Report #6 from Lynn in Guatemala
01/30/2008 17:34
As far as
food goes. This place is good for the weight
loss program.
There is plenty of fruit, vegetables and eggs in the market, but beyond
that it gets iffy. There is a local hotel that grows/sells organic
coffee, and roasts it on the premises. High quality and delicious. I
have a hard time finding any spices or cheese. There is meat hanging in
the market but to be honest it scares me. So I made a big pot of
vegetable soup and I go between that and fruit.
My birthday was on Monday (57 years old), and I heard about this desert
called the heart attack at the fancy hotel restaurant in town. After work
this evening a group of us medical volunteers are going to take a walk
across town and then indulge in cheese fondu and the heart attack. The
walking part is to assuage our guilt.
The birds are chirping all the time. There is a canopy of trees around my
house, with areas of coffee growing in the shade. This is the time of
year to harvest the coffee and you can see the 100 pound sacks of coffee
lined up on the main street to be weighed. The majority of this coffee is
sold to Starbucks in Europe. They also grow avocados here and pile hugh
mountains of them in the plaza to be sold and hauled away. Guacamole is
another main stay of my diet.
My last 24 hour shift was wonderful as I only had 2 patients during the
night and got to sleep! Lots of new blood this week with a family
practice Doc who came to be our OB back up for C-sections, I got her to
take my 2 day old baby with a fever (serious). We had an emergency come
with a whole crowd of people bringing a teenager in the back of a pick up
truck. He was riding his bicycle down hill and flipped over the
handlebars. No such thing as a helmet here in Guatemala. He was
conscious, bleeding from his scalp and had a deformed left clavicle. Paul
the Stanford ER doc was my new supervisor and very enthusiastic so he
taught the Lab tech/xray tech to take films of the cervical spine and we
were able to determine he had not broken his neck, just his clavicle. I
sewed up his head and we kept him over night.
I have come to the conclusion that the most important thing we outsiders
can do to insure the sustainability of this important little hospital is
to support medical education of the local people. They need more doctors
that come from the town. There is a group of Americans paying for a local
woman to go to medical school. 80% of the births in Guatemala are at
home, attended by Comadronas (midwives). Unfortunately they do not have
access to formal education and in my opinion everyone would benefit if
they could increase their training. I am not going to criticize them
because I know they work hard and help many women, but we see the
complications at the hospital, and some of their practices are dangerous.
The issues here in Santiago are so complex, in my 3 weeks here I can only
scratch the surface of understanding. There is no national government
presence here. They are on their own. A town of 36,000 people with no
infrastructure. They do not pay any taxes and they do not get any
services. There is violence and people take the law into their own hands.
There is a public school, which is very poor, meets for half a day and
goes to the sixth grade. The parents have to pay for supplies the
teacher. Most of the people do not read, and do not speak Spanish.
The Catholic and Evangelical Christian Churches have a big presence and
you can hear people singing every day. There is a small percentage of
people who hold on the the traditional spiritual ways. They send off what
sounds like some kind of loud fire cracker bomb throughout the day as this
is one of the ways they communicate with the Gods. I love it, it reminds
you to pray.
Melanya Gonshorowski heard I was here and happened to be coming to
Guatemala for a visit. She showed up at my house and I didn't recognize
her because the last time I saw here was 25 years ago when I helped her be
born! She is beautiful and fun and is studying to be a midwife herself.
Remember that through all of this I am sitting in one of the most
beautiful places on earth. Surrounded by three towering volcanos and a
pristine lake. Oh, the joy of nature and life.
Love Lynn
There is plenty of fruit, vegetables and eggs in the market, but beyond
that it gets iffy. There is a local hotel that grows/sells organic
coffee, and roasts it on the premises. High quality and delicious. I
have a hard time finding any spices or cheese. There is meat hanging in
the market but to be honest it scares me. So I made a big pot of
vegetable soup and I go between that and fruit.
My birthday was on Monday (57 years old), and I heard about this desert
called the heart attack at the fancy hotel restaurant in town. After work
this evening a group of us medical volunteers are going to take a walk
across town and then indulge in cheese fondu and the heart attack. The
walking part is to assuage our guilt.
The birds are chirping all the time. There is a canopy of trees around my
house, with areas of coffee growing in the shade. This is the time of
year to harvest the coffee and you can see the 100 pound sacks of coffee
lined up on the main street to be weighed. The majority of this coffee is
sold to Starbucks in Europe. They also grow avocados here and pile hugh
mountains of them in the plaza to be sold and hauled away. Guacamole is
another main stay of my diet.
My last 24 hour shift was wonderful as I only had 2 patients during the
night and got to sleep! Lots of new blood this week with a family
practice Doc who came to be our OB back up for C-sections, I got her to
take my 2 day old baby with a fever (serious). We had an emergency come
with a whole crowd of people bringing a teenager in the back of a pick up
truck. He was riding his bicycle down hill and flipped over the
handlebars. No such thing as a helmet here in Guatemala. He was
conscious, bleeding from his scalp and had a deformed left clavicle. Paul
the Stanford ER doc was my new supervisor and very enthusiastic so he
taught the Lab tech/xray tech to take films of the cervical spine and we
were able to determine he had not broken his neck, just his clavicle. I
sewed up his head and we kept him over night.
I have come to the conclusion that the most important thing we outsiders
can do to insure the sustainability of this important little hospital is
to support medical education of the local people. They need more doctors
that come from the town. There is a group of Americans paying for a local
woman to go to medical school. 80% of the births in Guatemala are at
home, attended by Comadronas (midwives). Unfortunately they do not have
access to formal education and in my opinion everyone would benefit if
they could increase their training. I am not going to criticize them
because I know they work hard and help many women, but we see the
complications at the hospital, and some of their practices are dangerous.
The issues here in Santiago are so complex, in my 3 weeks here I can only
scratch the surface of understanding. There is no national government
presence here. They are on their own. A town of 36,000 people with no
infrastructure. They do not pay any taxes and they do not get any
services. There is violence and people take the law into their own hands.
There is a public school, which is very poor, meets for half a day and
goes to the sixth grade. The parents have to pay for supplies the
teacher. Most of the people do not read, and do not speak Spanish.
The Catholic and Evangelical Christian Churches have a big presence and
you can hear people singing every day. There is a small percentage of
people who hold on the the traditional spiritual ways. They send off what
sounds like some kind of loud fire cracker bomb throughout the day as this
is one of the ways they communicate with the Gods. I love it, it reminds
you to pray.
Melanya Gonshorowski heard I was here and happened to be coming to
Guatemala for a visit. She showed up at my house and I didn't recognize
her because the last time I saw here was 25 years ago when I helped her be
born! She is beautiful and fun and is studying to be a midwife herself.
Remember that through all of this I am sitting in one of the most
beautiful places on earth. Surrounded by three towering volcanos and a
pristine lake. Oh, the joy of nature and life.
Love Lynn