We were a bit disappointed to find out that, though we had reservations at our favorite hotel, we would be staying at the building across the street which the hotel had just purchased. Our disappointment was short-lived, however, when we saw the beautiful view of the lake from the porch outside our rooms.
Of course, we can't take a fun trip without visiting some of our friends in the area. Sunday, we took a boat ride to San Marcos where we visited Nathaniel, and were happy to find he and his family were doing well.
We then took a tuk-tuk over to Tzunana, and stopped in to see Joaquin. Visiting his family is always quite a challenge, since most of the family members speak only Tzuil, one of the 26 Mayan languages we have here in Guatemala.
We managed to find a neighbor to translate for us and had a great visit. We discovered that while Joaquin primarily uses a walker, his mother said she could use a new wheelchair to help transport him longer distances. We promised to return Monday with a chair on our way back to Antigua. We also, discovered that, thanks to his attendance at Centro Maya in San Juan, Joaquin has learned a significant amount of Spanish and understood most of what we said. He is a bright young man!
Dick kept asking people if there was a way to get into Santa Cruz by car. He had seen some trucks in town, so knew there had to be a route in. Last week he studied Google earth, and found a trail in down the side of the mountain, and took it the other day with Marcos. Never tell Dick he can't do something. As they were trying to leave, however, the discovered that a back-hoe had dug up the trail, and it took some fast talking on Dick's part to convince the back-hoe operator to let him try to get out of town. If you're friends with Dick on Facebook, you have to check out his post. It's a good read!
While we were traveling, I received a call from the mother of Jessica, a little girl who spent almost a year in the malnutrition program. She had been running a fever for the past week, and mom had no money to take her to the doctor. We promised to stop there on our way home the next day.
So, after an early breakfast on Monday, we set off to run our errands which had accumulated during our two day "vacation" at the Lake. First stopped at Joaquin's and delivered a new chair to him.
Next we dropped by to Centro Maya Linguistica in San Juan La Laguna to drop off some dried food and vitamins.
While there, I met the new physical therapist, and also met a little girl who would be perfect for a Mulholland walker. Dick agreed, and soon we hope to return with one for her.
We had stopped and picked up some Tylenol and a thermometer. We were pleased to discover Jessica's temperature was only about 101 degrees, and she was bright, alert and responsive. Since she had had the fever of over a week, though, Dick did give her mom money to take her to the local doctor we had used for her in the past. There are so many mosquito borne illnesses in this region and we wanted her checked just ot make sure.
Not a bad couple days work for a "vacation" trip. You should see how much we do when we are actually planning on working!
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