Busy Week

Clear blue skies have greeted me in the mornings on the way to work this week, this has also meant that its been very cold this week. Many of the children have been suffering from colds and minor chest infections, as such most of the time has been spent inside. Two of the boys had to go to Guatemala City for tests and scans. I have been doing my usual duties on a daily basis but this week Lesley set me another challenge. Every day we have to make up a certain number of bottles for each child, and each child has his or her own formula made up which we bring down from the nutrition unit. The bottles have to filled exactly and ordered and refrigerated for the remainder of the day. Each bottle has to be labelled clearly to avoid mistakes………many of the bottles have been here for a long time and the names have worn off. So this week I had to clean quite a few of the bottles and relabelled them with black nail varnish, a very long task requiring patience and a steady hand. So I spent quite some time doing that…..I just wished I could have started with a whole bunch of new bottles as the thinners to remove the paint also practically removed the skin from my fingers!! They do look better though., despite comments about my OCD!!
We await next week when many of the children will begin to return and we will move back to our ward. I am really looking forward to it.

Out and about….Santa Maria de Jesus….
This week I took a bus (chicken bus) to Santa Marie de Jesus about 20 minutes away from Antigua. At an altitude of 2080 metres , it is a village of unpaved streets and bamboo fences. Families live in small houses often with just one room, some with their animals. Most of the people work in the fields, growing mainly maize and vegetables. The hills are a patchwork of fields of different colours and products at different stages of cultivation. The corn fields ate yellow and ready to harvest. Many of the houses are still very old and built with bamboo and wood and don’t have water so the town is full of water points and in the centre there is a ‘tanque’ where all the women go to wash their clothes, it reminds me a lot of India, the similarities continue to amaze. Most of the people wear the traditional clothes of the Mayans, often made by themselves and usually blue in colour. As evening approached it was amazing to see all the families returning home after a hard day in the fields, often working for 10 hours at a time. Men, old and young walked up hills carrying wood and products as well as food for their animals, women and children helped, often leading horses and donkeys, as they made their way back, their feet squelching in their Wellingtons. Sharp knives and scythes in their sheaths strapped across their men’s chests or around their waists. The sun in the summer and the harsh winds and cold of the winter having left traces of their presence on the faces, life expectancy for most; often not more than about 45 years. Small children, already armed with the knowledge of cultivations and the wrath of time of the different seasons laughed and joked as they too helped their families, having attended school for just half a day. Carrying wood and food home being far more important than books.
As I walked through the streets back to wait for the bus to return to Antigua, I could see small spiral of smoke rising form the houses and the smell of fresh tortillas being roasted over an open fire. Gentle tones of ranchera music cascaded into the streets. Young couples arrived at the bus stop, all dressed up to go to Antigua for the evening. Going in the opposite direction, a bus from Antigua arrived bringing back family members who had travelled to Antigua to sell their products. Dropping off passengers and their wares, it began its journey down into the next town, a group of young children running behind desperately trying to catch a ride on the ladder at the back of the bus.

You cant help but smile and will them to get on and have their 2 minutes of fun. The sun going down, the top of Agua obscured by clouds and the night chill drawing in, I returned to the comfort of my home in Antigua.

Enjoy

Adios amigos

Goodnight

Xxx