Guatemala day 4

We started our second day much the same as the first with our travel clinic loading up supplies to head out to Chipop while I stayed behind with our local team to work at our clinic in the orphanage.

Team 1 (Los Robles)

Michael
Kendall
Blaise
Katie
Blaise

This time we had patients waiting in line at the beginning of the day that steadily trickled through.  One of our first patients was an older gentlemen that told us he was hard of hearing.  It was fun listening to our Doctor explain loudly through the thin clinic walls as we registered our other patients to find that the gentleman mostly spoke the local Mayan language as well making it even more difficult to explain.  Speaking of our doctor Blaise and myself were constantly on the lookout for stray dogs to see if we could find the dog that had bitten our Doctor early and be sure it was not showing signs of Rabies.

The locals seemed to thoroughly enjoy visiting the clinic, many of them seem to use it as a social event to chat with their neighbors.  Some like to come frequently and are sometimes referred to as our clinic groupies.  With the slower day we were able to spend time blowing bubbles with the kids although they were very sad to learn they could not take the bubbles home with them.

Team 2 (Chipop)

Brynn
Cari
Jon
Aislinn
Skylar
Ruth
Kade
Tyler
Peter
Eric

The travel clinic had the busiest day seeing roughly 65 patients in Chipop.  They had to take a short trek down a narrow trail to even arrive at their site which was tucked away on the hillside.  Almost all the patients they saw were women and children although a couple of wives went back home to grab their husbands back to the clinic so they could be treated.  Patients were provided with a variety of different treatments.  One girl had not been able to hear out of one of her ears for roughly a year and the doctor was able to clean the ear wax out and help her be able to hear again.  Amazing how something so simple that we take for granted here in the United States can have such a profound impact on someone's life here.

Wrap up

 The people here have been very welcoming to us and it has been a pleasure being able to serve them in their community.  Our 2 teams were able to see over a combined 100 patients today which was a new milestone for us.