Guatemala Trip SU May 2017

We managed to travel my air land And sea yesterday.  After the two flights we took a 3 hour bus ride across the country boarder and ended with a 20 minute boat ride to  El Faro  where we are staying.   This compound is an amazing facility which hosts over 30 American medical, mission, and education groups early as well as 150 Guatemalan groups each year.  I was blown away by the buildings and how nice everything was.  Having the water right on our doorstep was amazing too!  The coolest part of my day was getting off the plane and hearing my name called in the arrivals area of the Honduras airport.  It was crazy, but the only peeps who I know that lives in Honduras was as the airport picking up students for the Student Helping Honduras organization! It was amazing to see Jessa at the airport. I had not seen her in a long time but I was happy to catch up. Everyone was pretty tired from the full day of travel so a few of us talked on the deck for an hour

Another morning run and workout follow up by the best breakfast so far. My favorite thing... breakfast burritos! Not anyone loved them as much as I did, but I can't complain because I got all the leftovers. Here is a picture of the cross that sits on the edge of the El Faro property overlooking the dock.  The group was supposed to go back Livingston down the river to a waterfall/hot spring today.  However, since Tuesday I have known that Tommy planned for us to go to Belize instead as a surprise. Instead of telling the group he decided to wait and tell them when we got to land. Already knowing the plan I was shocked that people did not speak up when we started taking a new route and had snorkeling gear in the boat. Luckily everyone did not pick up on these hints and just took the 1:45 boat ride in stride. Once we got to crystal clear water and small islands he told the group. Everyone was in shock and awe of the secret, landscape, and weather.  We got to s

One thing I forgot last night was the shooting stat that 3 of us happen to see on the boat ride home. It's rare to see a shooting star, but for three of us to see the same one without talking about it was awesome. Ran and worked out this morning. For the first half of today our group did a final team building ropes course. It was a great time and also very challenging. Lunch was meat in a great spicy marinate. The final day of clinic was fun but also sad. We went to the hospital and treated just in the outpatient part of the clinic. We had mainly follow ups from yesterday. The students went right into treatment and had a great flow. First years were even practicing skills for the spine and already getting some of the key concepts down.  We tried to emphasize teaching as this is the last time we get to work with the therapists so we tried to share a lot of knowledge.  We are already planning to make a document and videos as tools for the therapists to have. The

I was able to watch the sunrise in the hammock today before another group of five did yoga on the dock. I need to make this apart of my morning routine this summer! Breakfast was mini quiche with black beans, plantains, and tortillas. It had such a nice flavor and the sauces really added to the home cooking. The whole group boarded the boat and had another busy morning in Livingston. The groups of 4 split off and started treating right when we put our bags down. Four patients were already waiting for us when we got to the clinic. The two groups I worked with did a fantastic job today. They were able to make even larger gains with each follow up patient and did a great job educating Ronnie, the clinic physiotherapist, on the new techniques. They also planned how they were going to make videos and handouts of the skills for Ronnie. I was most impressed with how well they educated the patients on follow through once we were gone, home program review, and instillin

AM run and jump in the calm water with some swimming was another great wake up call. Breakfast and quickly off to the boat for a packed day. We were so focused on getting to the clinic that we forgot Stacy and as we were leaving she started tuning down the stairs to the dock. After gaining our whole group we made it to Livingston and started clinic instantly. With the whole group were able to divide into four groups and luckily we had the 4 groups ready because we had a ton of patients. Between the students at the school, the patients from the week so far, and new evaluations we had over 15 patients up until lunch. Some extremely interesting cases and some great progress on the patients from earlier in the week. The lady with the wrist fracture got her first restful sleep since the injury 2 months ago, another patient with a long history of low back pain was pain free after the treatment yesterday. Not only did patient outcomes improve, but the students confidence, relatio

Only better way to top yesterday's start of the day was today's.  Yoga on the end of the pier with the sounds of waves, the sun rising, and clear skies.  5 of us did a little P90x yoga and it was amazing! After pancakes with peanut butter and fresh fruit we boarded the boat for our clinic day. Kim and I went back to Livingston with the other 5 students.  Today school was back and session and we walked into a room with 12 students with disabilities.  We got to learn each students story and after that we did screenings of each student to determine if treatment was needed we treated a few of the patients.  The one my group treated was a 17 year old female who was unable to read or write due to a learning disability. However she could sew and was doing that in her community.  With some mentoring the students were able to look big picture at the patients needs and came up with a great plan of care to address her thoracic, finger, and balance impairments!  The rest of the mo