First Day in Huehue

Bal Maria, Susanna, y Roberto

We are staying with the family Lopez Guevara in Huehue. Abesaida, the matriarch of the family, who has taught Spanish to gringos for the past 30+ years, including our friend Dr. Denise Palke this summer, treats us as if we are all family. She has many "children",  or former students, scattered all over the globe, but you are made to feel as if you are the only ones.  She nurtures us plenty at home so we have energy for our adventures around town.  Arnoldo, the patriarch, is known far and wide as "calandria", a bird who likes to whistle. Keeping with the tradition Guatemalteca, of nicknaming everyone, here is the first blog quiz contest.  See if you can guess which of us has the following nicknames, assigned by each other somewhere in transit between the airport and Huehue over the last couple of days:  1. el loro verde  2. la flaminga negra  3 la cigueña rosada  4 el gallo blanco.  whoever guesses wins a prize, yet to be determined.  You have to put it in the comments section so we know someone (anyone?) is reading our blog!

Doctora Ana with Melissa's mom and nurse Maria

We had our first visit to the Casa Materna today, which included a grand tour (we got to see the dilapidated beds with our own eyes), and a presentation from the PCI staff on the history and mission and also the current projects of PCI. We then got to have a glimpse into the national hospital next door by going to visit one of the programs, the kangaroo care room for premature babies.  Melissa, who couldn't go next to the NICU tour because of being at the tail end of a cold, got the chance to talk to one of the moms (whose baby was also named "melissa").  Her village was an 8 hour trip by chicken bus to the

Suzy and baby Luis

Casa Materna.   Bob, Chris and Suzy were granted perhaps somewhat reluctant permission to enter the neonatal ICU, which could only be described as a chaotic maximization of some surprising resources. There were 8 ventilators available and there were about 30 newborns in the room, some as small of 1800 grams, with varying levels of intervention, about 15 staff, all in the cluster of rooms about the size of the SE clinic breakroom. Perhaps the hardest part of the tour was the samll room with 3 infants in cribs who had been abandoned at the hospital. One of them, who rather imediately bonded with Chris Anderson, Maria Fernanda, was 5 months old and had lived in that room since birth while her case was being investigated.  Suzy really wanted to bring 6 week old Luis home with her, and was unsuccessful at holding back tears. It was really quite painful.

Cristóbol y Maria Fernanda

The rest of the day was spent planning  the remainder of our time, followed by late night cramming back at Abesaida's, a fair amount of punchiness and bad jokes, and the grim prospect of facing an audience of Spanish-speakers the next day to teach with powerpoint presentations and hands-on practice how to handle obstetric emergencies. Hopefully there are no fatal errors in vocabulary hidden in the slides, such as the one we found while on the flight, in which Bob was going to measure the "tree branches" inside the womb instead of the baby's limbs.