Good afternoon everyone. Sorry about the delay in posting, but for some reason I couldn´t get onto the site yesterday. I will try to gived you all a quick update of the last couple of days.

We have been attending the Centro Linguistico Maya for our Spanish lessons. Eacxh of us has one on one tutoring in Spanish for four hours in the morning. We have just passed the half way point in the lessons for us. I think all of us have learned more in just the past three days than we ever could in one or two semesters back home. But four hours of intense Spanish work, coupled with four or five hours in the clinic in Sumpango or the Hermano Pedro Hospital makes for some very tired nursing students and instructors. We are all moving a bit slower and looking a bit more tired today. All of us are looking forward to the visit to Lake Atitlan at the end of the week. I think we all could use the break.

An interesting sidelight, a couple of days ago the group that was at Hermano Pedro was walking back to their homes and came across a stranded car in the middle of an intersection. Traffic and pedestrians were moiving past, but no one was offering to help the poor woman move her car, so they jumped in and pushed the car out of the way. Another good deed done in Guatemala. I only wish I had been there to take pictures.

I was at Hermano Pedro yesterday. Karen, Katie and I worked in the infant nutrition center, mostly holding crying babies and giving them bottles. There were probably 15 to 20 infants in the unit, all in metal cribs, most of them with cleft lips and pallets awaiting surgery. The only surgeons they have at Hermano Pedro are those that come down as volunteers, so the wait can be quite long. I think they said the next time they would have surgeons coming for these kids was in another couple of weeks, so they are kind of stuck there, and it´s not clear how many of them will be able to have their surgery at that time. Some may have to wait for another group to come down, since there are more kids needing surgery that there is time for the surgeons to operate. It is sad, but it is better than having no hope.

Got to sign off now. I want to wish a belated happy anniversary to Karen and Rick.
See you all soon.