I still love the Guaderia

Thursday morning I accompanied Brian and Dave to their clinic in the outskirts of Xela to see what they did and help out myself. The clinic is an American endeavor with rotating groups of helpers coming from the states and a couple of permanent workers (doctor, pharmacist, lab worker). At first there wasn't a lot for me to do so I shadowed Dr. Freddy with his patients for a little while. After a couple of patients, the nurses needed some help translating the triage area so I helped them as much as I possibly could. I realized I needed a little more medical Spanish to translate from English to Spanish, but going from Spanish to English did not cause as many problems. I was then able to work with the current volunteer doctor from Oregon who was only down for the week which was really nice because he had me more actively involved in figuring out the diagnosis and showing what he was looking for with each patient. When we had some down time, we made the mistake of looking at tap water under a microscope.... gross. There were things swimming in the water with big pinchers on the end. I can't even imagine what those bugs would do to my intestines. Really don't drink the water. After the best pizza ever for lunch (that might be withdrawal talking though), it was class as usual. The good bye fiesta for the Iowa people (most of my friends here) was that night. After dinner, we went salsa dancing with Megan and Patrick's host mom and family. I think the highlight of that was when Brian decided to climb up a pole and show everyone how he can stretch himself horizontal over the crowd... and then jumping on top of us all. It was sad to say goodbye to them all, but we had a good time while they were here and I myself will be heading home in one week anyway.
Friday morning I decided to go and help out at the Guaderia with the little kids again. I had bought one of the girls a birthday present the day before but hadn't been able to go to the actual birthday party on Thursday. I was really hoping she liked it and asked Amy, the head volunteer, if she knew. She didn't at the time, but the second we walked into the door to the Guaderia, one girl starts yelling at Amy "I got a doll for my birthday!" over and over again. The girl was Chavala and was the one I had gotten the gift for. It made me so happy she actually liked it! We split into groups and I read the Spanish versions of "Green Eggs and Ham " (instead of Sam I Am it's Juan Ramon hehe), "Hide and Seek", "Penguins", and "Lemon Moon" to the kids. I was also outside with them for a bit reading while they ran around me in circles to get their energy out. Those kids are just too cute.