Providence St. Joseph's Service Trips to Guatemala : Ataques y Charlas y Pepian

Today was our first full day in Huehue. We started off the morning right with a delicious breakfast of meat sandwiches made by Abesaida. We got a ride over to the hotel where we were holding the ALSO course-- and it was raining hard on the way over. We arrived with an hour to set up, and there were already 5 nurses there! By the time we got started, we had about 40 participants, from community health workers to nurses to OB residents from the national hospital. It was an interesting conference-- Dr Gobbo got all participants engaged and even had a few folks filming the charlas, or group talks.

While in small groups, we learned about various birth practices common here as well as heard some stories. Matt put on a dress and performed a skit for us, in which he was a pregnant mother with preeclampsia, which progressed to eclampsia. His seizures (or "ataques") were quite impressive, and later one participant said that was the favorite moment of the conference!
Overall it seemed to be great success.

After the conference we returned to Abesaida's house and we went for our second group run. This time there was still light left so we ventured out into the campo for a muddy run. 15 minutes later, we returned... and we were out for 5 minutes longer than the night before!
Dinner was another delicious homemade meal by Abesaida-- pollo pepian, a chicken stew with roasted ground pumpkin seed, sesame oil and red sauce, rice, and a tasty beet salad. After dinner we had in-house entertainment by our very own comedian Beto Loco... my sides still hurt from laughing so hard.

Tomorrow we have our first day of clinic at Casa Materna. I'm feeling a bit nervous about what we might encounter there, but also excited. The system is so different here, and it is both inspiring and frightening to realize what an impact we make here, and what daily life is like for health care workers here.
-Mali

Thanks Mali for writing our blog today. It was an amazing day as described. Although teaching in Spanish was a challenge for this crew from Oregon, the audience was gracious, good natured, appreciative and enthusiastic! While we were teaching, Elena treated 20 patients with acupuncture at Casa Materna! We are so fortunate to be together and to be in this beautiful country. Hasta manana!
El Loro Beto Gobbo