Monday: Buen Trabajo

The med team has a very busy and successful clinic at Cruce de Pavon. The heroes of the day were Danni C. and Rachel K. who, despite not speaking any spanish, did yeoman's work with shoe distribution. This process is exponentially harder when the people receiving shoes can see all their choices, which was the case today. They both exhibited enormous patience and kindness. The process was expedited when Jen J. helped with some translation. Mikayla B and her mom took blood pressures today and did well, despite the noisy chaos ensuing around them. Carolyn P. staffed the parasite meds station today, a task that finishes earlier than the others because it is the first station at the clinic. This left her lots of time to take photos, which she was eager to do.

In addition to running a clinic at Cruce de Pavon, six students ran a kids camp for the young children whose parents were either out working or in the clinic. Though exhausted at the end of the day, our student leaders (which included Lily, Noe, Taylor, Liam, Hannah M. and Allie M.) said they had a lot of fun. As long as someone had a ball to play with, it seems all our young friends were happy.

The construction team worked on two tasks today: painting corrugated metal roofing shingles and pick axing the rocky clay dirt and then shoveling it out of the trenches that will ultimately house the foundation of a two family house.

Painting was uncharacteristically stressful because it was a surprisingly windy day and the very large sheets of metal kept launching airborne, sometimes into the children who surround us as we work. Jenni F. (the only mom in the group) was very worried that one of our little friends was going to be seriously injured! Alas, all was fine.

The heroes of the construction site were the men who tackled digging out the foundation. This was grueling, back breaking work on an humid 90-degree day. Most impressive to all the leaders is the fact that NO ONE complained. And EVERYONE said they were ready to go back and do it some more on Tuesday!

One of the highlights of returning to Batey 50 was to see the new school! It was exciting to see all our little friends in class and we are eager to bring the teachers some of the school supplies we brought with us.

Much of our evening was spent packing more than 200 food kits which will get distributed at Tuesday and Wednesday's clinics.

La Fuerza Azul: buen trabajo!!!!!