So Much To Do, So Little Time

This little chunk of delight got to hang with me and the nurses while her momma was getting seen by the doctors. I just wanted to take her home with me!! (Don't worry, I gave her back to mom...)

We finished up the clinic in good order last week, and went straight from that to preparing for a women's health talk at the church in Purulha. 

Me and my gigantic poster gettin' ready for the Women's Health Talk.

Some beautiful Mayan ladies walking in Purulha

The women seemed to enjoy the talk, but I was fascinated by their ooos and ahhs when I did my sugar game. We had 5 sugary drinks that are popular here, Fanta, Cola, RapTor energy drink, and some others. We measured out in teaspoons how much sugar was actually in those drinks depending on how many grams there were. Fanta has 82 grams of sugar down here (yummy!), so that calculated out to 16.5 teaspoons of sugar approximately. That is a lot of sugar! 

Unfortunately having super sugary drinks is very common here, and no one drinks water. So, of course I had a big emphasis on drinking more water and limiting sugar intake.

So we had fun at the health talk, and I got to hang with one of our translators Julie afterward. She taught me how to make Pupuses, which are tortillas stuffed with cheese. They were quite yummy.

My time here is speeding ahead like crazy. We did take some time to "rest", which really means hike up a huge mountain to see some Quetzal birds. We must have been too noisy because we didn't see any. 

I also have a new friend here. She is an interpreter from the US, and she is down to hang with me for three weeks. We have our first big project on Friday. 

We are going to talk about puberty to a bunch of schoolgirls who don't have any education about the anatomy of their bodies. It's definitely going to be a challenge, and will stretch both of us to make it both age-appropriate, and fun. 

You have to have fun if you are going to talk about the uncomfortable topic of taking care of your body. 

They were going to have us do it tomorrow, but since we only learned we are going to do the talk yesterday, they let us take today and tomorrow to prepare. (Whew!)

We took a break from working on our talk to visit a patient today.

This lady is due to give birth any day now, but really wants to give birth at home. The problem is, she is old enough to be high risk, and she lives at the top of the mountain with no access for cars. We hiked for a good 30-40 min up the mountain. It was a tiny path only meant for walking, and was super steep. If she were to have any problems giving birth, there would not be any way to get her off the mountain in time. So we were there to help her feel more comfortable with the decision to give birth at the hospital. Her blood pressure was a little high today, but she was very nervous, and was doing a bunch of housework. We encouraged her to have more rest in bed, and arranged for someone to be able to help her when her time came. She was pretty isolated where she lived.
My prayer this week is for her to deliver safely, and that she and the baby would be healthy.