We left the hotel in Sibinal at about 7:00 this morning for the half hour drive to the town of San Antonio in Tacaná. We had breakfast at the home of Noe, the man who spent some time in the US and speaks passable English. He’s the main contact in Tacaná as Marco is in Sibinal. We’ll see more of the irrigation project tomorrow with Rachael from USAID, but we did get to see Noe’s system. The pipes are laid from the holding tanks at the spring to the town and then underground to 100 homes. They then come to the surface and end in a spigot at each site. A long hose attaches to a large sprinkler that can be placed wherever the family has gardens. Noe’s family is growing ayotes which look like big melons but are in the squash family. They also have a plot of frijoles isichos, beans that grow in pods and come in bright blue, pink, yellow and green. It’s a surprise each time you open the pod. Once I have WIFI, I’ll post some photos on Picasa. Geese and chickens were fighting for territory , and there were large numbers of turkeys by the roadside. Noe said the project took 15 days with nearly the whole village digging from 8:00am till 6:00pm. Though it’s only a half hour drive from Sibinal, Tacaná is much drier due to the higher elevation and lack of morning fog. The irrigation is already making a huge difference in the crops they are growing.
We set up the clinic in the same school we used last year. The kids are on vacation, helping harvest the corn, but we had a heavy morning, heavy on babies and toddlers. There was only one unusual patient, a one year old boy with an impressive heart murmur whose mother was unaware. When I asked her if she’d been told about her baby having an extra sound in his heart, she said no. She then said that she’s been sent to a specialist when her baby was a month old to “check his stomach.” The specialist listened to his heart and told her the baby had colic. As the baby looked otherwise well and had a normal oxygen level, Luis will set up a visit at the cardiac institute some time after the first of the year.
We returned to Noe’s house for lunch, and among the people at the table was his grandfather. Halfway through lunch, he started talking about some type of corn that only old people, and maybe Cubans, like. When the Cuban doctors said they liked it too, he was very pleased. He then shifted his gaze to me, told me he was 78 and asked how old I was. I asked him how old he thought I was, and after pondering for a few minutes, he said, “Ochenta!!!” (80.) I kept a straight face and said, “No, I’m actually Ochenta y Ocho (88.) He was stunned and kept loudly repeating 88, all the while staring at me. His wife came out of the house and he told her I was 88. She also was surprised and went back in to tell her daughter and the other women in the house and they all came out to stare. I went on eating my lunch, a bit insulted that they actually believed me, but basking in the knowledge that I must look pretty darn good for an 88 year old.
The afternoon was busy but held no surprises, and we drove to the new hotel around 5:30. Luis was sure it had WIFI, but alas, there is none. Tomorrow we plan to see patients in the morning and then, when Rachael arrives, we’ll show her the Tacaná projects and then drive to Sibinal to show her what’s happened there.
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