Weeks 5-6

Last week was another fun week...prepping patient education material, Tuesday and Wednesday in clinic, a trip to San Fransisco for market day, a professional soccer game, classes and hanging out with friends.
 In clinic I got to translate for Larissa, an American doctor who speaks Spanish pretty well but it's nice to have someone else there to make sure you don't miss anything the patient is saying. Wednesday we went to a Quiche village called Chirijquiac located about 45 minutes outside Xela. We set up clinic in the home of a local man whose children are involved in the Pop Wuj scholarship program.
I finally hit a point of frustration in classes...after a full morning in clinic we were working on past subjunctive examples and I kept messing up and struggled to make up examples, feeling stupid and frustrated with myself. Thankfully Luis can read me really well at this point so we switched to talking about sports for a while and got me back to normal. He prepped me well for the soccer game Saturday night, telling me some of the politics behind soccer here, where to buy a jersey, where he normally sits, what cheers/curses/songs to expect from the crowd, etc. It was a ton of fun! Fireworks, balloons, face paint, marching bands!! Xelaju won 1-0, granted the refs may have stretched the game until we scored, but it was a win nonetheless :)

This week has been bittersweet as so many "lasts" are coming up. Tuesday was my last day in clinic. I got to translate for Meghan, another American doctor. We worked well together and saw several interesting patients. That evening Mynor gave a presentation on medicinal plants used in Guatemala. Wednesday we didn't have mobile clinic but organized a patient education day. We prepped a PowerPoint to help patients with diabetes plan meals to better their sugar, and a chef came to help them learn some healthy recipes. Thursday we have our final dinner at the school to say thank you and goodbye to our teachers :( Friday is the last day of class then saying goodbye to friends and host families. On Saturday, Jake Tori and I are headed to Tikal and will travel some more before our flight home on Wednesday.

The highlight of my week was definitely Monday when I gave Luis my thank you gift. I went to a couple different stores and eventually found a New Testament in Quiche and Spanish. One of our first conversations had been about how he's never read through the entire Bible himself, and since then I've learned his first language is Quiche. I was a little disappointed I couldn't find a  a full Bible in Quiche, but I was still excited and couldn't wait until the end of the week to give it to him. Monday I pulled it out of my bag as soon as I walked into the room, and he was so excited!! He explained to me that he's now one of five people in his village with a Quiche Bible and how he'll treasure it. He then proceeded to tell me about his weekend and how he's been telling people about me. He was translating for a midwife training session, and when given the opportunity to voice his opinion he lamented the fact that none of the churches were making an impact in the community and proceeded to tell the 40 women there about our conversations. By the end of their discussion, women I've never met were volunteering to teach me Quiche, let me live with them, show me how to make fabric and sew myself traditional clothes, and much more. Luis explained to them how I'm still in school for several more years, but now they're all counting the days until I come. I'm honored but have been trying to convey to Luis that they don't need to wait for me to bring about changes in their community. He and I started reading through his new Bible and using our last few days to talk about prayer, church leadership and more (using this to practice my Spanish grammar of course). I really admire his passion for his community and his enthusiasm for learning more about the Bible. If I weren't in med school, it would be pretty easy to convince me to stay and learn Quiche. One day!