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Ascaris worms. They can grow to 12 inches long.

Anita gave worm medicine to all the children in Marta’s family.

The next morning, worms were coming out of the baby’s mouth, and big lumps of worms were passing out of the other children.

The children are very, very infected with the worms which could cause blockage of the bowels. If not treated in time, this can even cause death.
Meanwhile, the worms eat up the little bit of nutrition that the children do get, contributing to malnourishment.

Dr. Oscar spoke to the mother in her native Catchiquel language to insist that she give the three-day dosage to each child; she had only give one dose per child over three days. Dr. Oscar told us that some indigenous people don’t believe you should kill all the worms, because worms are needed to help you digest the food!

This once again reminds us of all the work that has to be done to help and to educate the villagers.

A small classroom is now used as a makeshift kitchen. Cement blocks are used to hold wood for fire built on the floor.

The school prepares a very simple but hot lunch for the students each day. For many, this may be the most nutrition they will get all day. One classroom is used as a kitchen. But they desperately need an actual, outfitted kitchen. At this point the women, used to rural ways, sometimes prepare the food (chopping, cutting, peeling) on the cement floor! The new kitchen will have lots of clean counter space.

The women start a fire on the floor and cook over it and the room gets filled with heavy smoke. But, why aren’t they using the gas stove or the wood burning stove with a chimney which are beside the fire on the floor?

Greg meets on-site to layout drains, counters and electric for the new kitchen. Rocio, project coordinator, is the young lady who helps make it all possible.

Well, they don’t have money for propane gas, so they can’t use the gas stove. Besides it is too high for them to reach the tall pots they must use. The wood stove has a door to insert wood, but the wood they have is too big for the door. And, that stove is also too high for them to use with the tall pots.

On top of this, the school needs to use that classroom right away.

So the school and municipality are building a small kitchen, about 18 feet by 18 feet, where four ladies will prepare and cook the food for 112 students each school day. We’re going to cut 11″ off the legs of that gas stove, so they can more easily use it.

Thanks to a fundraiser held by Mike & Kim Bartolotti and Family & Friends, New York State, USA, we have the funds to help in a big way! The approximately $1,000 that was raised is being used by Hands of Hope to buy a new and different style woodburning stove, some pots and knives and steel beams for the roof and help with the purchase of other construction materials to help make this new kitchen a reality. The school is very thankful, because they have run out of funds of their own.

Rocio G. is the energetic young lady who is coordinating all the efforts and trying to raise funds. She is really wonderful and cares for the people. She works with a large mission called www.CommonHope.org in Antigua, Guatemala. We’ve known Common Hope for many years and in the last few years, we have been working closely with them to provide health care for the children who are in the Common Hope educational sponsored program.

More later, as construction progresses.

Large incision; Stitches were getting infected.

Anita took Marta to a kind and nice Dr. in Sumpango, Dr. Oscar and he gently removed her stitches which were getting infected.

Marta was brave and didn’t cry.

Busy week ahead.
* Marta’s family: roof, water, Marta’s infection

* Make formal complaint to Department of Health and the Hospital about awful actions of the doctor who mis-treated Marta
* Work at school in our village to continue to get the kitchen built
* Go to city and review various building materials. More advanced and more selection than we have in San Lucas.
* Help to finish unpacking and get organized in the house so that is behind us
* Meet with Evangelical group regarding the permit to import containers of donations free of all tax.
* Get license plates for truck. Have to sell that big truck.
* Get daughter’s passport visa renewed. Some holdup on that, she has to go in person.
* Make application for our permanent visas. It’s an 8-month process and I dread all the paperwork.
* Fix roof in part of our house that is leaking and, the other part that is about to leak.
* Track down mail that was to have been forwarded.
* Get tires for one of the pickups (worn bald, and leaking air)
* All the medical clinic issues that we will deal with, including finding out what happened to the man who fell off cliff and can’t feel his legs. He called to say that the hospital wouldn’t admit him (they have to admit him, by law), but then his phone went dead and we haven’t heard from him.

And, deal with many things that will come up that we don’t even know yet.

The parents and Lety started crying to see Marta in such pain. Anita said the doctor would not remove it even though Marta was screaming and literally yanking her hair, pulling her hair out.

So she took her out of that hospital to a doctor we know, Dr. Oscar, in another town. He removed the catheter and immediately the pain left and Marta stopped screaming.

Ultrasound seems to indicate that Marta has a severe infection which is producing fluid that is “leaking” out. This Dr. Oscar also found out something that none of us had known, not even Marta’s parents. When Marta had surgery to remove that huge stone (see post below), they discovered that her bowels were “stuffed” to the point where she couldn’t have a bowel movement. Stuffed with worms! So they had to cut open her bowel and remove a large amount of worms.

So we are going to de-worm her family next week. More than likely, they have been using and drinking dirty water because their water has been shut off. Next week, we hope to get her water re-connected again.

But her Mom said  can’t take her because there is nobody to watch the other 7 children. Taking her nursing baby with her is also a problem because the hospital won’t let her accompany Marta inside the hospital areas with the baby. The father said he won’t take Marta, because “it’s too boring to wait at the hospital”.

So Anita and Lety are going to take the Mom and Marta, with the baby and the other youngest child, and the 10-year old will stay and watch the other children.

We hope that when Anita gets to the house, that the Mom hasn’t changed her mind. Yesterday, the Mom said that a neighbor said that her son had the same problem, that it just healed up and so there is no need to go to the hospital. So Anita asked that the neighbor come over and explain. (great move on Anita’s part) Turns out that the neighbor’s son had an appendix removed and of course there was no correlation to Marta’s surgery.

We’ll post a followup story on Marta.

Rosario hands out shoes to the most needy.

Rosario runs the clinic front office and is our ‘intake’ person, the first to greet the patients and hand out numbers, and keep the waiting room (which many times has 70 people) organized.

Here are some of the shoes that were donated which are given to the neediest families. In a few cases, families will pay about $0.60 for a new pair of shoes.

The children are so happy for a new pair of shoes, it can only remind you of what most of us take for granted.

This was great news to hear first thing in the morning! Thank you for your kind generosity, especially at a time when many are worried about the economy, etc.

More photos to follow when we start fixing the roof.

Gloria and Irma are sweet girls stuck in a very bad situation.

In the last post (below) we mentioned the need of Marta’s mother, who has 9 living children (two died) – $120 we will get her running water and fix her roof. But in the last week, we’ve come across so many other serious needs.

Some can be solved, or partially-solved, with money. Others are more serious and money isn’t the issue, necessarily.

These two girls in the photo – Gloria and Irma - live with their widowed father, 4-year old brother, Joel, and two older brothers. Their mother died in childbirth with Joel. They do not have anyone to care for them during the day, and nobody to prepare meals. They are hungry and on their own most of the time.

After their mother died, the then-15 year old sister took care of the family, cooking, cleaning, taking care of four younger children. But it became too much for her, so she ran away. The younger then-13 yr old sister took over, but, like her sister, she couldn’t take the heavy workload and harsh treatment by the father. So she also ran away.

This family is so poor they have not been able to have a steady supply of food. Yet the father and their older brothers (11 and 18) work very hard in the fields for a few dollars a day, each.

On Monday, when I took this photo at the clinic, they told me that there was no food in the house and noone to make them any lunch. So I prepared four tortillas with beans and cheese for them. They are very sweet and such nice girls.

I shudder to think of their future the way things are.  I will start to gently approach the father about placing the girls in a girls-only children’s home we know.