better picture of health care in Guatemala.   Ramona and I then visited about a workshop that OB was going to do on natural dyes and some other projects that we wanted to work together on.

After our visit with Ramona,  Mark, Diana and I headed for the dock and got a boat for Santiago.  We arrived there when it just started to rain… We got a tuk tuk and headed for the elder centre.  By this time it was pouring…. They have had quite a bit of rain the last few weeks.   We met Chonita at the elder centre and she introduced us to a very nice young woman
named Felipa.  They had made us a tasty dinner, so we ate and visited.  Not much to do in Santiago on a rainy evening so it was early to bed.

June 12, 2008

I woke up early to the smell of coffee.  Chonita had come to the centre and made a pot of it.  I grabbed a cup and did some paper work.  We are really trying to figure out how to make the Elder Centre more self-sustaining, which is pretty difficult when you have 64 elders who are the poorest of the poor.   One of the ways we have done a bit of it is to have the groups I
bring stay in the two upstairs rooms and this money goes to the centre. This is just a drop in the bucket though.    So… I put my pencil to the paper and tried some different things.  One of the ways was to have the elders move to a bigger space and rent out all the rooms we have now.  After breakfast Chonita took us to a room she thought we could rent it is right next door to the centre.  I didn’t like it at all.  It wasn’t much bigger, was darker, and I really felt that it was not a bright and cheery place for them.

I also spent a little time visiting with a volunteer that has been at the elder centre for the past 5 weeks from the University of Penn.   We had a nice visit.  She has worked on getting the elders paperwork together and getting a system for Chonita.  During our visit she had some really interesting information and she said she wrote a paper on the elder centre and would send it to me.  I will send it out when I get it.  In this paper she wrote about how the centre is more than a place where the elders come and eat.  She visited with me about the socialization and how the elders interact.  She said on the street you can tell which elders belong to the centre and which ones don’t because of how they interact with other people. It seems that our elders have something to look forward to and some hope where the others just seem to be waiting to die.   What lovely information about our project.

About 9:00 Mark, Diana and I headed for the Hospitalito for a meeting.  We met with Jose the administrator and Susanna the coordinator of medical services…It was a good meeting and I think Mark found out a lot of information…  After they visited with Mark about the hospital and how he can get students involved we talked about the elders who come for medical
treatment.  I had made arrangements with Jose that STDG would pay so much a month for medical care for the elders.  Each of the elders has a card that has their name, photo, and that they are part of the STDG elder centre so they can come and get treatment.  Most of the time when they come someone from the elder centre must bring them.    I think the elders are really getting good care at the Hospialito and I think they really care about them.   From January though May we had over 50 visits to the Hospitalito. There are two of the elders who have been really sick and even spent some overnight time there.  All together though over 17 elders have gone in for treatment.  When we looked at the bill, we have been paying less than half of what they have been using.  We decided to double the pay per month and we will evaluate it again in Oct. when I come.    One of the elders that has really been sick needs some specialized care and a special test.  This will cost $200.00.   I was asked what they should do… of course we will pay for it.    The elder centre is really quite an expense for STDG but also what a wonderful program.   When I was figuring out the expenses for the program which includes medical care, daily vitamins, rent for the centre, food,  and the people who are hired, we are spending about $265.00 per elder per year.
The  elder sponsorships are $120.00 per year.   So this is quite a gap.  I will have to work with the board to figure out how we can handle this.  It may be that we have to have 2 sponsors per elder.

We left the Hospitalito and met with Francisco who is in charge of ADISA, which is a program for children with disabilities.  It is a wonderful program and I thought it would give Mark another perspective on this as he had been to Hermano Pedro’s with me in Antiqua and saw how the children were treated.  ADISA has a workshop where the children learn carpentry skills and other skills.  They are now making paper bags.  I ordered some of these for our store in Vermillion and will pick them up next week when I come back.

We went back to the elder centre for lunch and the went to RXin Tinamit Clinic.  This is very small and very dark.  It is a Mayan clinic that is run by the Mayan people and has been in operation for 30 years.  We met with Leticia Toj and it was interesting and gave Mark another perspective on health care in the area.

In the late afternoon, Chonita, Diana and I went and looked at other buildings to rent for the elder centre.  As we are expanding and want to look at sustainability.  Renting out rooms in our centre is one option as there are many people who volunteer in Santiago and need places to stay. It was very interesting.  We looked at a bigger house, that wouldn’t work
and an abandoned hotel..which was quite interesting.  What Chonita really wanted to show me was land that she had found to build a centre.  This is still part of her dream and I consented to look at the land.      She was very excited and animated when I said I would look at it….. The land was down near the lake and was a long narrow strip that went right down to the lake.  It was quite usable and absolutely beautiful.  It was on a very quiet street and would be heaven for the elders.    Maybe something like this could be in the future…After we looked at it Chonita went to talk to the owner to find out if it was still for sale and found out it had sold 2 weeks ago…..   Probably a good thing for all of us… but I think we should be
looking at more long range plans for the centre.  Chonita loves the elders and she wants to have a nice place for them.  When we were talking about what she sees in the future, she would eventually like to have a few rooms where an elder can stay when they don’t have a home.   Another interesting comment that she made that I hadn’t heard before was that she wants a big room that can be used for a wake for an elder when they die.   She said the wakes are in the homes and when an elder dies they cannot have one because their homes are not big enough.  She wants to use the centre so that the other elders can come and grieve their friend’s death.   We had two elders die in the past month and they weren’t able to have a wake.

This evening, Mark, Chonita, Diana and I went to the Posada for dinner.  It was raining but it was nice to sit and visit.  During our dinner there was a small earthquake.  There was a small tremor and then a bigger one.  As things were shaking we looked at each other and said… we think we are in the middle of an earthquake and Chonita said "Let's get under the table".    It didn’t last too long though and didn’t do any damage.  It was a scare though.

June 13, 2008

Our meeting in Guatemala City was canceled for the afternoon so we decided to stay in Santiago for lunch so we could see the elders.  The centre is a very busy day on elder lunch day.  The tortilla making starts about 7AM and continues until about 12.  There is meat to cook, vegetables to clean and cook and coffee to make.  Everyone is busy in the kitchen and there are
several volunteers who are helping out.   Two of our scholarship students come and do their volunteer hours.  Today they don’t have school so this is a good day to help.   Mark is busy putting up a piece of wood so we can hang the elder’s photos.  We had sent down a framed photo of each elder with Karen’s group in March but because it was concrete they weren’t sticking…. So Mark came up with the idea of putting strips of wood across the walls and hanging them, so he was busy getting wood, sawing it to the correct size and putting it on the wall.  Mark is really handy and has been doing any work that needs to be done. He not only answers questions about health but can saw, nail, fix a toilet and can help with technology.   We decided he can come down anytime.

Diana, Mark and I needed to catch the 1PM chicken bus to Guatemala City so had a quick lunch and headed for the bus.   Diana told us about some things that had happened the night before in Santiago.  It seems that periodically they have what they call a “Cleansing committee” This is a local vigilante group that let’s people put names on the list and then puts the list around town.  Some people on the list are then killed.  You can get your name on the list for any reason.  In fact on the recent list is Argentina who with her husband Francisco runs ADISA the school for disabled children.    Any how on Thursday night a women and her daughter were killed in their home. There are many stories but one of them was that the woman’s husband was on the list and when they came looking for him, he wasn’t there so they killed the wife and daughter.    This also happens in different communities around Guatemala.

This is a terrible thing and those of us from the US think how can this happen?  Coincidentally, last night when I was back at the centre in Guatemala City on the internet I happened to be looking for an article about an interview I just did in Vermillion.  When I was surfing the web looking for it I found my name and photo along with my husbands on a blog.    This
blog was about the oil refinery that wants to build two miles from our home in SD.  On this blog they had listed some names, called us tree huggers…. And in one quote said”  Kill these people, I mean it. I think they are best used as fertilizer.”  This is referring to my husband and I and several of our neighbors who are trying to keep our land, water, and air clean for our
community……    So dear friends.. this shows we aren’t much different than our neighbors to the south…   Maybe I am safer here than in my beautiful garden in rural SD.

It really makes you think doesn’t it?

More later.

Diane

Go to June 14-15