Guest Post - Guatemala Mission Trip

My sister Stephanie just returned from a 12-day mission trip to Guatemala. She is a nurse, and she used that training as part of the medical team within her group. I asked her to tell our readers about the trip, and she filed this report:

My year started out with me going to Guatemala for a mission trip. The group included 29 people of all ages. Within this group there were 4 sections: medical (7 people, myself included) construction, daycamp, and a women's group. We left on the 1st of January and made it to Guatemala City that night. Here we stayed at a "decent" hotel where I swear I heard a gunshot not too far down the street from my room. But obviously I made it to the next day.

The next day we journeyed from our hotel in Guatemala City to Lemoa, which is where we stayed during our trip. Lemoa is very small, actually, all it really has is one small "tienda," or store, which basically had candy and soda, and then an orphanage and a school. It is a very rural area. We stayed at a Methodist camp. The building was made of cement and had no heat. You're probably thinking, you're in Guatemala, you don't need heat, but at night it would dip down to around 40 degrees so we could see our breath at night while trying to sleep. There were 2 showers for the ladies and 2 showers for the men, and we each had 4 toilets. Now in Guatemala, no matter where you are, you can not flush your toilet paper down the toilet because their sewage system cannot handle it. That was hard to adjust to at first, but I finally got the hang of it.

A couple things that drew my attention when arriving in Guatemala were the trash and the dogs. Most people dump their trash off on the side of the road so there is trash EVERYWHERE. Some people burn it so there will be huge clouds of smoke. At our camp, the people would burn our garbage and toilet paper so you did not want to be around when they were doing that! And then there were the dogs. There are dogs running around EVERYWHERE! Most of the time you didn't know if they were rabid or not. They would mostly steer clear of you and vice versa. But one unfortunate girl on our team was playing with some kids and a dog got a little excited and nipped her. She had to be flown back to Mayo early to get a series of rabies shots that they didn't have in Guatemala. After that, I really steered clear of the dogs.

For the medical portion of our trip, there were 4 nurses and 3 doctors. We went to 6 different villages in 6 days. Most of the patients we saw have never seen a doctor or nurse before in their lives. We saw about 350 patients in those 6 days. We would set up our "clinic" usually in a church in the village. Our doctor's rooms were separated by sheets and ropes. Two of the nurses ran our "triage stations," where we would get blood pressure, weight, height, temp, blood sugar, and what their complaint was. From there, they would go see one of the doctors, who would prescribe them with pills, and then the other two nurses ran the "pharmacy" where we dispensed the medications and taught them about the meds and when to take them. I was getting really good with my Spanish by the end of the trip and was even able to tell patients how and when to take their pills and what their pills were for. Most of the things we seen in our clinic were infections, parasites, body and head lice, hypertension, diabetes, pain, asthma, dry eyes, etc. We also were able to dispense multivitamins, reading glasses if needed, and toothbrushes to the adults and children. The ages of our patient varied from 2 months old to 104 years old. You're probably thinking, I bet the 104 year old had so many problems, well no, all the guy wanted was some glasses so he could see. He walked out of the clinic that day one of the happiest people in the world because he was now able to see the faces of his children/grandchildren. Needless to say, we all got hugs and kisses from him before he left.

When we had some down time, we were able to play with the children. We brought along a few things such as tennis balls, crayons and paper, and stickers. You would've thought we were giving each of these kids a Nintendo Wii there were so excited. We also played their favorite game, Pato Pato Ganzo, or Duck Duck Goose in English. Being able to make the kids laugh and smile was very rewarding. Oh, and one more thing about the medical portion of the trip. We had to travel about 2 hours one way to get to the different villages. The roads were not nice paved roads but small, dirt BUMPY roads that wound around the mountains. I would look out the bus window and see directly down the mountain. Needless to say the bus rides were NOT a favorite part of the trip.

All in all, this was probably the best trip of my lifetime and when it was time to leave I decided that I didn't want to. I tried to convince the group to let me stay but they just weren't having it. Seeing all the poverty around Guatemala really opened my eyes and made me realize how lucky we really are and how often we take simple things for granted, like flushing your toilet paper down the toilet.