Drive to San Marcos - Sunday, November 29, 2015

Today we drove to San Marcos, but on the way we stopped to meet with Kali Erickson and her husband, Jaime at El Proyecto Familias de Esperanza (the project of families of hope, roughly translated.) Kali has a nutrition background and has worked extensively in Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala and Africa, mainly in maternal/child health. Jaime is a veterinarian and has a degree in animal husbandry. He’s been with the US State department and Kali’s been working in the US, and they decided they wanted to go back to Guatemala where they felt they could really make more of a difference. They have two young daughters and also wanted to have more time together as a family.  Jane Cross, a local pediatrician who is very active in global health, especially in Peru, introduced me to Kali, and we’ve been emailing and planning to meet.  I was nervous about the meeting because Luis is always shy of making new alliances or meeting people who might interfere with his vision.  Luckily, there was an instant connection between Luis and both Jaime and Kali.  Our planned brief stop turned into a two and a half hour breakfast where we heard about their work and discussed our project.  They asked Luis about his background, and he actually told them his story. I’ve never seen him so animated.  Eventually, he and Jaime went off to discuss their work, and Kali and Bette and I switched to English. It turns out that Kali knows Rachael, the USAID field worker who is coming to see the irrigation project on Thursday, and she said we couldn’t have a better person. Rachael is from the US, as been with USAID in Guatemala for eight months and is very committed to seeing that the programs actually aid the rural indigenous people as well as those in the cities.  In all, it was a very encouraging visit, and I all three seemed eager to work together in the future.
Once at the hotel in San Marcos, Bette and I sorted the medications, dividing them into bags for the three sites where we will hold clinics, Sibinal Monday and Tuesday, Tacaná Wednesday and Thursday, and the clinic in San Marcos on Friday.  We’ll leave at 6:00 am for the 2 ½ hour drive to Sibinal and spend that time putting together “school” bags with crayons, markers, coloring book pages, erasers, stickers, etc for the kids.  We’ll pick up the general practitioner on the way. I hope Luis has told her something about how many patients to expect – heh.  I haven’t posted photos today as the internet is very slow here.  There’s no WIFI at the hotel for the next two nights unless we get a portable one so there may be a lull.

Arrival in Guatemala City

I flew to Dallas and spent a fairly long layover exploring the airport, reading and brushing up on my Spanish with Duolingo, an online language program.  I met Bette's plane and we flew together to Guatemala. Our departure was delayed due to an amazing mix of passengers.  There was a group of about 30 middle aged French speaking passengers, and the airline officials had to check each of their passports. None of them seemed to speak Spanish, so it was a slow process.  Next, there were about 15 young adults in wheelchairs traveling as a group, perhaps going to a wheelchair sports event as they looked very fit.  Finally, there was a woman who was obviously ill who was taken on to the plane with an entourage of medical people and a stretcher full of medical equipment.  By the time everyone was settled and regular boarding began our flight was an hour late.
Everything went well, but after we had landed and gone through customs, it became apparent that there had been a tightening of security.  Very few people were being waved through without bag inspection.  Usually, Bette and I manage to get waved through and out the door by positioning ourselves behind some large family or suspicious looking group without having our luggage inspected or X-rayed. What we're carrying is perfectly legal, but a "thorough" inspector might decide to check every bottle of pills, detaining us for hours.   Tonight we got shuttled into the X-ray lane, and both of our big bags, the ones filled with bottles of pills, were pulled out to be checked.  Luckily, I had my "letter of invitation" from Luis and my letters from the MAP international who supply the medications.  The customs official who had been busily digging around among the medications, took one look at these magic documents, pulled his hands out of my suitcase, zipped it up, thanked us, and loaded the bags back on our cart! Luis' letter is very official with lots of government stamps and is full of flowery language about the good works we are doing for the poor of the country.  It begs for the assistance of the kind officials in this blessed service to Guatemala. It did the trick.  Tomorrow we're off to San Marcos.

The Miracle of Irrigation

  On November 29th, I'll return to San Marcos with Bette Palovchik of Shuarhands.org, the small foundation that helps to fund the work Luis Fuentes has been doing in the San Marcos district.  As a brief re-cap, Luis grew up in the town of San Marcos which is in the district of San Marcos, in the Western Highlands of Guatemala.  San Marcos is one of 22 districts in the country and is designated as an area of extreme poverty, (the people are unable to buy enough food to sustain health.)  He and his four brothers were raised by their illiterate parents who grew strawberries and broccoli on a small plot of land and sold the produce at the local market. All of the money went to the boys' education. Luis and one brother are lawyers, and the other three are engineers.  Luis has dedicated is life to helping the poor, particularly the indigenous people living in remote villages in San Marcos.
  In 2010, Bette was in San Marcos doing medical interpreting for a group of plastic surgeons who were in San Marcos on a surgical mission.  Luis had helped coordinate the mission, and Bette was impressed with the work he was doing.  She agree to help finance his dream, to open a clinic for the poor,  and in 2011 the Policlínica Niños Shecanos opened.  Luis asked Bette if she could find a pediatrician from the US to come for a couple of weeks for the grand opening, and thus began my connection to Guatemala.
  I'm giving you this recap because without having Luis in San Marcos, not just a permanent person, but a person who is rooted in the community and totally committed to improving the lives and health of the  people, likely nothing would have come of my efforts.  Outsiders like me, even when we try our best to give aid without insisting things be done in a particular way, rarely succeed in achieving a long-term sustainable result.  Having Luis there to guide me and to be the interface with the village leaders has been invaluable.  Luis knows everyone in the building trades, in business and in politics, and he is completely honest and professional.  Donations go through Shuarhands and Bette sends funds to Luis, knowing that he will stretch every dollar and be able to account for every penny.
  Since my last visit in February, the natural spring two miles from Tacaná and it's holding tanks were cleaned and pipe was laid underground to the fields. Planting is almost done.  Sibinal will be the next site for irrigation, and that should be underway now.  Most exciting is that I met with my local congressman, Jim McGovern who is very involved with world hunger.  He was excited about the project and felt it might have promise as a model for remote areas.  With his help, I've been in touch with the USAID office at the Embassy in Guatemala City and will meet with one of the directors while we are there. Also, one of the field directors will come to see the projects.  My big hope is that they will become involved with financial support for other communities that we are unable to finance.  I'm going to post photos that  Luis sent me of the Tacaná project on Picasa, and also of me packing up 49.06 pounds of medications. I shipped 35 pounds to Bette for her to carry!
More after I arrive.  As usual, WIFI will be sketchy and posts may be erratic.