Guatemala-Friday

Last day of work, but we only ended up working in the morning. The country house was pretty well completed so we mixed some concrete in the morning and went to the dedication ceremonies in the afternoon. These were done mostly in Spanish so I didn't understand a lot of what was going on. It was really cute, because, at both cermonies, we handed out cross necklaces to the kids. At the first ceremony, one little girl kept asking Ron a question, and he thought she wanted more necklaces, but she kept shaking her head. We finally got Cheryl over to translate and what the little girl was asking was, "How tall are you people?" A valid question since the average height of the group was probably about 5'10" and Cheryl brought that down pretty far by being about 5'6".

That afternoon, a small group of us went to a building in Gualan run by a group called Hearts in Motion. They are run out of Indiana (Highland) and work with Guatemala specifically. One of their functions is to bring in dentists and other doctors to help with the rampant problems of cleft palates and polydactyly.

They go out into the local community periodically and identify the children most at risk. Every Wednesday, they bus the kids into the building and make sure they get a nutritious meal for the week. They also have room to keep several children on site. They had four while we were there. One little boy had been so neglected that he would probably never walk. There was one little boy who lifted his arms up to me so I picked him up and carried him around. He was so sweet, but when he opened his moth, the most awful, fetid smell came out. His teeth were rotting in his mouth, and several of the cavities where teeth should be were just oozing puss. It broke my heart. I ended up sobbing like a little girl on the bus back.

House Ceremony Complete with Plaque

Doing the Invocation

Dinner... Yum!

Sauces for the tacos

Breakfast