

Then I looked left and realized that there were a few more people at this festival than I had anticipated. This is about 1/3 of the crowd.

As we were walking through grounds to see where we could get the best view of the kites, I kept on having to step/leap over these huge dirt piles. I was kind of getting frustrated that it was so hard to walk over them, then between them, then on top of them. My Toms were taking a toll. After the fifth or sixth mound, I looked around and started to see concrete slabs, then crosses, then above ground tombs, and that's when it dawned on me. I suddenly thought to myself, 


"Holy crap, I'm steppin' on dead people..."


I was a little freaked out that there were little kids sleeping on the tombs and people drinking beer and eating doughnuts sitting on top of graves... it was definitely a sight to behold.

Here are some of the graves that weren't being used for leisure: 

This is the dirt-mound type I kept tripping over.

Then there were some beautifully decorated ones.

A tiny one.

 

So after working through the fact that I was at a celebration with pagan roots in a Mayan cemetery the day after Halloween, I laid eyes on the biggest/ most amazing kites I've ever seen in my life:

This was the crowd we faced on the way out (below).
If you'll notice, the street was jammed as far as the eye can see.

I must admit, the whole experience was kind of weird. The thought of sprits and souls wandering the earth does not sit well with me at all. I am, on the other hand, glad to have gone. I now understand much better how Mayans view death and the after life. This will, inevitably, aid me in understanding them better as I work with them at the clinic for the rest of my time here.

What an experience.

Love,

Codi