I´m going to roughly go over the week with the help of my journal entries. There is a lot to write, so for today I´ll just write up to July 31st and try to get the rest written up by tomorrow.
Saturday the 28th the Ruano family and I picked up the team at the airport. I was super excited to see them! It was Nikki´s 18th birthday, so after dinner the boys set off firecrackers. It scared her at first! Me too, I have to admit. It was pretty funny. They were really loud when they lit a bunch of them at once. Some of the boys would light one at a time and throw so that it would explode in the air.
My suitcase came safely- unfortunately Dr. Grieco from the team didn´t get his suitcase. He had to wait until Monday for his. It was like Christmas unpacking! My mom is a superhero. My sister too. Kayleen baked me pistachio bars and granola. My mom packed everything really well, it was amazing. I have to say, I was most excited about my blue checkered Vans shoes. Yeah, I know. They are just shoes. But I didn´t realize how much I missed them!
Here starts the journal entries:
July 29, Sunday El Faro, Punta de Palma, Guatemala
The car ride to El Faro was pretty good. I made two bracelets on the way, one for Laura and one for Bryan. My lips have been bothering me all day- they are itching and I think it was a mango. Chochy says that if you eat it off the skin, it can bother you. I hope I´m not allergic because I love mangos! Next time I will peel it.
We are at El Faro now. I am sharing a bunk with Rossanita :) All us kids played soccer before dinner but I felt sick, a little dizzy and tired. The humidity is crazy here! I felt better after drinking a lot of water, which Mr. Zellner recommended. ```Drink more than you think you should!`` It helped.
We did some fishing off the dock. Well, Nathan , Bryan and Cameron did. The rest of us just watched. They caught a few fish, which was pretty cool. The weather is really nice at night. The breeze is chilly sometimes, but other times warm. There was a lot of lightning, but no rain.
July 30th, Monday afternoon
The view right now is ridiculous. It´s just like a photo from my tropical calendar at home. I´m on the dock at El Faro and the other kids are jumping off into the water and swimming. . I woke up at 2:30 this morning to thunder and pouring down rain. Thankfully I was able to fall asleep quickly and didn´t wake up again until 6:20 am. Breakfast was at 7, and then we got on the boat around 7:30. The boat ride was really fun. We took two boats, one for all the supplies, and one for us. It took about 25 minutes to get to Miramar, the village where we were working. We had to go by water because there are no roads to get there.
We had a pretty good dental clinic. It took a while to unload and set up. We had 4 dentists, Dr. Gilberto, Dr. Ruano, Dr. Grieco and Dr. Candie. I got to assist Dr. Candie. I held a light for her, fetched different tools, and cleaned up. I was excited because she mostly spoke Spanish with me, so I got to learn the names of the instruments in Spanish better. Well, I was excited that I learned the names of the instruments period. Haha. The whole day we saw around 40 patients total.
I am so thankful to God right now for the blessing that this trip is. The whole team is getting along fantastic and it is a lot of fun hanging out with and getting to know better the girls, Nikki, Laura and Heidi. We laugh a lot! It´s fun to talk English again and have jokes together that make us laugh until our sides hurt.
July 31st, Tuesday
It is so cool because on the boatride to Miramar, you can see Belize!
I am so exhausted. Last night I prayed that we would give everything we had, and today, I did. The morning went really slow, especially compared to yesterday. It seems like I got bit in every possible place, even though I put on bug spray. My legs, arms, ears, even my lips itch. I´m still having an allergic reaction to something. So strange. I´m an itchy mess. My lips feel almost numb and they are blotchy, like some of the color is missing out of them. I don´t know if it´s something I ate or what. It´s frustrating that I don´t know what caused it.
Assisting was difficult today. My back hurt and I could feel sweat rolling slowly down my back. The breeze stopped mid-morning and it was complete humidity. It was awful. I knew I couldn´t do it on my own strength, so I just prayed for God to help me because I was breaking. Thankfully, I was able to have a smile on my face and I made it through! Something that helped me was Bryan. While I was getting some clean tools or something, he saw me and gave me a big hug. It just made my day and put a big smile on my face.
Tomorrow is travel day and sort of a rest day. I´m going to be so thankful for a rest for my feet! They are so tired from standing all day. I don´t remember being this tired at Piedras Grandes, the last dental trip I went on in October. And there, we worked longer hours.
When we got back from the clinic after a very refreshing yet very bumpy boatride, we ate lunch (I was super hungry so it tasted soo good). After lunch, we went swimming in the warm water. A storm was coming and there was a lot of breeze, so it felt good. After swimming, we changed to play soccer. By the time we got to the small-sized soccer field, all of these dark cloud had moved in and it was almost completely dark. It is amazing how fast it gets dark here.
