Day 2 - April 27th, 2016

Guatemala 2016: Day 2

Today was our first full day in Guatemala. Today’s blog post is brought to you by Annemarie and Elizabeth.

It was an early morning ushered in by the pleasant but unfamiliar sounds of nature coming through our open air hotel windows. After a quick breakfast we were off to a 3 hour Spanish lesson at Ixchel Spanish School. At the school we split into groups based on our proficiency. Each group was led by Guatemalan teachers who were so gracious and patient, necessary character traits…at least when dealing with our Spanish skills. In my (Annemarie's) group, we were able to converse initially over the basic questions of typical conversation with an amazing instructor, Mariella. We were given worksheets and our own workbooks to keep the notes we made during the lesson. We took a 15 minute break at the halfway mark and were given coffee and took in the view from the roof. As usual, we had to take a token group picture so you too can get an idea of the gorgeous view we had this morning.

 

Mariella was kind enough to incorporate our health fair materials into our lesson. You’ll be able to read about our 1^st health fair on Friday night, but for today we are all busy learning our given stations and how to explain this information in Spanish. An example of one health fair station concerns pregnancy and when one should call the doctor when issues arise. Mariella helped us learn the information on our handouts and quizzed us on what we were reading to assure our understanding. Leaving the school was bittersweet, many of us wanted to keep learning. This environment for learning a language was the best I’ve ever experienced and it was greatly appreciated.

Group pic on the roof of the Spanish school

After lunch we headed to the local hospital/long term care facility that houses 235 residents who live there full time. All the students and faculty broke into groups and worked with children, young adults, older adults, treated patients in a sensory room and even got in the pool. We were able to work hand and hand with some of the local physical therapists.

Ellese, Kelly and Nicole working with a child in a standing frame

Andrew Foster and Andrew Kohler working together in the peds room

 

After an hour and half of treatment time we received a tour of the entire facility and heard a history of the facility. We’re heading back there tomorrow and plan to work in the same areas as well as the NICU. Thanks for following along with our adventures. More tomorrow!