Internet Not working

Hola to all from Villa Nueva! So first of all, I haven´t had internet since Monday which is why I haven´t posted since then. Now, I´m only doing this because Lee snuck me into to school´s office so I could use this computer.

So, this week was good. I did a lot of clinic stuff and math tutoring. The clinic has been interesting to say the least. About 50% of the cases have been feminine problems, but we also got to drain twice, a dude´s belly of all the water from is nearly non functional liver. He´s an alcoholic so his liver now sucks at what it does. SO, he has hepatic cirrhosis causing his belly to balloon with water. The best image I have of this other than what I actually saw, is a photo of a skinny little African child with a huge gut due to malnutrition. I think that is actually cirrhosis, just with a different cause. Anyway, we drained 1.2 liters of this clear-yellow liquid (not urine) yesterday, to go along with the liter we drained on Monday from him. He´s still got a lot more to go, but a medication Dra. Eliet put him on will help his body to absorb the rest. That was interesting. And there were a ton of type II diabetics that came in with blood suger the the 3 and 400 range, one guy came in with 468. The ´normal range´is 70 to 110. Apparently diabetes is a huge problem here since they eat so many carbs, really thick tortillas, rice, lots of bread etc. And the put TONS of sugar into their coffee...TONS. And they pour sugar into their milk, which is why I´ve had maybe only one glass of milk since I´ve been here. So those people had to sit in the clinic for quite a while on IVs to bring their blood sugar down. Anyways, that all I guess with that. I will let you know how the surgery goes, whenever that is. I´m not sure, but I may actually get to help with that, we´ll see.

Hmm, well this week I also did a lot of math tutoring. What an adventure that is. The school system here is a bit wack if you ask me...NOPE, completely wack. From 730 to 1pm they have 7 classes and a recess, with no passing time between classes, but with a ´rest´ period at the beginning of most classes for 10 mins and then a rest at the end of each for 10 mins. The teachers say the kids need to rest since they expended so much energy in their previous class. This BOGGLES my mind. With each class only being 45mins, that leaves about 25mins of learning time. Wierd. This, plus the wierd ways of teaching. This week one thing in particular stuck out to me. I can´t give you the example since I can´t type out math stuff, but the basic idea is that Brenda (14 yrs old?) asked me for help on a problem and so I began working it out and decided that variables were needed to work it out. I did it in my head just fine, but I needed to show here how to do it the long way since she´s not able to do it in her head at her level. Well, SURPRISE, they haven´t learned variables yet! Okay, so their teacher, Estella, who is actually one of the home ´kids´ told me that what they were supposed to do was use their ´LOGIC´. WHAT?!?!? Basically, this logic is a different way to think of the problem with a variable involved, but with a different face, and can only be used when the person already has the ability to use variables to solve these problems. I can´t explain it perfectly here, but it was absolutely ridiculous. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the teacher couldn´t even show me how to do it with her logic, I had to show her. To top it all off, when Brenda asked Estela to help here with the first three problems she did them for her instead of direct how to do them. So out of the 4 problems assigned, the teacher did the first 3 for her, and couldn´t even solve the 4th. Wierd.

This is not to say that they are horrible for teaching this way and shouldn´t be teaching (although some probably shouldn´t be). This is definately a cultural problem down here and although it may be easier for some to laugh at this, it´s a serious problem that not only are these kids being taught in a terribly inefficient way, but when they struggle with a problem, they aren´t taught to persist until it is finished. Unfortunately, I´m learning that this situation is more the rule than the acception here in Guatemala . And to think that this is the case at a private Chrisian school here. I´m beginning to realize why there is a 60% unemplyment rate here and no doubt, this has much to do with the general economic state of this country. It seems clear as day to me that, all this translates into this fact- when a Chapin (Guatemalan) gets fired or rejected at a job, he or she simply roles over and quits. It´s too bad. But this is something that is really combatted by the people who work at this home...that is, teaching persistance and hard work...it says somewhere that laziness leads to folly and hard work leads to something better (I´m not sure how it goes in Proverbs). Anyways, that´s some of what I´ve learned this week.

Well, tonight we have a team from Orlando, FL coming in. 20 people for me to translate for. I´m really looking forward to it actually. That´s all for today, see ya!

Dave