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We went back to Herberto's to finish some business. Herberto gave Seth a huge wooden lobster, Seth has been eyeballing it and thought it was the coolest thing he had seen in a long time. I think he must get his taste from his father. We came back and worked with Domingo on the scholarships.
Our friend Diana came over to help with translating. Diana lives at the center in Guatemala and works and goes to college. She is a lovely young traditional Tzuthil woman from Santiago. Her first language is Tzuthil, her second language is Spanish and now she has learned English. She had fallen at the center and broken her foot so she was back in Santiago to recover. So.. we propped up her broken foot and had her help us. We have 10 scholarships students in Santiago so we talked about their progress and how things were going for them. One of the scholarship students Letie came by to say hello. She is a wonderful little 10 year old girl. Her parents died of AIDS and she lives with her grandmother. Letie is HIV+ She has a wonderful sponsor family who pays for her schooling and some of her medical and dental expenses and makes sure she has her needs met. She goes to Guatemala City once a month for medication and to meet with her doctor. Her medicine is expensive but is paid for by the government. This is real positive as the government doesn't help with too much.
After we visited about the students we talked more about the building. It is so hard to make decisions about the construction. Domingo went over again the things that have been done and what needs to be done. Do we add latrines for some of the houses that we have been working on or use the money to help other people rebuild their homes... Not having latrines means poor sanitation..but when people don't have a house either it is tough. We decided to build more homes and forgo the latrines or kitchens until we have more money. As we are talking Chonita comes in all out of breath. She had gone to visit one of the families where we had done construction and found the father in bed really ill. She said the family was really worried about him and that apparently he had ruptured something when he was working on the house. The family has no money and she was wondering if Sharing the Dream could help with taking him to the hospital in the ambulance and paying the bill. I asked her how much it would cost for the ambulance. Just as I was asking her an ambulance happened to go by...we could see it from the inside of the house. Anyhow, my friend Chonita took off on a run to find out the cost. She was chasing the ambulance down the street. It was quite a site.. This little indigenous woman in her traditional clothes running down the middle of the street waving her arms. Those of you that know Chonita can picture it.. It gave "chasing ambulances" a whole new meaning for me.... She came back after several minutes, and having been successful in waving down the ambulance and said the ambulance was free... so would we pay for the doctor visit. I said we would so she and Kathy the nurse who stays at Chonita's went off the help the man. They took him to the hospital and he had doctors look at him. The doctors decided it wasn't too serious, gave him medicine and sent him home. The total cost was around Q100 which is a little over $13.00. There are so many people staying at Chonita's now because of the mudslide. One boy who is staying there lost all of his family members. I think about 6 of them. He is staying at Chonita's and they are teaching him to bead. I am staying in Chonita's room with her. She has 2 single beds. Aracely her granddaughter usually sleeps there but she is sleeping in her parents' room. That night before we go to sleep Chonita says in English, "Good night sister". I say "Buenas noches hermana". We really are connected and I thank God for bringing her into my life. I will try to finish off this journal soon. Diane |
