Hola from Guatemala!

Xavier faculty made it safe and sound yesterday. We hit the ground running and have visited all of the sites that we will be serving this week. We have more work than ever and are excited for all of the opportunities. We are grateful for everyone who is supporting this experience. Steve, Rolondo and Lisa have been taking good care of us thus far and we look forward to all of the others we will meet in the days to come.

We are eager for the rest of our group to show up. Safe travels to all travling tomorrow! Be prepared for an experience of a life time!

Valerie Hill
Faculty

Guatemala 2013...Let the adventure begin!!!

Hello blog followers!! We are all looking forward to this wonderful experience together! We spent the night packing up suitcases full of donations. Some of the items to mention include multiple Rifton chairs, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, chocolates, wheelchair parts, diapers and baby wipes. I personally have 50 pounds of diapers and baby wipes in my suitcase :) as well as I will be walking through the airport with a pediatric reverse walker.

For peace of mind for our followers, the faculty and leaders will be heading to Guatemala on Thursday with the rest of us coming in on Saturday. The goal of this blog is to send updates daily but please remember that "no news is good news" and that the internet may just be down when we tried to blog and we will follow up when we can.

We appreciate all of the support, well wishes and love that we have received from everyone and we all want to say 'Thank You' to you.

Emily Mertz, OTR/L
"Blog Co-leader"

A Closing Note from the Trip Leader

It has been a great week with students and therapists. The week has been full of service and learning. We have experienced much love, much compassion, and much caring. It has been a week full of hope. Our experiences have helped shaped our vision of how we can make a difference, of how we can make an impact in our communities, in our world. Now, a big thanks goes to all of you back home for standing behind us and lending support to make this trip possible. We leave Guatemala reluctantly, yet, look forward to our reunion with you, our family and friends.

Thank you.

Carol Scheerer (trip leader and occupational therapist)

Day 8: Final day in Guatemala and what a day it was!

Today was a very eventful and long, but all around amazing day. We began by loading in the van at 7:00 AM sharp, with our granola bars and juice boxes in hand. Our first stop was the Volcano Pacaya, and it took about two hours to get there. We got to the site, and rented walking sticks for 5 quetzales a piece. There were many men on "horse taxis" offering us rides up and down the volcano, for 125 quetzales each way. However, our group happened to be in tip top shape and we were able to stick it out for the entire journey. It took us about two hours to make it to the peak of the volcano, and we came across some interesting stops along the way, like the highest shop in all of Central America: The Volcano Shop. Here there was a man selling various colorful pouches and beautiful jewelry crafted from the last erruption. Sure enough, there were some buyers and proceeds went towards building houses for the people of Guatemala. Another rather memorable experience taken place on the volcano was our opportunity to roast some marshmellows on hot magma! There was even another group we ran into, and one man was making grilled cheese, HOW COOL IS THAT?! After taking about 1000 pictures, we made our 1 hour journey down the volcano. The trek down was much quicker as it was down hill and we took fewer breaks. Once we reached the bottom of the volcano, we piled into the van with our sweaty selves, and made our way to the Guatemala City landfill. There, Beth gave her presentation on the history of the landfill. Also, we heard from Steve's good friend Joel. Joel gave a lecture on the importance of not generalizing the residents of the dump, but instead looking at each as their own individual, while also appreciating their survival tactics. Also, as a bonus we were able to check out the local cemetary, even seeing a decomposing hip bone! WOW, now that's neat. After chilling by the dump's overlook we drove to the largest slum of Central America: La Limonada. It was a very eye opening and humbling experience for our team. We also got the chance to talk to a former gang member, and Guatemalan celeb, Shorty. He told us many stories, one specifically being when Christ came to him, saving him from committing suicide and ultimately turning his life around for the better. Currently he works in La Limonada with gang members, specifically the youth, in preventing their participation in the gang and all the crime it involves. He mentioned that most youths of the slum do not expect to live past 25. The stories he told us were very touching and put things into perspective for us. It was the perfect way to end our week in Guatemala.

Some of the therapists chose to stay back and explore the city of Antigua today. They began their day by going to breakfast in Parque Central at a restaurant called Cafe Condesa. At the cathedral in the park they were celebrating the Catholic holiday Corpus Cristi. There was a procession out of the cathedral with the consecrated host and all of the people who attended mass. There was live music, fireworks and a parade that they even got to take part in! WHAT A TREAT! The ceremony was very special because they were able to participate in something that the Guatemalans highly value. The rest of their day consisted of going to the runis and putsing around the city doing some light shopping and networking with another. Additionally, it was Sally's birthday which included cake, and it was the cherry on the top of their day (no pun intended).

So, everyone met back up at the Lutheran Center for dinner at 7:30 sharpish. We had a typical Guatemalan meal consisting of soup, chicken, rice and torillas. It was nice to hear about eachother day, share experiences, and process. We were also sad to say good bye to our amazing translators and drivers this evening, Norma, Milton, Gerson and Darvy. To bid farewell, we prsented them with chocolates, a card and a line of hugs. We will miss them a lot! We also gave the Lutheran Center staff a "shout out", accompanied with chocolates for their delcious food and accomodating service! All in all it was an amazing day, and even better trip. :-)

-Beth SOT, Andrea SOT, Nicole OT & Tracy SOT ;-)

Day 7

Anini
Today Anini was, once more, challenging...As my first day visiting the site I could not help but feeling sad and frustrated. The way some of these children are spending their "lives" (if that is considered living a life) is inconceivable for most of us. Children in Anini's casa 1 wake up everyday and are seated in their wheelchairs (most of them fitted inappropriately or missing parts, then head outside the house where they spend the morning being attacked by flies and bugs while they slowly slide off their chairs. Most of these kids are unable to adjust their own posture or control their extremities that keep flailing out in the air while their heads just hang on their sides. This scene takes places while the "tias" that are taking care of them (2 people for 12 severely involved children)fight against flies and try to get some of the kids out of the wheelchair for a few minutes. Trying to figure out how to help these kids has been one of the most difficult situations I have faced as an OT. One more day it is interesting to compare and contrast how different our experiences have been depending on the site we visited.

Adela (Occupational Therapist)

Marina Guirola
Wow! What a remarkable experience today!! We had our final day at Marina Guirola and we can't stop smiling. Today we created care plans and saw some of the kids we saw yesterday. One highlight of the day included: helping with snack time while doing the Macarena and jumping roping with the kids. We were lucky enough to have a dance instructor come in for the day and teach the children dance moves. He taught us a famous dance which moves included shimmying, pumping our arms and shaking our bums! But the children truly showed us up on the dance floor including Gerado completing the sprinkler while turning himself in his wheelchair. What was truly remarkable was that this dance instructor was also in a wheelchair and took time out of his day to teach the children.

Rose (Occupational Therapy Student)
Emily (Occupational Therapist)




Another highlight of our day was Gustavo. Gustavo has been a resident of Marina Guirola for over 18 years. Gustavo brought so many smiles to us while we were standing him for over 20 minutes. Gustavo was laughing and dancing while the student sang "Los Elephantes". During snack time while everyone was eating their snack and dancing, I went over to Gustavo to dance with him. During this time, Gustavo asked a staff member to come and talk to him. Gustavo left the area with the other children but then shortly returned and the staff member said that Gustavo wanted to show me a video. Gustavo then showed me how he can type with his head pointer and then the videos that were shown were about Nick Vujivic who was born with no legs or arms and how he knows that God loves him. Please see one of the videos shown here (be prepared to tear up):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O3xDmXmHU8&feature=related

The staff member then later on handed me a book of all of Gustavo's contact information and letters/emails from other people who have been touched by Gustavo. Of course, I gave Gustavo the link to the blog, my email address and I wrote down his email address and physical address.

When we were leaving Marina Guirola, one of the nuns told me that we changed the life of one of the kids (Gabby) since we recommended she stop wearing both her leg braces and foot braces due to pain. Then when she spoke to our entire group she said "We are doing God's work and working with God's little angels." Yes, I was tearing up. What an amazing remarkable and enlightening day! Thank you to everyone at Marina Guirola and thank you Gustavo.

Emily (Occupational Therapist)

Day 6

Today our group went to two sites beginning with Hogar Marina Guirola and ending at Amor Del Nino. Both homes for children were very different with a common theme: love. The love in both homes was almost palpable beginning with hugs from the sisters at Marina Guirola and ending with dinner time in a room full of infants having dinner. The first home catered almost exclusively to children born with special needs. These children demonstrated varying diagnoses ranging from Cerebral Palsy to severe Autism. There were only 15 children/young adults at Marina Guirola. Because of this, we felt like the caretakers were very attentive to each individual child. Every sister and tia really welcomed us and were open to our suggestions. They often put the need of the child over their tradition and set routines. This was really remarkable to witness. We even met a Physical Therapist at Marina Guirola that travels four hours each way to the childrens home. That is true dedication.
After we left Marina Guirola both groups met at Amor del Nino, which is the children's home that Steve and Shyrel run. This home has 50 children who are mostly typically developing. The majority of the children are newborns up to two years old. However, there are some older children who are waiting for their international adoptions to go through. They have been waiting since 2008 when the international adoption law changed. This is really sad, but at the same time each and every one of the children are being given such great care and love. One student asked Shyrel a question, "what is your favorite age group to work with?" To which Shyrel responded, "giving love to a child changes the shape of the brain." These are words to live by.
-Katie Finn, Occupational Therapist
-Annie Holubeck, Occupational Therapy Student.




Our group went to Anini which is a children's home with 65 children with severe mental and physical disabilities. The housing environment is different from the others such that they have six individual homes in which the children are grouped together based on their age, gender, and disability. Today we worked with children with cerebral palsy, autism, and cancer. We have many ideas for different therapy techniques; however the resources and staffing are very limited. This reminded us to be grateful for each small success, because even the smallest changes can enhance the children's quality of life. We were also reminded that everything is not a quick fix and change takes time. After an interesting day at Anini, Amor del Nino reminded us that loving the children can have a greater impact than any other therapy techniques we can provide.
~Kellie Tekulve, Occupational Therapy Student
~Valerie Hill, Occupational Therapist, Xavier Faculty
- Emily Mertz, Occupational Therapist, AKA The Ghost Writer

Day 5: Mayan Village

Today we had an excursion day and visited a Mayan Village. We traveled for about an hour and a half through some curvy, steep mountain roads to reach the very remote village. The children greeted us with smiles and laughter and it became evident to us that our visit was a special occasion not only to us, but also to them. The Mayan village is supported by Behrhorst Partners for Development which has helped them to build a system which brings fresh water to their homes, and has supplied them with ovens for cooking inside their kitchen structures. Before these newest developments, they had to walk a significant distance for water ( one hour round trip) and down a steep mountainside. For cooking they had to buildfires inside the kitchen, with little ventilation for the smoke. The women prepared us a special, traditional meal which was amazing. Highlights included handmade tamales, rice, hibiscus juice, and soup. This was espcially generous because everything they prepared was from their own crops; and we are not a small group. We also played games with the children; which fortified that smiles and laughter are univeral, even though languages are not. THe Mayan people have their own language which is differnt from the Spanish language, so we had 2 interpreters translating for us; one from Mayan to Spanish, and the other from Spanish to English. Next we headed back to Antigua for some retail therapy in the markets. Each vendor we passed, promised a "special price for you!" We ate dinner at a lovely restaraunt. The owner is an American man who sold his buisnesses and retired to Guatemala. He started a school for children from the remote community in which hae had a farm. He became aware that the children needed occupation, but had no place to work, so he started new buisnesses to create jobs for the children. THis was very successful and now his school has grown, and several buisnesses have been established, including the restaurant, Epicure. It is interesting that the young men and women who make the food and run the restaurant are not typically eating the type of food they prepare, but they have great skill and desire to create positive dining experiences for their patrons. As occupational therapists and students we understand the value of occupation and doing for others.
Sally Trumpy Occupational Therapist
Emily Mertz Occupational Therapist, AKA The Ghost Writer