Jessica's Story: Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota Medical Mission 2009: Jessica' Story

Guest Blogger: Jessica

Jessica is a high school junior at Inter-American School in Xela, Guatemala. She volunteered, along with four of her classmates to translate for the medical and dental teams from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota.

This is Jessica's story.

Well, my very first day of community service was on June 1st. My classmates, Mr. Mac and I

sorted the medicines at the Episcopal Church of San Marcos for the Medical Team for whom we

were supposed to translate.

Monday, June 29 This was the actual first day of being a translator for the Medical Team. The Medical Team was from North Dakota, but the dentists were actually from Canada. The first day was at the Episcopal Church and started at 10:30. As the first day, I was given a really really bright yellow shirt to wear and assigned to translate to Anna Pranata and her assistant Jamee Weibe in the

dental team. It was quite entertaining(?) to see mouths bleeding out (just kidding). Then after a exhausting day of work, I went home.

Tuesday, June 30 This day we went to Chuguexa, a little town near Chimaltenango. It took 3 hours to us to get there, I almost felt we were reaching Guatemala City!!! This day I was

assigned to translate for Jennifer Risan, a medical provider; and

after lunch, for Pam Pranke and Marilyn Schroeder, on the nursing team. There were two things that caught my interest. The first thing is that Pam was quite fluent in Spanish so I didn't really had to say anything. Though I still had to explain a some things because mainly Pam spoke in traditional Spanish and a few of the people couldn't understand her well. The second thing happened during lunch, when the Father

of the church there told me that the people of Chugüexa did not prepare good lunch for the Medical Team as there were previous cases in which they had made meals for the Americans coming down here and the Americans wouldn't eat. I don't know if there were hygiene issues that bothered them but that was the main reason why the Chugüexans did not make us "proper" lunch. Well, anyways, we got frijoles, boiled egg, and tamalitos, and all of us ate happily. When we were done with everything, it rained so hard that we weren't able to move nor hear. The rain delayed us all and when we got back to Xela, it was about 9 pm.

Wednesday, July 1 We went to Chuatuj in Coatepeque and we were escorted by cops due to the terrible circumstances of violence there. It was really hot there and I worked for Karen Rohr, a medical provider, whom I worked for for the next 3 days. I had a pretty decent day, except for the haunting experience of the bathroom, which was smelly and it was not flush-able, it literally just let drop the "things" on the deep floor. Well. I didn't really use it though. Karen and I saw a lady patient, who had watery eyes and claimed to have random headaches and generalized muscle pain. We were just about to give her some pain killers when she told us her tragic story of why she had those random aches. Four years ago, the lady had a 16-year old son who was assassinated by the gangs. She really loved the son, as he was her last one. But the gangs were not satisfied just killing her son, but they cut his throat and showed her the headless body bleeding in front of her house. Since then she started hallucinating her son and being unable to sleep. After hearing all of her tragic story, Karen knew what she really had and she prescribed her an anxiety-killing drug to calm her down. We were very sorry to hear that.

Thursday, July 2 We went to the same place in Chuatuj and I worked with Karen again. It was

similar to the last day but there was a patient who is engraved in my memory. This was a man of almost 80-years old who had problems with his hernia. At first, he went with a nearby doctor. The doctor told him that he needed three surgeries because he had such huge hernias but that the doctor himself couldn't do it because of his lack of equipments. So he went to the doctors in Xela but they didn't help him at all; instead they "got his money out" and at least they wanted him to do three more exams which cost almost Q1000 each. The man felt "tricked" by the doctors because what he wanted to do was to remove the hernias, not to do the unnecessary exams. So he stopped going to the doctors and blamed them for everything, until he came with us to do a medical examination. Obviously he had the hernia where we (Karen and I) couldn't examine so we called Dr. John Baird to check his hernias. After I translated Dr. Baird all the things the man told me, he told the man that the surgeries weren't necessary due to his age because the hernias did not threat his life but doing the surgeries could probably threat his life more than the hernias do. He suggested the man that it was much better to live the rest of his life as happy as possible and not endanger it with unnecessary surgeries. At hearing this, the man got relieved that he heard what he needed to hear and thanked Dr. Baird, Karen and me so much that even Karen took a picture with him to take it home. He made me feel so proud of myself of being such help to the man. I felt really good that day, even though I went home very late.

Friday, July 3 This day we went to Pachaj, Cantel. We were working at a school. I worked with

Karen again and it was a pretty decent day, I guess.

Saturday, July 4 As the final day of the medical mission, the Medical Team worked at the Episcopal Church of San Marcos. This day I worked with Karen too. Well, we didn't have as much patients as the other days but we were happy that we could work for the people.

CONCLUSION> I really liked to be in community service class, I learned so many things and I'm glad that I could be helpful for needy people. I would definitely do it again next year though with no credit.

Maggie's Story: Episcopal Diocese of Guatemala Medical Mission 2009

Guest Blogger: Maggie

Maggie is a high school junior at Inter-American School in Xela, Guatemala. Maggie and four of her classmates volunteered to translate for the medical and dental teams from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota. This is the story of her experience, in her own words.

The IAS Community Service Summer Program was one of the best experiences in my life.

Atfirst, I wasn't sure on taking the class, but I don't regret it. I had so much fun and I learnedmany different things. At the end of the IAS Community Service Summer Program, I realized that I had a chance of a lifetime.

The Community Service Class took one day, instead of two, on the medical inventory. With the medical inventory done; we would start our translating in the week of June 29. The week of June 29 turned out to be a really hard week for us. Some days we would arrived at 7:30 A.M. at Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, and we would come back as late as 9:00 P.M. It was a pretty long and tiring week. On my first day of work with the Medical Team from the Episcolpal Diocese of North Dakota, I was assigned to Dr. Susan Maloney, but the medical team needed help in pharmacy, so

Dr. Susan Maloney helped with that. I had no translating to do, so I decided to work with Miss Laine Milburn and Miss Shanna Maloney, who were working at the blood pressure station. I had a really good time with them and I learned many things from them.

The next day, we went to Chugüexa, near Chimaltenango. Chüguexa, is a really small community beside the road to Guatemala City.

We had to walk down a pretty long dirt road. I worked with and translated for Dr. Bryanne Hildebrandt and her assistant, Miss Kaitlin Ward,

in the dental clinic. I had the chance of seeing lots and lots of blood, and at a certain point I felt pretty dizzy. When we walked up the dirt road, we faced a severe storm. By the time we hopped on the vans, we were soaking wet. I was glad the day was over.

It was day 4, and on our way to Nuevo Chuatuj, two of our vans experienced some mechanical problems. Finally, we got to Nuevo Chuatuj, Coatepeque, where I worked with and translated for Dr. Susan Maloney. She was so cool! I learned many things from her, and I really enjoyed every

minute that ticked by. We had the chance of seeing many patients, and in my opinion, it was such a great blessing. Our two days at Nuevo Chuatuj, Coatepeque were very long and tiring, but the experience was worth it.

The next day, we were supposed to go to Santa Maria de Jesus, but there was a change in plans, instead we went to Pachaj, Cantel. Our arrival was ok, but when we started setting up stations, you could tell that there were some problems with the way people at Pachaj, Cantel had organized and set up things. In Pachaj, Cantel, again, I worked with and translated for Dr. Susan Maloney. It was great; I had a blast!

Day 7, our last and final day of work with the medical team. We set up the last clinic in
Xela. I worked with and translated for Dr. Susan Maloney. I had so much fun with her! I came up with the conclusion that Dr. Susan Maloney made my IAS Community Service Summer.

I am very grateful with Mr. McMarlin for having me on the IAS Community Service Summer Program. Working with the Medical Team from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota was one of the best experiences ever. I had so much fun, and I learned many things.

Summer Community Service

This summer Laurel is leading an Inter-American School summer community service class in Xela and surrounding communities. There are five registered students in the class: Jessica, Tamara, Jemina, Maggie, and Felipe.

The class will consist of three service projects: Inventory of medical supplies, translating for the Medical Team from the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota, and working with the Los Ancianos Community Center Program.

On June 1, the first day of summer vacation, we

met at La Iglesia Episcopal San Marcos to inventory medicine and supplies for the North Dakota Medical Team. Photos and our blog about last years medical/dental team can be found at http://xelajournal.blogspot.com/2008/07/july-2008-medical-mission.html

The next time we meet will be June 29, when the team from North Dakota arrives.

Inter-American School PTA Family Day

The Inter-American School PTA gave all of us -- students, families, and teachers -- a wonderful family day picnic on the day before our Guatemalan labor day weekend. It was a day of good food with good friends. A day of fun and games. We had races, games, face painting, a wedding booth, and even a mechanical bull!

Good Food with Good Friends

An opportunity for teachers, students and families to have fun together

A Wedding Booth for the willing and unwilling

A Mechanical Bull

Races

Horse Back Riding

Face Painting

We are already looking forward to next year's Family Day. Thanks to everyone in the PTA who made this such a wonderful day for all of us.

Inter-American School Retreat

This year Inter-American School held it's annual Spiritual Retreat in Panajachel, Guatemala. We stayed at the Hotel Visíon Azul, on the shore of Lake Atitlan.

Prior to our departure from Quetzaltenango we began our Retreat with songs and games. Then we boarded our two busses for the two hour trip to Pana.

We arrived just before lunch, checked into our rooms, ate a wonderful noon meal, then had some free time.

The early afternoon was spent settling in, enjoying the beauty of our location on the lake, and playing in and around the pool and lake shore.

We got together and the students played "teacher trivia". They were surprized to learn that one teacher auditioned for American Idol and another was a three time World Champion in horseback riding.

During the evening hours, after supper, we began the "Spiritual" part of our retreat. We joined together while middle school teacher "Tank" Broyles (of American Idol Fame) led us in songs of worship.

The theme of this year´s retreat was "Our Faith Journey" and we explored the beginning, middle, and end of our faith journeys, from several perspectives. This year was different from past years, in that the entire retreat was led by the teachers and staff. In past years retreat leaders from the United States volunteered their time to lead the retreats.

One of the differences was that rather than having large group meetings, we broke up into to "break-out groups" of about seven students each.

Each teacher chose three topics: one for the beginning of our faith journey, one for the end of our faith journey, and one for in-between.

Each student could decide which teacher's session they wished to attend, keeping in mind that each group was limited to seven students.

During the course of each session the students participated in three different groups.

The result was, of course, races between sessions. The first seven to arrive at any teacher's location got to stay, the late arrivers had to continue thier search for a group.

The retreat was for the entire middle and high school at Inter-American School. Altogether their were about 70 students and 10 teachers.

We had a total of three sessions. One on Wednesday evening, "The Beginning of our Faith Journey"; one on Thursday afternoon, "Our Journey"; and, one on Thursday evening, "The conclusion of our Faith Journey".

The students told us that they really enjoyed the small group format. So did the teachers.

Each group consisted of different students, middle and high school combined.

The middle school is located at the entrance of our campus in Xela. The high school and elementary school are on the top of a very steep hill. The result is that the high school teachers and middle school students do not have much opportunity to interact. The same is true with the middle school teachers and high school students. So we all, students and teachers, enjoyed the time we spent together.

We returned to our campus in Xela on Friday afternoon. The staff had Dominoes Pizza ordered and waiting when we arrived. So we concluded our retreat with a Pizza Picnic on the soccer field and play ground enjoying Pizza!

Faith Formulas Workshop

Faith Formulas Workshop is an elective class that Laurel leads at Inter-American School this semester. The class allows each of us to develop our own individual "Faith Formula" -- discovering ways in which we can grow in our faith. As a class we identified 25 different approaches to help us on our individual faith journeys.

The top three items almost all of us identified were: daily prayer, reading the Bible, and attending church. The elective is really a workshop (as opposed to a teaching-learning environment). We created our own class "sacred space"; discussed developing our individual "sacred times"; chose prayer teams; identified people, groups, and causes that we will prayer for (and incorporated them on intercessory prayer wheels that we made in class; and listed what we thank and praise God for. During our weekly class media lab day we created our own blog at http://www.faithformulas.blogspot.com/ , and have our own Facebook Group.
The class decided that as part of each class session we will spend a few moments of quiet time, pray and read scripture. We plan to explore and experiment with each of the twenty-five "faith formula" elements that we identified during our first week.

We also have fun. We order a Pizza, or bring in cookies and chips, at least once a week.