Dentists and Reconnecting

The past three weeks have been a whirl wind- the first of the two weeks I translated for a group of dentists, assistants, hygienists and general helpers (18 in total) that came to my village to do dental work for two weeks. It was amazing to see all the work they did- they worked Monday through Thursday for two weeks, and in eight days they saw more than 500 people. One group stayed in town, and the other group traveled to a different village each day. Unfortunately we had to turn down some people, but it was really amazing to see both the gratitude the Guatemalans had here toward the dentists, as well as the humbling the work had done for the dentists.

One thing I really commended the dentists for was the fact that they charged people to get work done- not anything significant, but just a small amount so that they would be able to value the service and not "expect" gringos coming in to do work like this for free. Each procedure was charged at Q5 ($0.63) and up to Q20 ($2.50), even if more than four procedures were done. Unfortunately extractions were in abundance, as many people here don't brush their teeth, because they don't have the health education, nor can they afford tooth paste and tooth brushed for each family member. Potable water is not safe to drink (unless boiled for at least 5 minutes), and doesn't have fluoride in it like it does in the US, Canada, and even South Africa. It's something so simple that could really change the lives of many who are fortunate enough to have potable water in their houses or close by, yet some communities's main water source is a river, which many times is polluted with rubbish.

The last week I spent in the small city of Antigua, Guatemala (not to be confused with the island in the Caribbean) for "Reconnect," which is two days of getting general country updates, discussing problems / difficulties we're having in site and solutions to those problems we've found, several presentations on reporting systems and some committees made informative presentations as well. It was a bit of a reunion for everyone, since we are now in our sixth month of Peace Corps service- pretty amazing if you ask me! The rest of the week we had Spanish classes, which was great for me, especially since I speak a lot better Spanish than many people in my site- it's 99% indigenous, which is a great cultural opportunity, but in terms of learning grammatically-correct Spanish, not so much unfortunately.

With Semana Santa, or Holy Week coming up, we are fortunate enough to have an extended four day weekend, as Thursday and Friday are official Guatemalan holidays, and as Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala, we get all official Guatemalan holidays off as well as 4th of July and Thanksgiving off as official PC holidays, during which we can either take advantage of the happenings in our host community, or we can travel around the country to see more of Guatemala.

Being accustomed to quite a fortunate lifestyle of travel, eight months in Guatemala is quite the feat for me! With that said, I am taking advantage of the long weekend we have and hitting the beach with a few other PCVs and will attempt to surf. Luckily two of the people going are excellent surfers, and one of them even a seasoned surf instructor. With over 15 years of swimming under my belt and a good instructor, I'm crossing my fingers I'll be able to get up at least once! More to follow on this once the mission has been accomplished. Hopefully.

As for the project work, the ladies were extremely busy the past couple months. They managed to crochet 800, count 'em, eight hundred kippahs! They also completed half of the 500 wine bags, as well as various other products that the dental delegation had ordered. Now my work is really going to come- trying to find something to keep them busy until next year's dental trip! It seemed like it really did motivate quite a few of the women whose groups were advanced enough to be able to handle the order and finish it in time before the dentists left.

As for funding for the organizations, things are still not 100% clear as to what will happen. Tuesday we have our monthly meeting, so I'm hoping that at least some good news will come out of it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful spring break, Easter, Passover, or whatever it is you may be celebrating!