Orchards - Paxot 2 and Chuchipaca

Inside of new church building in Chuchipaca.

On Wednesday we continued with the UT group to a village called Chuchipaca which is also a location of one of the mobile clinics. This a location that many who have traveled with Health Talents on mobile clinics have visited for clinics. However, most probably do not know that this village and the surrounding villages is the largest apple growing area of all of Guatemala and possibly Central America. In this area they also grow peaches, plums and avocados.

The purpose of this visit and the visit on Tuesday to Paxot 2 was to visit with members of the community to discuss issues they have with their orchards so that we can see if there is a need for some classes in the future to assist them in improving their product. In both Paxot 2 and Chuchipaca we had a real good turn out from each of the churches and everyone is extremely interested in this type of education. We learned quite a bit about their process and the different varieties grown and now the UT group will take this information back to develop a program that students will be able to do with these communities. Once the program is started with the church, the church will in turn open the program to the community and then eventually try to take to other communities. See one, do one, teach one concept so that we can propagate this type of development.

Checking out some of the trees.

The tricky part will be working with each of the growers as most people here operate on their own. There are no coops, etc. so everyone competes with one another. However, from what we have learned of the men we work with, they will be very willing to share the information with others.

On other news, here is the before and after pictures of the church in Chuchipaca. They tore down the old church and have now built the new church. They still have more work with stuccoing the church, completing the floor, etc, but they at least have walls and a roof now. The exciting news on this new building is that it has been done with 100% of local resources (meaning Guatemalan resources) with no influx of US or other foreign dollars. They have probably received some funding from other churches in the area but most likely no more than 10% - 15%. I was speaking to one of the young men of the church, Cesar Daniel, and he was telling about how the church has become united in this endeavor and how some of the members decided to give their money they were saving for some other thanksgiving services which gave the church enough funds to purchase the remaining material to finish the roof. This is exciting news for this church and they will have a sense a pride about the building that they have put their hearts into.

Before

After - much larger.

These members have found the joy in giving in this situation and I pray they will continue to do so in hopes to increase the kingdom of God in their community.

God bless and have a great remainder of the week and weekend.

Live Chickens!! with pictures

Tuesday was a great day. I, Kemmel, traveled to Chichicastenango to meet with a group of agriculture professors from the University of Tennessee Knoxville whom we have been working with over the last 2-3 years to identify needs in communities to in turn assist the communities with either education or appropriate technology to meet their needs. This is a picture of the group from UT, Danny (an HTI employee), me and the ladies from Xepocol.

These professors consist of dirt (more appropriately soil) scientists, an animal scientist, a meteorologist and a tree (for not knowing the correct terminology) scientist. In the past they have come to review a few needs including the need for water in a small community called La Fortuna in the area around Montellano where the Clinica Ezell is and the issue of loosing chickens to disease in Xepocol.

For La Fortuna, the solution was to build some above ground cisterns to house rain water collected from the families roofing. The community was not sold on the idea so we started with some test homes and last year some students and the professors came from UT Knoxville to build 3 of these cisterns to see how they would work. Earlier this week, they visited the community to see how the cisterns have worked and if the families have taken care of this precious water source. The results were outstanding. Of the 3 cisterns, 2 provided water to the families during the entire rainy season and a 2-3 months into the rainy season. Then, the 3rd provided water for the entire rainy season and now near the end of the dry season they still 1/3 of the water left (apparently they have been more careful with the use of the water). What you also need to understand is that in this community there is no running water, so the ladies of the community must make multiple trips to either the town well, which is not very clean and not always full or to the river which lets just say is dirty! So now 2 of these families have only had to make the trip for 2-3 months of the year and the other has not had to make any. To put the icing on the cake, they also tested the water and after 24 hours of incubation, the water from the cisterns reported no bacteria. So not only have they had water, but clean, potable water. They also tested the well and of course it was full of bacteria and the river, lets just say the 4 students who went swimming ended up paying for it later. :) The cost for making these cisterns is right around Q600 or less than $100. So now our task is to continue to encourage the community that this is a viable option for a clean water source and that they can do these on their own with their own resources and materials for much less expense than piping in water from a spring that can be up to 3 miles away.

For Xepocol and the chicken mortality rate, the solution was to provide some classes on the proper care of chickens and on the importance in the use of vaccinations against diseases such as new castle disease, bronchitis and influenza (the most death threatening being new castles disease). Some students came last year in August and provided some of these classes to the ladies in Xepocol including providing the first round of vaccinations for the chickens. The trick is you must keep vaccinating every 3 months which no one was doing even if they had vaccinated once. So at the first vaccination they marked each of the chickens so we could monitor their status in the following months. During the education we also reviewed the cost of the vaccinations against how much each chicken could be sold for and that if they worked as a group to vaccinate many chickens they would save on the vaccination as one vial would cover 150 chickens (the common practice was for 1 family to purchase a vial and only use for 20-30 chickens). After the group left, the ladies created a committee to monitor and continue the process of vaccinating the chickens. Today they reported they have had 3 rounds of vaccinations, including upwards of 800 chickens and between 40-50 families involved. The results, again outstanding. The months of March and April are the months that most chickens die in this area due to the drastic climate changes. For the chickens that have been vaccinated, not one has died due to illness. Now they have died to be eaten, but not to the disease. How is that for positive results. Now instead of a family loosing 10-20 chickens per year, they now are able to sell these 10-20 chickens for about Q50 ($6) each hen or Q120 ($16) each rooster while paying less than Q.50 ($.06) per vaccination. Today we also made the first step in encouraging these women to now go to another community, Paxot 2, and teach the women their how to manage their chicken population. This community recently had a mass epidemic of new castle disease and lost many chickens as well so they are very interested. The ladies response was "sure as long as they cook us a good chicken while we are there". This brought a good laugh.

This is a pictire of the ladies in Xepocol who manage the Chicken vaccinations - Juana, Candelaria, Maria and Rosalia. Candelaria and Rosalia are the 2 who have started the project in the neighboring town of Saquilla which is where they live.

Here is a picture of the ladies with Kelly, who is the Animal Science Professor from UT. The original program was developed by him and his class and then he came with some students last August and the students presented the program to these ladies and about 15 others.

Today we also met with some members of the community of Paxot 2 regarding some possible classes on orchards and did some investigative work to prepare something for the future. Tomorrow we head to Chuchipaca to do some of the same. I will report more on that tomorrow.

And I cannot end a good day without giving you a follow-up on Tomas Sut Gonzales I. This is the man that in December was on deaths door with pneumonia and his family would not take him to the hospital. The first day we went to visit him people from different communities were visiting to express their last greetings and to pray over him. Some of what we heard was he is old (only 63 or so) and his time has come. Well, thanks to our gracious Lord, the family did take him to the hospital and he got better. Tomas is one of the miracles God continues to bless us with. This is a picture of Tomas (on the left) during a wedding on Monday where he was to be the witness for the bride, Juan Quino's sister Tomasa. He also joined us today walking all around Paxot 2 looking at trees and enjoying some great laughs. God continues to have a plan from Tomas!

God is good, all the time!

2 Months down, 4 to go

It is hard to believe the time has passed but we have finished 2 months in Guatemala City with Lisa working at Hospital Roosevelt. Today was the last day of her 2 months on the pediatric rotations and with the best news that she has passed the 2 months.



Tomorrow, Lisa starts her OB rotation for a month, still be on call every 4th night and she gets to stay on the same call schedule which works out great. For the next couple of weeks she will be working on the OB floor post-partum.



While on call, I will still head to Chichi to visit the teams there. Tomorrow, I head to Chichi early to meet with a group of agricultural experts from the University of Tennessee to see about providing some classes or workshops on fruit orchards. Apples, peaches, plums and avocados are among the different orchards in the area. We will be visiting 3 communities with them with varying levels of fruit production, Chuchipaca being one of the highest producing areas and where we also have clinic every 2 weeks. May is the start of the plum season which we always look forward to, here they taste like large cherries.



During our time here in the city we have been attending services with the brothers and sisters of the Zone 11 church of Christ and each day we go we are always overwhelmed with the outpouring of love in that church. They are a prayer warrior church and last Friday of each month to pray from 7pm until midnight and then also have a special Sunday each month when they begin at 7am. We confess that we have not been to one of those meetings as the times have not worked well with the schedule of call but still plan on doing so. One of the ladies I work with, Violeta, attends this church and she is always a joy to get to work with. She has a very positive outlook on life. Her daughter, Alejandra also works with us and is due to have a baby in May.



On other news, Tomasa, the sister of our health promoter Juan Quino got married today to Felipe from Mactzul VI. Unfortunately we were unable to be there and we are just waiting for Sheri the photographer to post her pictures on her blog - http://www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com/. Here is a picture of Tomasa for those who kind of remember her - she is in front on the right with her arms crossed.

Well we have an early morning so time to go to sleep. Good night John boy! (or in k'iche; chatworok Xuan ala!! or Xoc ak'ab Xuan ala!!)

Sunday Morning

Good Sunday Morning. We are enjoying a relaxing beautiful morning and getting ready to go to worship. I (Lisa) had my last call on pediatrics on Friday and enjoyed a good long 5 hour nap yesterday morning. Kemmel took the opportunity to enjoy a round of golf (yes he has found a place that he can play so will enjoy for the next few months). I have been working in the Labor and Delivery on my call nights this month--receiving and stablizing babies. Friday we had 31 deliveries between 3:30 pm and 8:00am Saturday. It was a fast and furious night, but gracias a Dios every one did fine. At one time, we had 2-3 mother-baby pairs in each delivery room. So I would run back and forth, making sure each baby was crying and pink and run off to the next one. Then start back at the first one trying to get measurments and exam written up. Just when the 7th one had been born, the OBs told me they were taking in a 32 week for c-section. So I called my supervising resident for backup. That gave me a little break to get my other babies processed. Just when I finished that, I was walking by the labor rooms and overheard that the lady with preterm labor at 26 weeks gestation was complete (dilated and ready to deliver), despite the attempt to stop the contractions. So I called my resident to be ready to intubate and she said she would be there quickly but was intubating a patient on one of the floors. :( When the baby was born, it was tiny (2 lbs 9 oz), but breathing and very active. I held off on intubating and the resident got there and we decided it was older than predicted (34 weeks by exam), so he got to be admitted to the hospital to grow and develop a little before heading home. At 4:00 in the AM we had a little break in the craziness, so I sat down and had a delicious slice of cold pizza-it was pretty good!

It is hard to believe that 2 months have gone by. I am learning a lot about the way things are done here and getting good clinical experience as well. Although I feel pretty old (everyone is about 23-25 years old) I think I am holding up. Next week I start a month of OB. Should be a good month and the residents are nice there.

Today we will go to worship and enjoy the day together. We thank God for his faithfulness and pray that he bless each of you on this Lord's Day.

Blessed

Well, it has been awhile since we posted a blog. It is strange but we do not feel the excitement of posting a blog while here in the city. Anyway, we do want to let all of our friends and family know we are doing great. In thinking about what to blog about all we can think is we are blessed beyond what we deserve. Although we are in a stage that is not so easy, we have not wanted or needed for anything and God continues to take care of us.





This last week was Holy Week which is a week highly revered here in Guatemala as well it should be as it is a commemoration of what Christ has suffered for us. The only thing sad we experience each year is that all of the emphasis is on Jesus's suffering and there is not much emphasis on the miracle of His resurrection. For many the weeks reflection bascially ends on Good Friday and then the remainder of the weekend is more focused on vacationing during which time the pilgramage is to the beach. Here is a picture of one of the beaches. Not sure I would find much fun in that, but others wonder why would anyone want to golf!

There are some more articles and pictures in the local paper.
http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2008/marzo/23/index.html

As Lisa is an intern, she did not get the week off as other medical school students; however, she did get off early on Wednesday and then went on call on Thursday. The good in this is that she got off early Friday and then had the remainder of the weekend off. Thus, we decided to pamper ourselves and stay at a hotel with a pool Friday and Saturday night. We also got to enjoy the pasttime of channel surfing which we are glad we do not get to enjoy all of the time. One of the best decisions I think we have made is not having cable. It has allowed us to get much closer in our relationship with each other and allowed more time for reading, etc. Now we do get bored sometimes but living in Guatemala that is a good thing as life is a little slower in some ways and that has been a good thing. Then of course we do still need our fix of Law and Order which we have some DVD's of. Not sure why we are hooked on a show about criminal activity but we are. :)



Recent news - we purchased a different vehicle. The Suzuki is great but is just kind of small for traveling, especially when we have groups in town. So we purchased a 1999 Nissan Pathfinder that does not look to beat up and is in pretty good condition. So far we just put some routine maintenance into it and it runs great and the mechanics are giving it a thumbs up so we will continue to pray that it runs good. You just never know purchasing a used vehicle, especially here since most are wrecked vehicles brought from the states to here. We will continue to use the Suzuki here in the city as it is awesome for the city - small, can park anywhere and lives up to its name of "buggie, buggie". The students that drove it for a month on the back roads of Chichi would probably not think of it much as a buggie buggie! More bumpy, bumpy! Plentyo f headaches caused from crushing your skull on the ceiling of the jeep when hitting a big bump. Once we leave the city we will sell it which will be a sad day.



Yesterday I headed to Chichi for a visit. The house still stands and it does not appear anyone is trying to breakin - great news! I had a chance to visit with everyone Monday and Tuesday which was great. The fact of being withdrawn continues to be the hardest part of the time in the city. Everyone in Chichi seems to be doing well and the clinic ministries continue to grow in most areas. Today was the 3rd class for all of the volunteer health promoters. We have now clocked about 10 hours of training in different topics such as when to go to the hospital, basic first aide, have to give an injection, emergency preparedness, medicines, etc. Today the topic with dentistry taught by Marcos Lux. I did not get to be part of the class as I was trying to rush what I needed to do and then head back to the city, but they had a good turn out with about 15-20 promoters. As we mentioned blessed, we still cannot explain how blessed we are to be working with this group of people.


Sheri returned from the US today after a week of vacation and everyone starts clinics tomorrow. Monday we also had clinic in Lemoa and the clinic continues to grow providing more oppurtunities to share with those who visit us. We now have some "regulars" who we also get to see improvements in their lives. Marcos had a visit from a local school the other day to perform a dental exam on each student and make recommendations for the parents.


We want to thank each person who follows our blogs and who continues to keep us in your prayers. Blessings and grace continue to abound in our lives and we are truly grateful. God bless.

Wendy's and the G Factor

We have come up with a term since living in Guatemala that we use to distinguish things that are different in this culture. We call it the G Factor. These are things that we find hard to understand in our way of thinking - they probably make perfect sense to those that live here so this is no way is to make fun or ridicule, just our way of identifying differences. I
am sure we would have plenty of U Factors (US differences if one was not from there) in the US as well .

So anyway, now that I have tried to protect myself from anyone thinking we are writing this to make fun or ridicule, here is what we experienced today. Lisa was on call last night and actually had a pretty hard call, but more on that later. She was getting off at 1pm so I made an effort to return from Chichi in time to pick her up and go to lunch and then home so she could rest. We went to Wendy's, one of the perks of living in the city. Picture this - we are pulling into the parking lot and 2 armed men get out of a car and take their posts as they watch a Toyota Land Cruiser, which is bullet-proof, back into the parking space. These men also have the wires in the ears, etc. Then 2 other men get out of another vehicle while the doors of the Land Cruiser open and a family gets out - mid 50's husband and wife and there daughter and grand children. Then they walk them to the door of Wendy's so they can enjoy some lunch. Once in Wendy's they are stationed around the restaurant and at each entrance. This is what we call the G Factor - not something we would see in the US, especially someone with that importance going to Wendy's for lunch. If we ever need that kind of surveillance we will have to rethink our lives, not sure we could handle that!

So back to what is going on. Lisa started a new rotation in the children's clinic and it is pretty sweet. Mainly well children checkups, break at 10am, done at noon. This gives her time to study after the afternoon class so she is pretty pleased. She also started a new rotation when she is on call and it is being the pediatrician for Labor and Delivery. Sounds like a great job, but last night they had 28 births and she was the pediatrician. So she heard nurses and other physicians calling "Pedriata" all night and was non-stop. Did not even get a chance to sit and rest. The good news is she made it through it, all baby's alive and well and she got off at 1pm.

I went to Chichi yesterday to meet up with the mobile clinics and the group from Pepperdine University that is visiting to experience another culture, get a glimpse at medical missions, support us by ministering to our patients in prayer, taking time with the children and just being with our patients and churches that we work with. This time of fellowship is a great experience to be a part of. Yesterday evening after clinic they went to play soccer with the HTI staff and all had a great time. The star of the show was our health promoter Juan who scored at least 6 goals, so we named him "El Conejo" since he would just not stop. Conejo is rabbit, like the energizer bunny. Another one from the Pepperdine group was a high scorer as well.

I met up with the group in Pacaja Xesic where the patient load started out slow and ended up with 20 or so medical patients and 20 or so dental patients. It was also Anja's (one of the members of the Pepperdine group) birthday, so after an excellent lunch of grilled steak, beans and guacamole we had some fun with the pinata with the hosts from the church and the patients that were still around. I also had the opportunity to speak with Anastascio Alvarez one of the church leaders and we had a good conversation about the clinic and the church. Also, I got to spend some time with a local teacher who expressed his gratitude for the service that we provide to his community. All in all a great day and we continue to pray that our patients will continue to receive healing both physically and spiritually.

Today the teams have mobile clinics in Mactzul 6 and San Jorge Sacapulas and we are expecting good turn outs of patients. Both of these locations have started to announce via radio which helps spread the word better. I went to Mactzul 6 in the morning and spent some time with Pedro Calel who lost his 16 year old son last month. He and his wife are doing better than they expected and he knows it is due to all of the prayers that have been offered on their behalf. I also got to talk to his other son some and you could tell he was still sad - he is about 12 or 13. We got him involved with the students and it started to perk him up. Please continue to pray for this family.

As always, please check Sheri's blog for more news on the clinics and photos! www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com

Good news!

Yesterday was Lisa's last day on her current rotation and she made it through. They took their test yesterday and she made a 91 so she was pretty delighted with that. Also, and this is the best news, she was assigned to the "Clinica Ninos Sanos" for the next month. This is the external consult for children, so basically an outpatient clinic where they also see patients who come in to be referred to a specialist or that need surgery, extra services, etc. This is excellent news for her as this is the environment that she prefers. Plus, not to mention that she heard they get off work by 1 or 2 pm each day. We will not so much keep our fingers crossed for that, but 4pm would be a good improvement. She will continue to be on call every 4th night.

She was speaking with another one of the interns who informed her that the attending physicians are extremely pleased with her work as she is very compassionate and responsible in the care she provides. Another plus for her.

Just to continue our posts of 80's music which is so popular here, we enjoyed eating breakfast today accompanied by Survivor, Peter ... (lead singer from Chicago) and Pat Benatar. The other day the big one was Air Supply and the Bee Gees.

Please continue to see Sheri's blogs regarding the clinics - www.sheriinguate.blogspot.com. Dr. Josefina also has a rotation of clinics and all clinics seem to be doing well, minus some small ones that we still struggle with. We are in the process of starting a radio announcement, so hopefully that will start this week. We have had some incidences of increased violence in the Chichi area with 3 murders in the last month, so please pray for peace and security in the area. We are going to change some of our schedules so that our office assistant, Mauri, spends less time in the clinic alone to ensure some additional precautions. This is just to ask for your prayers, overall this is still an extremely safe place to live, just every once in awhile you have something like this occur.

Also on a sad note, last week the son of a good friend, Pedro Calel from Mactzul 6, died. We are not sure of the cause but it was unexpected so maybe some type of tumor or strange occurrence. He was 15 or 16 years old. Pedro is one of the leaders of the churches of the area and is one of the most compassionate people we know. He is always around to pray with patients and to greet us with a warm smile.

On the side of good news, I spoke with the father of Tomasa Chicoj Salvador yesterday. She is the child with the eye tumor or actually, the child that had the eye tumor - this is one of the small miracles God has let us observe. Her progress has been great and the physicians indicated to them that all is well and she will have another checkup in June. We will be contacting the physician to see what exactly "well" means, but to be off treatment for 6 months is pretty good! We also saw Tomasa and she looks great, just did not have my camera with me. She is growing hair again and looks pretty happy. Please continue to keep that family in your prayers.

Still no photos, hard to carry a camera around in the city and once you have seen a photo of the apartment, not much else to get excited about. :)

Today we receive a group from Pepperdine who will work with Sheri and Josefina for this next week. We are excited for the opportunity and we have all worked as a team to get prepared. Some of the group will be students returning from last year. Well, better run as I need to purchase some items before they arrive.

Have a good weekend. Our weekend will start after Lisa wakes up this afternoon.