Centro de Salud

Side note: I spelled Guillermo about ten different ways! Sorry typing fast!
Can not figure out how to put the pictures on the bottom! Grr technology

Loaded down with the bags
The blue box hanging down is the vaccinations
Look how huge I am compared to the actual bike...Yea

Rodolfo! A farmer in Hermano Pedro

Cocha and Me at one of the higher elevation houses!

3 kids in the picture and 2 more inside and this mother only sells tortillas for a living

My delicious lunch!
Now look at the small bowl in front of my plate, it has carrots in it..
Do not be fooled this vegetable mix is absurdly spicy! 

Daniel (the nurse) and me
I am wearing Cocha's head outfit

Switch!

Beyonce Booty! It is literally just a pillow

Yesterday was my second internship day! The week before, one of the nurses had asked if every once in awhile I would want to travel with him to some of the surrounding towns. Of course I said no... Ha yea right I was so excited he asked me! So yesterday we met at Centro de Salud and packed our ice box full of vaccinations and  a couple medications. I grabbed both of his bags and was ready to walk out the door. It was fuuny he bent down to grab his stuff and realized I had it all. He was slightly shocked. We walked to the front of the clinic and he said ok wait here. In my head I'm thinking ok he is probably going to get the car... Never make assumptions. He rode up on a dirt bike that looked like it was from the 70s. There was no shocks left and well its from the 70s, get the visual. So reluctantly I hopped on and we were off. He took all the back roads of Antigua in order to get to the town we were going to, Santa Ana. I felt every rock the road had to offer, small and large it jarred the whole bike. My "lethargic" self, and all the bags weighed that poor bike down. It took us about ten minutes to get to the town. We arrived at a very small house and dropped all of our stuff off and proceeded up the hill to another town called Hermano Pedro. This was a tiny, tiny town situated on the side of the mountain. We met an older man named Rodolfo, who was the main farmer and health coordinator for the town. He told us the town did not have their papers ready so we were to come back another day. Yes, everything is still on papers. No central system to organize health records. On our way back down to Santa Ana, the nurse, Daniel was asking me about school and life and I told him I was taking a Mayan language course. Turns out he speaks Kaq'chikel! What a blessing, I now have a new tutor! But after our visit to Hermano Pedro, we went back to the small clinic owned by a guy named Cocha. For the rest of the morning we did paper work for the women and children. We had to mark down which women needed Hierro and Folico and which kids needed their DTAP and polio. After we sorted out all the paper work we loaded all our supplies and set out on foot. Yes, on foot. We went to about 15 homes all with children. Its interesting, when you walk up to a house all the front doors and walls are the same. However, once you enter you will either see a dirt floor and card board walls or an actual foundation, with tile floors and concrete walls. Some people invite you in and others make you wait outside. If we had to wait in the street, we would administer the vaccination in the street. There is no formal form of health record, just a piece of paper that I (a person of no medical qualifications) can fill out. All the mothers had a little booklet that told them when their child would need their next vaccination. One child we saw was a year behind on all her vaccinations. Some of the children looked like they did not have a bath in about a week. One child had a large scrape in between his eyes from falling in the street. By no means am I discrediting the care of the mothers, however the idea of hygiene and safety is very different. Hard to take in. I never felt uncomfortable or unsafe in any home but rather shocked and amazed at the conditions of some of the homes. Daniel was great he explained everything to me. I have no idea how he did it but somehow I understood everything. Or maybe it was an understanding that we were helping this community and that was all I needed to know. I took a liking to him. Sorry I had to say that it just felt so appropriate and well "Little House on the Prairie" like. After the 15 homes we headed back to the clinic slash house and Cocha made us a delicious lunch of chicken and tortillas! Daniel insisted on having me try all the salsas and even the jalapeno vegetable mix. He insisted. So I tried them and my mouth was on fire. Daniel and the doctor got a kick out of that. They laughed at my pain (ironic right). But both in good character. After lunch we were packing our things up and of course like clock work it started to pour (remember our mode of transportation). We decided to wait it out. In the meantime I asked Cocha to show me pictures of his family etc. He showed me all his immediate family and then his extended family that consisted of about 100 more photos and then he showed me a picture of a man and woman in cowboy outfits... I said "Oh that's nice who is that?". He goes, oh that's me (pointing to the woman)! What????? I was at a loss for words. I just said wow that is a great outfit... Really Courtney... I don't care what his sexual orientation was but I was just caught without words. He was a very pretty woman though. So we talked about that for awhile and then he got out his outfits. He had a whole bag of them. High heels, dresses, skirts the whole shebang. More clothes than I have probably. I told him to put one on so he disappeared for awhile then came back with a long skirt on and a wig. He turned around and had a FAKE butt! It was hysterical. He had a "Beyonce" butt or a Sheniqua butt! He was so open with me and I could tell he appreciated the fact that I did not judge him or even look at him different. After our little rendezvous with outfits the rain held up a little and Daniel and I made a dash for it. I had all the bags again and I strapped my rain coat on over everything. As I walked outside a car drove by and soaked the backside of me. Thanks alot buddy. So now my butt was soaked and I had to ride on an outdated, no shock motorcycle back to town. We hit so many puddles it just drenched my shoes and my pants. The only part that was dry on me was my mid section. As we were cruising back Daniel asked me if I was ok. I said "DUH! Es una adventura!". In his head he was saying crazy American girl. But we made it safely back to the clinic in Antigua and I proceeded to smash my thumb in the gate that let us into the parking lot. Cold, wet and a pinched finger. Daniel looked at me soaked from head to toe and we just started laughing hysterically. We looked like drowned rats. It was a sight to see. But, he invited me on all his future small town excursions! I would consider this day a huge success. I walked home wet, was splashed by another car, but I was so happy and felt that I had really experienced something that can not be explained but simply appreciated.

Cooking lessons and random thoughts

So on Monday night Guirellmo, also the bike tour guide invited me over to his house with my friend Teresa to learn how to cook rellenitos! We started off with boiling bananas cut up, but still in their peels in cinnamon and chocolate water! After they became very suave(soft) we mashed them up like mashed potatoes. Meanwhile we had black frijoles heating up on the stove with azucar(sugar) and chocolate powder and a little bit of oil. Once the bananas were completely smashed we wet our hands with water grabbed about two tablespoons of banana and started patting them down like tortillas! Once we had a nice little banana tortilla we put the frijoles in the middle and proceeded to close the tortilla. In the end it looked like a little nugget. Once they were completely sealed we placed them in a pan with oil and let them fry away! Yum, food for the soul!

Oh so this past weekend I wore a pair of shoes that gave me a gnarly blister on the bottom of my foot. You know a SIMPLE blister. Well, one of my roommates thought it would be hysterical to tell me about the girl who fell off a zip line in Costa Rica and got a FLESH EATING BACTERIA! Great now I have that. Don't be surprised if I'm missing a foot or leg when I get back. Jessssus. Why would she tell me that!  I have been scrubbing the crap out of my foot. Wish me luck! (More hypochondriac moments to come).

Another entertaining story. Our CIRMA group (which is just 11 students) got together to discuss our current experiences and how we are handling everything. You know spill our feelings about life. Anyway, pretty nice to hear how everyone is experiencing everything but I must say this and forgive me for being rude, or for just being brutally honest. One of the students commented on how lethargic she was. She went on to discuss how she wasn't eating  like she normally does (hmmm beans empanadas and fried bananas), she wasn't in a routine, and she wasn't running like she used to... LETHARGIC... Now, what comes to everyones mind??? Without actually saying it or rather just in my head, I said "Dear, its called getting fat." I feel I am allowed to laugh at this since I myself feel "lethargic". That cracked me up. I think my grandparents might get a kick out of this one.

Me and Guirellmo at his house!

Teresa smashing bananas!

Yum!

Mixing the frijoles!

Our little tortilla with frijoles!

Almost done!!!

My spanish teacher Nori! This was where we had class, with ice cream!
The U.S. should adopt this idea! 

Side note: My Mayan language course is not getting any easier. Who would of thought, a Mayan class being easy.

Scatter Brain

This is a very scattered post:

This past Friday I spent about half of my day reading for HOURS! My geography class (which all the reading is for)  is looking at the concept of Globalization and how the "global" effects the "local". We are looking at the idea of globalization in rural areas in relation to Guatemala and even Antigua. I tend to have the literal brain and not the conceptual of lets ponder huge concepts with thousands of different answers brain. If anyone has any opinions on this topic please feel free to share.

Ok now I am going to complain for a second. I think being here makes you appreciate the little things in life like wi-fi, as horrible as that is. Unfortunately, my house does not have internet. This makes doing homework and communicating very difficult. In order to use the internet I have to go to a cafe, buy something then use the internet. As you can see, minor problems in life in the realm of things, but a pain none the less.

This past weekend I had my first adventure with street food! I had a fajita thing... Fried onions, bell peppers and some kind of meat(honestly who knows what is was, I chose not to ask). I will venture to say chicken (more wishful thinking than anything). But, it was delicious with HOT HOT salsa and something of a soft green sauce. So far so good, have not gotten sick (fingers crossed). Advice: do not eat the ceviche here. If you do eat it and its chewy spit it out immediately and make sure to be close to a bathroom at all times.

Saturday morning woke up semi early and went to watch the Independence Day parade. I thought Tucson's St. Patty's day parade was a decent size, Anitgua has it beat. There were more school marching bands than schools. I can not explain how many bands I saw and dancers and costumes. It went on for at least 3 hours and then some. And then hours later there was some more marching and then about 3 hours later some more. My favorite band played "I Believe I can Fly" and had some serious swag. For my grandparents and parents swag can be defined as serious rhythm and sweet dance moves. It was a 2 day celebration.
 I must say if you are ever in Antigua and you hear a series of gunshots... 1. Don't run immediately 2. Try not to duck immediately 3. Look around. Most likely it is some kids setting of bottle rockets in the streets but it literally sounds like gunshots and it echoes through the whole town!
The rest of the day was pretty mellow but I was walking home around 9:30 with my friend Dylan and we were stopped by a group of Guat kids (college age) and said it was this girls birthday and asked to take a picture. So we took it. Warning: this is a ploy to get you to go out with them and buy them drinks. You learn quick here.

Ok now on to Sunday! My friend Guellmo who is from Guatemala City gave me one of his bikes and took my friend Colleen and I on a 10 km bike ride! It was incredible. Wow such great description right. Here it goes. I'm not going to name every town because it honestly will not mean anything but in total we went to 6 different small towns all very close to Antigua. He told us the story of how the 3 volcanoes, Picaya, Agau and Fuego  (which surrond us, Fuego is the one that has been all over the news) came to be named and then went on to tell us the history of each town.  As we were riding chicken buses would fly by us. For those of you who have never heard of a chicken bus it is the so called public transportation. I would venture to say that these buses are all the old school buses from the U.S that are deemed unsafe. Yea... They decorate them with different colors and on a good day you might get to sit in a seat. They PACK people in there. The key to riding them is sitting in the back because the escape door is there other exit! It costs about 3Q which is not even 50 cents to ride and they haul ass! Sometimes I think the driver might be slightly inebriated. This is Guatemala for you. Don't worry I have not taken them! Smart decisions. But they have no care for bikers. You best get out of their way before they run you over with their balding tires and exhaust fumes that leave you in a cloud of black smoke. As if I wasn't breathing hard enough to make it up the hill on a bike the chicken bus chokes me. Anyway moving on, town we went to had a church that seemed to server as the focal point of the town.A brief history, back in the colonial period the Jesuit order came to Guatemala and pushed Catholicism on all of these small towns. Before, most of the people were polytheistic. You can imagine this conversion for the Jesuits. In order to appease the indigenous people they built four outdoor ramadas where the people could pray. Many of the indigenous people did not believe in a building as a symbol of place or worship so the Jesuits built the ramadas. Thought that was interesting. All the towns we visited were partially dirt roads and partially cobblestone. The people were so welcoming but curious what we were doing.
The history of each town seems so different even though in reality they may only be 3 km away from one another. We rode through a lot of coffee plantations and different farms. A different lifestyle. I also saw a "pila". This is the common washing station for the town. The town women take their clothes there and do all their laundry by HAND. A woman asked me how I did mine and I was embarrassed to say I had a washer and a dryer and was too lazy to even do that sometimes. Life put into perspective again. We rode for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours and ended with some traditional Guatemalan dulces (candy)! Yum I feel like it was pure brown sugar!
I will say though, my host mom still has the common misconception that Americans (meaning me and my roommates) need super sized portions. This is not the case. She piles food on our plates and is upset when we have trouble finishing it. We have been trying to tell her to cook less food cause we simply can not eat that much but its been a slow process... Hence the reason I feel I weigh about 500 lbs. When I return please do not judge my jowels. As someone who I will not name said, "Court, your taking up space"... I AM TAKING UP SPACE. So depressing.

My new outfit for my internship! Baha

The parade begins!

Study break! This little guy got me to buy so much chicle!!!

The familia! The parade is still going on... It is dark outside

Guirellmo and I before the ride! 

One of the many iglesias we saw!

The pila! Notice in the far far background the women cleaning!

Trying to take a picture while riding... Yes almost hit a pot hole!

Mom: Proof I was wearing a helmet

Guirellmo and Colleen on the path! I was still riding my bike! Talent

Sorry my thoughts can be a little disorganized!

Boring :)

Ok guys I am falling behind. I will post tomorrow or Wednesday about my weekend. But I have a Spanish test tomorrow I need to study for! Hope all is well.

 The volcano has been very quiet today... Sometimes that is more nerve wrecking... Quiet before the storm... Oh and no earthquakes thus far!
Amor to all!

Well guys not sure what is going on with my blog, they said it was reporting as spam. I beg your pardon. This is top quality accounts of my life. Oh I crack myself up. But I think the problem should be solved.

Yesterday was my Friday! No classes today but I think I have about 57 full 11 1/2 x 8 pages of reading to do! AYUDAME! In my Kaq'chikel class yesterday I had my first oral exam... Yikes! Bless her soul I must butcher every word. I think I might be missing a vocal chord because some of the clicks and glottal sounds you have to make just do not come out of my mouth. At least I provide entertainment for the class.
OH MY GOSH I forgot the most important thing I saw yesterday. The volcano "Fuego" near our town ERUPTED! I kid you not it reminded me of Dante's Peak for all who have seen that. I was amazed. I was walking to school about 7:45 and nothing was happening a little smoke out of the top but nothing alarming. I got to my classroom and was just organizing my notes and my friend Colleen said hurry get up to the terrace Fuego is going off. It was absolutely breath taking and surreal. I could not believe my eyes. I was watching the volcano erupt. That only happens in the movies right... Within a matter of 30 minutes the amount of smoke, and debris in the air was astonishing. According to news reports there was smoke 2 miles high. As we watched the smoke rise all of a sudden it started rolling down the hill into the valley. About 30,000 people were evacuated. Now I know most of you are worried but my Kaq'chikel teacher an indigenous woman to Guatemala looks at us and says "That ain't nothin!" Her words verbatim. There aren't really words to describe the way the debris moved and the way the smoke came out of the top of the volcano but it was incredible to be apart of something so grand and yet so destructive.

Ok so that was the excitement in the morning. Then on my way home for lunch I saw a man, about 4 feet tall, maybe 75 years old and carrying a dresser probably 2x his weight or maybe equal. But he had a series of straps around the dresser that all attached to a single strap around his HEAD. Can you believe that. He was carrying a dresser via his head. The things you see here.

Right now I am sitting in a small cafe of the Central Park, trying to do homework. You can tell how well that is going. But I do have some unfortunate news. My host mom Silvia has breast cancer. I do not know how long she has had tumors but she just found a new one yesterday. She needs to have surgery but she will not go because she said it is too expensive. I asked her how she felt and she said she can not sleep at night because she is in pain. I would not normally ask for donations but if anyone would like to donate to her cause, me and the other girls in my house are trying to raise some money for her and just give it to her as a gift. She is very hesitant to take any money let alone ours, but as a new member to all of our families we want to help her through this time. I know she is scarred and unsure what to do. The other night I was sitting in my room reading and she came in just to talk. She never once mentioned her pain but I know she was trying to distract herself. I know because I do the same thing when I feel sick or nervous. The only thing that would comfort me was thinking about someone else's thoughts. So please let me know if you would like to help. Five American dollars equates to about almost 40Q which can cover a Dr. visit or simply keep her in your prayers.
Ok last news of the day! I met a young fellow from the East Coast that is working with local farmers here in Guatemala harvesting coffee. If anyone would like some fresh Guat coffee, please please email me and I would love to send some. All the profit goes directly to the farmers! And lets be honest the coffee is delicious. Light or dark it is so fresh and pure!

Ok that is all for now. Tomorrow is Independence Day here so the fiestas and parades have begun. About every 5 to 10 minutes a firework goes off and scares the be-jesus out of me! I keep thinking the volcano is going off or that the sky is falling!
Love to all!

Looks pretty normal right...

Colleen: "Um... Court is this normal..."
Courtney: "Yea don't worry we ll be fine!" 

The smoke 2 miles high and rolling down the left side

DANTE'S! 

My first day in Centro de Salud

This post might be a little uncomfortable but here it goes. Today was my first day working in the Public Health Clinic. I promptly arrived at 7:55, 5 minutes early to be precise. Seems strange for Courtney right. But anyway my friend Brittany and I were waiting for the director to tell us what to do. We waited and we waited... We stuck out like sore thumbs. A nurse walked up to us, spoke to us at rapid speeds and dragged me away to a different area of the building. She was firing words at me that I probably did not even know in English, but I made do. She put me in triage from what I gathered. There were people in and out, old and young. I was lost. She handed me a stethoscope and said take that girls blood pressure... I think she was under the impression I was a nurse. I felt so inadequate at that moment in time. She looked at me like "Geez frickin American girl!" It was depressing I must say. The lack of understanding on both our parts created a huge barrier for both of us. I basically sat in a chair for two hours after watching two nurses bustle around, as I sat there helplessly. Depressing, like I said. But the director came, there was some confusion, then the nurse kind of apologized and then she started to show me things. From there it was a whole new world! She showed me how to take blood pressures, weights (seems simple right but their scale is outdated and picky) and how to give injections. It was amazing. I understand every 4th or 5th word but we got along. By the end of the morning we were making jokes with each other. 

The difference in organization between a clinic in the US and here is tremendous. It puts life in perspective . The papers are completely disorganized, people are given numbers, in order to be seen by the doctor but who knows if they actually follow them. For part of the morning I saw a lot of little kids and mothers. We had to take all their vitals with the most outdated equipment and the idea of anti-bacterials did not exist. I took out stitches from this kid's eyebrow and proceeded to wash the equipment in the sink. The gap in health care here and the US is amazing. After lunch we had about fifteen patients with these miniature notebooks that they would clip with their file. I had no idea what the heck was inside them so I asked my attending nurse. She told me they were the books of the mujeres(women) that were prostitutes. In order to work they had to be checked every 15 days and receive a stamp to continue working. A stamp... 

I gave about 13 syphilis shots today. I was set back for a minute. All these women were women I had seen in the street ( not working) or in a restaurant and now they were getting their stamp of "approval" if you will. It was hard to accept. I wanted to reach out to them but for the most part it was the only way they could support their family. Made me appreciate my life and all the things and opportunities I have had. So after our fifteen patients left we had about an hour of free time. My nurse who we shall call Lily taught me how to dance Salsa, Meringue, and Tango! It was pretty awesome. She is probably my new Guatemalan best friend. She was excited that I was excited to learn. My next visit I will be traveling with one of the doctors to a couple different small towns to administer help and after that I will be back in the permanent clinic. Another great experience. Hope all is well with everyone and I miss you all! :) 

Where do I even start to explain my weekend… Here is the logistics. I decided to go on a guided backpacking trip to an inactive volcano called Acetenango. Mind you, I have hiked a lot and I like to think of myself as somewhat athletic. So when I signed up for the overnighter the guide told me it’s a tough hike but its 80% mental and 20% physical. Ok, no problem right! So Saturday morning I got up at 5 just before sunrise, packed my backpack and headed over to the office where our group was going to meet. In our lovely adventure group we had 4 Germans, 1 French-Canadian, 1 Bolivian, me and two guides. Pretty good group I’d say. We all could somewhat communicate in either Spanish or English so it made it somewhat easier. The guys packed a lot of the food in their packs and the girls took the tent equipment etc. We loaded the shuttle and headed off to Soledad (city where the trailhead is). Oh and as we were getting onto the shuttle I just happened to glance at the back tires, BALD! Literally no tread. Hmmm sounds muy seguro ha. We had about an hour drive through country side and mountains to get to our trailhead. Once we arrived we put our packs on and set off. The first 30 minutes of trail consisted of a mix of lava rock and mud which was about 6 inches deep. Basically walking straight up. Within about five minutes I was breathing hard and the Brazilian guy fell behind (he was wearing Puma shoes… need I explain more). So the group split up. I stayed in the back to encourage this Brazilian who we shall call Greg. Or by the end of the trip F’ing Greg. Our four to five hour hike turned into six with this guy. That whole 80% mental was not working out for him. We had to go about 6 or 7 miles to get to our camping spot and probably ascended 3500 to 4000 ft in elevation gain. But this guy would literally take four steps and stop. I tried to explain to him in my best Spanish that stopping more often can use more energy (He is from Brazil so he speaks Portuguese.. Enough differences from Spanish that he had no idea what was going on). Then he didn’t bring a lot of snacks so being the good Samaritan I was, I gave him 2 of my  power bars and my most favorite snack, DARK CHOCOLATE SEA SALTED ALMONDS L It was a sad day. Throughout the hike we ascended through about four eco systems. We started off with low land  farms and corn fields, then to the “Cloud Forest” which is very tropical and filled with mossy trees and natural orchids and finally up into high alpines. It was gorgeous to go through such different systems as long as you ignored your legs screaming at you. I kid you not out of the six miles I counted maybe 5 switchbacks, the rest was straight up! But I’m rambling. We are about 30 minutes from the top and the first group is way ahead and the guide and I tell Greg we need to hurry up the rain is gonna come soon since there were huge clouds rolling in at rapid speeds… He still did not walk any faster and within ten minutes of telling him it was going to pour on us, sure enough the clouds opened up and drenched us. I had all my rain gear and I was still soaked. It came in sideways and every which way. It took us about 15 minutes to find the group, who was struggling to set up the tents and get under cover. Within minutes the temperature dropped and it was fraaaaeeezing. We got the tents up and quickly took cover. You would not believe how much water I had to scoop out of our tent with my dinner cup. It was silly and just miserable. So for about 3 hours it rained and we all just stayed in the tents. Thankfully the guide cooked us dinner and even brought it to us. So I guess that was a bonus to hiring someone to do the tedious work. 

Our camp spot sat in a saddle right next to Acetenango and usually when the weather permits you can summit Acetenango and view the active volcano called Fuego and an inactive one Agua. As you can tell from the story we did not get to do that… By 9 pm the temperature probably dropped into the 40s. As I was going to bed, being my usual self, my heart felt like it was racing so I freaked out... My lovely guide said “Just let me know when it’s not beating…” Real funny. I slept for maybe 2 hours and then woke up at five just to wait. The weather was still horrible so again we could not summitL All of my gear was soaked except for my gloves... but just wait the Brazilian guy proceeds to somehow take them grrrrr! So we start our descent around 8am in wet gear and get to our van at 11. Thank god. My everything hurt and I just wanted a hot shower. When I got home the hot water was out. Fail! But all in all it was an adventure, it definitely tests your mental toughness and it was good to be surrounded by all different types of people. Hopefully the next time I do it Ill actually get to see the volcanoes and not just sheets of rain. 1/2 a day to recover then off to the school week! 

This was the beginning of the hike, sharing the trail with the  horse! Cute outfit right!

Our ascent through the corn fields!

Loved this flower!

Sign pointing to the volcano! Still smiling because it hasn't started raining yet...

High altitude flower!

Lunch time!

It all goes downhill from here. The figure you can barely see is my lovely friend Greg.

Clear skies for about 15 minutes in the morning!

The group!