Hello. I have a couple photos slash video of sunday on our way to church and at church.

On the top is the church we go to - La Fraternidad Christiana...it seats 12,200 and typically has about 5 to 6,000 people for a Sunday service.

The photo in the middle -Jon, he´s at the University studying tourism stuff. .
To the right is David (10?) in the yellow and Emily (10?) just in front of the

camera, and Astrid (19) on the right.

Below is a video of a church member singing a song originally done by Josh Groban and Charlotte church. He´s singing entirely in Spanish, but I think the original was done partially in Spanish or Italian, and partially in English. It´s opera ish, and this guy belted it...it was pretty amazing to hear it in person. The video is about 3 mins long.

Left is one of the teams before the first games.

This is one of the teams lined up before the first games began on Wednesday.

Sorry, I really didn´t take a whole lot of photos of games b-c I was busy doing lots of other stuff.

Here is Edgar, getting his clothes stuffed with balloons...the team with the most balloons stuffed in the individual´s clothing was the winner. Well, that´s all folks, see ya.

To the left is the after shot of that house I helped with a month or so ago and down to the left is the before shot. I accidentally added this volcanoe shot below and cannot seem to delete it. I´m going to post more photos on a photo only post in a couple minutes.

Hola. So, it´s been a while since I wrote ya´ll so I´m not sure where to begin...Bueno, last week was ´Semana Santa´ or ´Holy Week,´ which is a big deal here (even though the actual resurrection isn´t too big...wierd), so the kids had the week off. SO, the week was spent hanging out, playing games, having water fights etc. We went to a water park last Tuesday, where, although I had on SPF 50 and applied it multiple times, I got completely thrashed by the sun. So, I´m still peeling from that. It was worth it though, that was a wicked good time. Wed thru Fri we had game days, with the kids split up into 4 teams and each with their own color, name, cheer, flag, etc. Wednesday was rally day, which means something that I still haven´t quite figured out, but there was a timed obstacle course, 3 legged soccer, and others. The next day was food day, so all the games were food related. So, we had a cake decorating relay where one kid would run to the table where there was a cake, frosting and sprinkles and other toppings, and they had to decorate with a clown theme. Each kid had 20 seconds and then they´d run back and tag a teammate. THere were others too. Friday was water day, so all the games, had water or water baloons involved. One game was water balloon volley ball where each team had a bed sheet to serve and catch the balloons (like the fire departments used to save people from burning buildings in old movies), and there were sheets over the net so they couldn´t see where the other team would volley the balloon. THat was fun.

I´m finally over my sickness now, I just got done with my Cipro. I´m getting back into the routine of clinic time in the mornings and tutor time for a couple or 3 hrs after lunch. We got a new intern a week ago sunday, she´s at school now in Antigua for 2 weeks. Another couple people associated with NLCH came here for Holy week and have now gone back to where they live elsewhere in Guate. So now it´s just me, which is kinda nice. I can read every day now, and study spanish every day...I like it. It was nice having the team and then those other three people around though. We didn´t go to church on Sunday, b-c even the evangelical churches here don´t have a special easter service...they did their special service on Palm Sunday. So, we had a short little service here at the home, with the director preaching, and then we ate breakfast together in the lunch room while watching Prince Caspian (in spanish of course). Sunday night I went with Lee and Staci (my supervisor people) to Antigua to take Lindsey the new intern to school. We brought four of the ´kids´ of the home (they´re all my age or older), since they helped with the game week, the Jarvis´ thought it´d be fun for them if they went to Antigua. That was fun. Yesterday and today have been pretty standard...clinic, study, read, lunch, tutor, hang out, dinner, hang out, read, sleep. I went running today, which was fun. Even though I´ve been here for seven weeks now, the 4300ft altitude still gets me a little bit when I run...I don´t feel much more tired, but I notice the difference in my times.

Flowing Like a River

Hello all, I'm sick again...Yay!  So this week has been great actually, but I have apparently not kicked the bug I had before.  I did my usual clinic stuff, nothing really interesting this week, and tutoring, normal too.  I went to Antigua with the team that was here from Orlando, that was fun.  They just left today, so now i'll have lots of alone time...maybe too much.  Staci told me that after teams leave they have their two 'sad days' and then things are back to normal.  Generally things are on a high, as they were this week with this team, so after they leave things slow down and are a bit sad I guess.  It'll be good and bad I guess...I will get more reading time and such, but it was really a great time meeting all the people of that group and just sharing my experiences with them as well as hearing some of their stories.  And it's fun to see how nuts a lot of the kids go for these people.  I had an exciting night last night...no puke though, I'm sorry!  I did have diarrhea 8 times though, so that was fun, and as the title of this entry suggests, I was flowing like a river (I'll remind you that it's called butt pee).  So I started on Ciprofloxacin again today...hopefully this ten days' worth will actually kick the bug from my body, we'll see.  Anyway that's all for now, see ya!

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

Hello. So I am finally back at the home, after a good three weeks at language school in Antigua I can finally start to make a dent in my speaking abilities. I've been pretty frustrated about the whole spanish speaking thing, because I've been learning and learning and learning, but with minimal speaking to suppliment it all, my brain has pretty much got a grammar traffic jam (9 tenses) everytime I try to speak even simple present tense and some past tense. I've been getting more and more agitated about my inability, but today, actually got to do a decent amount of talking with some of the kids.
I arrived here around 9:45 and not too long after getting all my stuff set out where it belongs I joined in a water fight with some kids and two other short term missionaries, then I took a nap for about an hour. After my nap I decided to go hang out with the younger boys (they are generally the easiest to get to know and the most patient with bad spanish speakers). So I played UNO with Javier, Hans, David, Sammy, and Giovanni for a while and then wrestled around/had a pillow fight with them for half an hour or so and then went back to the other property where my living area is. I hung out with Amy and Erin (the short termers) and Lee for a bit and then went back to the other side to have dinner. I hung out with the girls and Salomon (one of the older boys) for a bit, pretty much not talking, just listening...I'm not comfortable yet speaking Espan~ol in groups (by the way, I could use a lot of prayer in general but especially for the ability to speak to these kids). Then we ate dinner with the older boys, again I just listened the whole time. I've been frustrated a lot of today since I had trouble manning up and just talking. Oh well.
So after dinner I was sitting listening some more, with just the two girls there, and Edgar and Rony still at the table, and finally, after they left I had a decent conversation with someone. Rony asked me why, after I've been to language school, was I not talking at all...haha...so the thorn in my side ended up being the topic which started my first conversation. So I talked with Rony (14 yrs?) for 20 mins or so about medicine. I was surprised to see that he actually struck up the conversation, it was really cool. I know all this probably sounds wierd, about my frustration and inability to just go out on a limb and talk, but believe it or not, it's actually been really frustrating that I've been such a wuss. So anyways, we talked about how he wants to be a surgeon, and the system in Guatemala (it's mostly government run), and things that Rony has gotten to see in the clinic here (like last year when a guy came in with wooden shrapnel in his gut from an explosion), and also my plans for med school and after. We also talked about his schooling right now and what he's learning in science class...this made me more excited to begin tutoring math and science (hopefully I'm able to help him). Anyways, so that was just a bit ago, and now it's about 8:00 and I'm writing this.

Oh yeah, I've been pretty tired this week and also, today and thursday I have generally just felt crappy...apparently my body is still getting over the explosive sickness I had the other night. I finished my antibiotics today, Praise The Lord! This drug that I've taken once a day for this amoeba or whatever I had, has given me a constant bitter taste on the back of my tongue. Much of the time for the past week, I have had the taste of bile (puke taste) on my tongue.
It's really wierd because it's not my tongue actually sensing the taste, it's just my brain telling me that my tongue is sensing it, so nothing I have done (mint, brush teeth, drink water) has helped get rid of the taste...aahhh, good times. Also, every sip of water I take, I can taste every impurity in it clear as day...not to mention that I can taste the air (and the air is extra polluted here so it's like chewing on dirt or the bottom of a shoe...yumm).
Just so you all know, I'm not sitting here angry about all this, venting to you...I just find all this interesting and wierd, so I thought I'd pass it along.
Again, as I mentioned in a previous post, I really enjoy reading any comments you guys put up, so please keep commenting. It's strange how much little things from home, like those comments, fuel me whenever I read them. Okay, well I'm gonna go read and then go to bed, and then it's off the the megachurch (12,000 people) in the morning! Have a great night.

Sunset from volcano.


This is just a photo post adding to my previous post.







I'm going to post more photos tomorrow. The Todds are going to bed, so I gotta go. I will be back.