Life and Death

One day we had a light day at the clinic and someone suggested that we go visit the Guatemala City Cemetery over our lunch hour. We had no idea that we were in for such an experience. By the end of the next hour we felt like we had seen a unique view of the thin line between the struggles of mortal life and the step forward into the next life.

There were many family "plots" like this one. Some of them were very ornate.

And within yards were other families.

Some might call this the family tree.

Over this section of the cemetery, which had dropped about 20 ft due to an earthquake, you can see a car cemetery in the background. A bit unusual because everything here is recycled. I think in reality these cars are being stacked to be reprocessed into some other form of car life, or perhaps washing machines.............

Next to the cemetery, down a 300 ft cliff, you can see what look like toy trucks in a sand box.

My telephoto lens reveals that the sandbox is filled with people.

The people, called the garbage people gather around the trucks as each new truck arrives.

They stake claim to a portion of the contents by placing a hand  on the side of the truck.

Meanwhile their feathered co-workers watch carefully to see if they miss anything of culinary value. I sincerely hope that they really aren't watching for workers tired out by years of sorting garbage for subsistence. 

On top of the hill are these final resting places for the poorer people of the city, many of whom labored just a short distance away, at the bottom of the ravine. The hand made ladders are used by family members to place flowers near their loved ones.

As you can see, these tombs seem to go on forever. Fitting I think since the souls of those resting here have been promised that they too will go on forever; in a more peaceful state, hopefully leaving the garbage and the vultures  behind.

The Clinic

The clinic is where we spend most of our days and where we see many little miracles. It is on the property of a orphanage located on the north end of Guatemala close to a baseball park and a made to scale relief map of the country of Guatemala. I haven't seen the map up real close but from a distance you can see the ups and downs of all the volcanoes/ mountains that are here.

This is the outside of the clinic which is housed inside the big blue steel doors below.

We have seen many patients here, and we are having fun doing so. Each day is a new experience and a bit of an unknown, but that is part of the intrigue.

Notice the red mustache. We have to paint over the tagging soon.

This is our first patient and she was scared but a real sweetheart!Here are a few more of the children we have seen.  The little boy had already had some teeth which had been removed and he wouldn't let us do too much, so we did some simple things and we all went away happy!

     

Here is the inside of our pretty modern clinic.

The mosaic behind Diana shows Tio Juan who has made this work possible.

Now for a look at some of the grounds of the orphanage. There are very few girls staying here at this time, but the few that are here are very friendly and we see them outside on occasion, usually at lunch.

And outside the clinic we get to travel to some of the other orphanages in the city where we are always met with cheers and hugs. We usually screen the little patients when we travel to their "homes" and schools to determine who is in the most need of treatment.

Sometimes they are Tu-Tu cute!

We will show you more of these great young people as time moves on.

Time Out For Antigua

Generally I would like to keep posts in chronological order, but today I make a break. I have things from various settings in our mission but I haven't quite put them together yet. So we are taking a day trip to Antigua. We ended up with a rare Friday off at the clinic, and the Dental crew decided to tour the old capital of Guatemala. It was moved to Guatemala City some time ago because of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions which recurrently destroyed parts of the city.

Now Antigua is a tourist city that has a lot of local color and a volcano looming in the background.

There are motorcycles in abundance lining the cobblestone streets.

From the balcony of a local restaurant you see some of the ruins of the "old Antigua" in the background.

and this is that restaurant!

And this is some of the color of that eatery.

We visited a chocolate factory which was a twist on chocolate as we know it. Look closely at the statue, and then at the worker on the right. See the resemblance? 

And lastly there was some of the traditional color of Guatemala. There are definite cloth patterns for each local city or group of people, and the following pics show some of that part of the color and the people. The people are humble, soft spoken wonderful people. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

And the last color ; the color of some amazing wood!

The Mission Field, The first Two Weeks

Well, here we are in Guatemala. In fact, we have been here for two weeks. It has been a wild two weeks. We arrived on Saturday the 15 of February at about 8:00 at night and actually got through customs very easy, after we finally found our bags and loaded them onto two carts. We then headed to the exit and hoped that we would find someone there to greet us. Boy were we surprised. As we pushed through the doors with the rest of the crowd, we heard cheers and saw a group of "gringos" about our age holding signs of welcome and shouting out suggestions of how we could negotiate the system and move forward. They were great and we really did not expect the whole dental team to meet us at the airport. Additionally, there was Andre, Kacie's friend who lives in Guatemala, and it was really nice to have a familiar face and friend there. We were taking pictures and loading into cars and starting friendships that should last forever.

All of a sudden we met the Wilcox's, Wayne and Dee Dee, the Bennet's, Jan and Jan, and the Harris's, Brent and Janet. They drove us to our new apartment which they had fixed up and stocked with food. We were thrilled to find a bed and a bathroom, and wasted little time in crashing. The next day we were up and ready for church as if we had lived here all of our lives. The Wilcox's picked us up and we were soon in a Guatemalan Sacrament meeting not understanding very much of what was being said. We felt the spirit, and caught a word here and there, but.......... I did get asked to read a "scriptura" in Gospel Doctrine class, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't even sure which scripture it was, so I declined, and besides, mine were in English.

Here are our new friends from left to right, Brent and Janet Harris,Dee Dee and Wayne Wilcox, and Jan and Jan Bennett at a recent outing.

Here our new apartment after Diana has stated to add some color and local color. Question is .... Where will it end up?


We regrouped by Monday, and we were picked up for our first wild ride to the clinic. We were trying to tell which way was north as we dodged buses who thought they were sport's cars, motorcycles who only need a foot of space to drive in, pedestrians everywhere, some of whom only had one ped, and traffic lights that operated in theory only. We were astonished to see so many rifles and shotguns in the hands of so many security people of all types.

Then we arrived at the clinic. and were pleased to find behind the steel locked doors of an orphanage, a pretty modern 5 chair clinic complete with autoclaves and everything. Yes, sometimes the water shuts for no good reason, and we have to flush the toilets with buckets of water, and the x-ray unit is a hand help portable unit, but we have everything we need to do good dentistry and oral surgery. We can help patients!

Here is the apartment as we first found it, nice but lacking Diana's touch

We were blessed to meet some of our future patients in the form of orphans and students from local schools who are mostly arranged for by Tio Juan, who is an American ex-pat who has set up places where the local poorley cared for or not cared for can get a shot at better lives through some education, food and direction. Our first encounter with him was when he brought 23 young men to the clinic, all in one Chevy Surburban, circa 1980. They were amazing, well behaved young men who were also pretty good patients who were just glad to get some help. We also visited several of the local facilities to see little children who greeted us with cheers and laughs and hugs and we did mirror exams of their mouths to assess general needs and prioritize patients. What an amazing feeling.

On Thursday we worked for our lunch at the MTC, or CCM as it is known here. We met and examined the missionaries from Central America who will be here only two weeks before they start to teach the Gospel throughout Central America. The following Tuesday and Wednesday we did our best to do all of their necessary dental treatment which included multiple sets of wisdom teeth or in Spanish, muelas cordales. We do not have the facilities for general anesthesia so all of this is under local anesthesia. Great patients, even though they are a bit scared. The CCM is a new facility and the staff and Elders and Hermanas work very hard to prepare for missionary life. The food is great and it is a pleasure to serve and be served there.

At this point I have to put in a plug for my full time companion, Diana. She has been nothing short of AMAZING. She really has next to no dental assisting experience and yet she jumped right in with a set of four impacted 3rd molars and did not bat an eye, not even her bad one. She is having to learn everything on the fly and is pretty darned good. No complaints, no nausea, no nothing but get it done ! Way to go Diana!

There is a lot to learn and we are in pursuit of that knowledge. We feel blessed to be here and will try to do our best!

( P.S. I know that so far I am lacking in great photos, so I will try to up my game in future posts.)