Day 6, 7, 8

I haven't quite made it on here in a couple days for various reasons. I've been pretty tired lately, we got some more volunteers which means more competition for the computer, and yesterday I tried to get on and the internet wasn't working. So, I have quite a bit of updating to do and I apologize for the lengthiness of it all!

Monday: Two new volunteers arrived in the morning. Johan & James, two guys from Canada who also just finished their first year of medical school. They're really great guys and in a couple weeks, both of their wives are coming too, each of whom are pregnant! So that will be an adventure! :-) I went to the hospital by myself and followed the ER doc. There was an accident that morning and two little boys and their mother were brought in. I think the boys are fine for the most part but the mother I believe had a head injury, and they had a neck brace on her when they wheeled her to the womens' inpatient area. It was hard to tell witht he Spanish I was attempting to pick up. The boys are still in the hospital in a private area because there is no children's ward anywhere in the hospital. That afternoon, Leila (the nursing student & my roommate) and I took coloring books and crayons to Pedro & Jose. Jose was sleeping (he's the younger one, about 6 years old) but Pedro started coloring right away in bed.

After lunch, Iris had me and Kathleen translate for James & Johan, explaining the rules of the house and such. It was quite tiring and Kathleen knows more than I do so she did most of it, but I helped here and there. Not long after, 5 more volunteers arrived. They were supposed to come in at 12:30 but their flight actually came in at 2:50 (some miscommunication, which tends to happen quite a bit here) so we welcomed them here. Four girls Amy, Brianna, Karin & Annie, and one guy, Jeremy, who we were all relieved to find out speaks Spanish! So he has been helping translate for his group. That night we mostly rested and got everyone situated. We had orientation for group #2. Oh yeah, and I, along with several of the Wheaton girls, helped Iris make a chocolate cake & a carrot cake as a surprise for Kevin & Jessica's anniversary. They got back when we were still making them, but we all had a lot of fun eating cake and getting to know each other. By the end of the day, everyone was certainly exhausted!

Tuesday: I have been deemed the leader of the new group of volunteers, which is scary because they expect me to explain to them how things run at the hospital when as of Tuesday, I had been there twice... neither time having been particularly organized. But, we all got there and Emily, one of the volunteer translators helped me give a tour of the hospital and then we found Linda.

At this point, lunch was ready and I stopped typing. I'll try to pick back up where I left off.

Linda did a small devotional with us and an icebreaker of sorts, then we did a little survival Spanish & cultural background. I think it is kind of an ongoing thing, so there will be more of that to come. We were going to try to visit another orphanage but by the time the other group got back from the CDI, they were pretty tired. So we mostly relaxed for the afternoon. I have some great pictures from that day of Ester pretending to be a doctor. It was adorable! Then she decided to be a photographer, which was equally cute.

In the evening, Iris started talking to us about some of the ideas we could come up with for puppet shows or other gospel presentations to the children. We practiced some songs with the puppets and made some evangelistic bracelets as well with different color beads that represent different things ( black-sin, red-Jesus blood, etc.) . We haven't used them yet but I'm sure we will at some point! Completely and utterly exhausted, we ended the evening with devotions. It was nice to all be together with our huge group. It's like a giant family! :-)

Wednesday: Started the morning at the hospital as usual, but they stopped seeing patients at 10. (Now mind you, the doctors arrive at 9am South American time, so there were about 3 patients who came through). We were invited to stay for a presentation, which we thought might be interesting to watch. It was on biohazardous materials and basically.... you put regular trash in black bags, contaminated waste in red bags, needles in sharps containers, etc. Now of course, the whole thing is in Spanish, and is just as boring to listen to as it would be in the US. However, the lady presenting asked that she have complete silence, so none of us could help translate to those who understood little to no Spanish. After an hour and a half, we quietly left one by one. We were still there till 12, so at that point, we didn't really feel bad. So, the patient interaction was limited that day. (Although, the one girl I saw in the pediatrician's office was completely adorable! She would just look over at me and give this big smile. You wouldn't have known at all that she was sick).

The afternoon certainly made up for the morning, though! We went to one orphanage, and the girl who started it is from Texas and told us about it some. She actually helped build the guesthouse where I am staying, and she did fundraising for it for a year to help make it. This is where they kept kids at first (which is why our bathroom has tiny sinks and toilets) and now there are 3 different houses with children. A few of us went with her to where the babies are... the same place we went exactly 1 week before. We got to help feed the babies and up to 3 year olds again. Then we played with them outside for a while.

We got picked up by our group and of course, didn't want to leave. Then we went to the movies! Wednesdays are 2 for 1 so it's even cheaper than usual. It was 21 bolivianos for a ticket, split 2 ways comes out to about $1.50. THEN, I couldn't believe how cheap the concessions were. I definitely bought the biggest popcorn because it was 5Bs which is less than $1. We basically all got a soda, giant popcorn, and candy. (Peanut M&Ms mmmmmmmm. Occasionally, I do miss American food...even if it's junk food). We saw the Narnia movie... 3rd time for me. Yet still just as good! It was fun and it's in a plaza where there is a supermarket so we got a few items and then headed home. It was quite the day! So yeah, I realize that doesn't sound like much of a missions trip....hehe But they said, we need to have fun here too! :-)

So, I'm going to post this and then maybe try to post some pics and I'll start with Thursday's events in a new post.