Our second day in Guatemala was quite busy. We had one of our board members visit our property with his wife and 4 children. Ryan brought Antonio with him. Antonio is close to my age and has retired from his money job to run a humanitarian project. He brings in medical and dental teams from the USA to help the needy people of Guatemala. As soon as we have a clinic on premises the teams can come to our place. In the meantime our people need to go to them. Antonio told us that the Latter day Saint Church has built and furnished a dental and medical clinic in zone 2 in the City that orphans can use for free so we now have a place to take our orphans. He also made arrangements for Edit to go to a pediatric clinic in Guate City and for Dominga to go to a clinic for people with eye problems. The pictures are of Antonio and Pedro telling the community group of people about the medical help we were working to get them. Another picture is of the gathered crowd. One picture is of Jose's new baby, the one that was born on the dirt floor of his house. The baby is now 2 months. The last picture is of Dominga ,the lady with the syphilus. We had to take some pictures of her so Antonio could show the doctors. She has a one month old baby who will also need to be treated and a husband. We are paying her way to Huehuetenango where the clinic is and Edit and her mother's [ the 3 year old blind child ]way to Guate City. The lady with syphilus started crying as we took her picture. She is so ashamed of her facial blemishes as well as loosing her eyesight from it. One more picture, the one in the middle. If you look closely you see a tall woman dressed less modestly than the others. She was so wanton looking compared to the other women that I asked Pedro afterwards who she was. He said she was a prostitute that lived out there and went after the young boys. I asked how young and he said the 10, 11 and 12 year old boys. She was a prostitute in the city and I have heard that they all are HIV positive.
Over 100 people were at this meeting and Pedro and Antonio promised them that we would get free clinics started out there for them. We will be the only clinics on this side of the lake so will be able to serve at least 3/4 million people. PLEASE HELP US RAISE THE FUNDS FOR THIS. When Antonio heard that we would be hosting the people from Mercy Ships on Wed. thru Sat. he asked if he could come back to meet with them. We, of course welcomed him.
On our way to this meeting, we stopped and visited a small [ 15 child ] orphanage. There place was old, but clean. Our looks a hundred times better.
I also looked at a property that has two houses for rent in a gated safe neighborhood. it is the same neighborhood my husband and I are staying in. We are going to rent and furnish the houses for volunteers. We will charge $20 a night for a bed with meals included. Hopefully this will make it easier for teams to come down.
More from our trip later,
Vicki
Director of http://safehomesforchildren.org
20.vicki@gmail.com
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