Day Two of Salitre!

We are getting ready to eat another breakfast after a great night sleep and some intense games of Phase 10 last night. We did invent an 11th Phase or Bonus round. It was rather entertaining!

Yesterday was a productive day in the clinic, Ernie and I saw the kids and a handful of adults and I have to say, the kids are actually looking a bit healthier this year. We didn't see anything really out of the ordinay but a lot of kids with a chronic cough, poor feeding, and diarrhea. The most prevalent diagnosis for them would be parasites because of their water source. As I had stated in a previous post, the majority of the families here in Salitre have to drink the same water that they bathe in, wash their clothes in, and do their dishes in, unless they have enough money to buy bottled water from a man on a bike with a giant basket on the front. That is not cheap either so most of them will drink the water from the lake. I think we saw about 40 - 50 people yesterday from 8am to 4pm. It was a great day!

An now for a a report from the adult clinic perspective; on to you Jenny!

Hi everyone. Today I got to work with Dr. Elry and we saw the adult patients. Many of them have the same types of health problems as the patients I see in the US. He is a very compassionate person and really incorporates his spirituality into the care of his patients. You can tell they all love him and appreciate what he does here. He is an excellent teacher as well. Between his broken English and what I can understand in Spanish we got along quite well yesterday. He taught us a lot about what the health care system is like here in Guatemala. We should all be thankful for what we have even though it is not perfect either. I ended up as Dr. Elry's interpreter to the group for a while last night while he explained their system to us. I am looking forward to another day at the clinic today. Now on to Bev. . . .

I have been helping Beth in the pharmacy. Yesterday Samuel the son studying sports kinesiology brought us a mortar and pestle to crush pills because we had been using a pen that looked like a femur bone to crush. I also used one of Liz kitchen knives to cut pills in half for the children's Tylenol. We ran out of liquid. Beth is really good with her Spanish in giving directions and when we run into trouble Samuel would help us until he had to go to class later in the afternoon. After clinic we spent some time with the children before they left and so I helped some with puzzles and before they left I received 3 kisses on the cheek. It has been a wonderful experience. I now have compassion for pharmacists. Now it is time to start another day.
God bless our day. Bev