Nurse Jackie and Other Comforts of Home

Water carriers fill the cisterns after hauling it up from the river below.
You can see our wash basin to the right, and the shower is adjacent to that.

Thanks to the great preparation work by Hands for Peacemaking and their generous donors, our team felt well supported and cared for during the entire mission despite our remote location in the rugged outskirts of northwest Guatemala.

We had electricity. While the nation's power grid does not reach Xoxlac, HFPM brought in a generator so we would have lights and electricity during our stay. Occasionally this generator would sputter and die, like the night when hundreds from the village congregated in the sports field for a stand-up "movie night" where they stretched a big screen between the goal posts. They were also there to hear the words of a visiting preacher Marco had brought in from Barillas that day. The preacher was able to give his sermon before the power went out. In fact Pastor Jon was supposed to speak that night too, but got out of it due to the technical issues which led to total darkness and the villagers dispersed. That was okay, because Jon doesn't know much Q'anjobal anyway. The villagers never saw the movie either.

Hauling water, two jugs at a time

We had fresh water. HFPM supplied large bottles of sanitized water for drinking and teeth brushing. There were also three huge black cisterns from where water was pumped (electrically) to our two-stall shower system and a three-basin sink for hand washing and dish cleaning. I guess most of us didn't think too much about where all this water was coming from until early Tuesday morning when we saw a steady parade of mostly women and girls hauling three-gallon jugs up a trail on their backs to pour into the cisterns. I walked down this steep and rocky trail to see the source and was stunned to see how far it was - at least a half mile to a swift-flowing creek in the valley below. 

Village water source

Hiking down to the river to get water  and do laundry is an every day occurrence for the villagers, especially during the six months of the year when it doesn't rain very much. During the rainy season some of the houses employ crude water collection systems using tin gutters and a jug. After seeing all of the work that went into getting our water for us, I was determined to keep my shower short, which wasn't too much of a problem as the water was bone-cold anyway. (Pastor Jon playfully suggested that as long as they were going to the trouble of bringing it up, they might as well heat it for us too).

We had latrines dug just for us, with tissue. I won't go into detail on this topic, but having used the traditional hole and water method common to many parts of the world, having this small comfort was, well, a Godsend. One afternoon Jon was compelled to use a baños out in the village and it didn't turn out so well. Marco told us a story of how, in another village, a young girl went missing until her search crew finally heard her calling from the depths after she had fallen in. Fortunately she survived. The HFPM latrines were left in the village for use by the school children.

Steaks in Xoxlac

We had great food. Marco's dear wife, Mimi, had carefully planned our meals in advance and taught our two HFPM kitchen staff, Marte and Lydia, how to prepare an American feast. We're talking barbecued steak, omelets,  salads, corn-on-the-cob, fresh bread, lots of fruit and other delights. We had hot and fresh, hand-tossed tortillas with every meal.  Usually we'd eat heavy for lunch and light for dinner, perhaps just a bowl of soup with tortillas and fruit. Our meals in village were truly awesome, as they were at the mission house in Barillas. Even though we worked hard and heavily sweat, I don't think a one of us left any lighter on this mission.

Marte and Lydia prepared our meals

We had emergency medical care. A couple of years ago a HFPM volunteer on a school construction project got clobbered by a wayward hammer and at that time there was no medical staff. The organization has since provided nursing services for its mission trips. We had Nurse Jacqueline, or Jackie, with us, a contract nurse from Barillas. Nurse Jackie was well qualified for the job. She received three years of rigorous medical training at a school near Guatemala City, one of 50 accepted into the program out of more than three-times that many applicants. She was just one of 16 in her class to graduate.

Nurse Jackie treats Doug's hand cut

Jackie attends to Pastor Jon

Nurse Jackie came in handy.  I think it was the first afternoon when Doug and I were just finishing up a stove pipe installation. Doug was notching the roof with tin snips when suddenly blood began gushing from his left hand, onto the ground and really all over. Somehow he was able to finish the job before he took time to deal with it. I grabbed my little first-aid kit and we cleaned his soot-covered wound as best we could with moist towelettes and alcohol swaps and were able to apply gauze and a big bandage over about a three-inch gash. Then Doug stretched his fingerless sailing glove over his hand to keep the dressing in place. Later, Jackie did a more thorough job and re-patched it several times over the next two days. Fortunately no stitches were needed. Pastor Jon suffered a little boo-boo too that he reluctantly had Jackie care for. Maxx became ill one evening but I do not know if he paid a visit to Jackie or not. When not nursing, Jackie helped out the field, teaming mostly with Steve Drury and John Kirk.

We had comfortable sleeping quarters. Hands for Peacemaking brought in mattresses and bedding for our team and for staff, which were plunked down on the floor of the school house for our use. Each night the bedding would be freshly folded at the head of our beds.

We had laundry.   Not in the village itself, but when we returned to Barillas our dirties were turned into the HFPM staff at the mission house and were laid out nicely for us the next morning. The only problem was they were all mixed together so we had to kind of go through the piles and claim what was ours. Learning from last year, Doug had pre-marked his stuff with his first initial. I'm still not sure if the Hanes I grabbed were all mine.

We had Wi-Fi.   Again, not in Xoxlac but at the mission house. Willy, Marco's right-hand man, lent his personal laptop to our team so we could take turns checking our email, news and sports scores. We could also connect with our smart phones. Service was sporadic but still available. Unfortunately I had somehow locked myself out of my blogger software and my recovery system requires cell service, which I didn't have.

We had emergency cell service. Giant cell towers are a part of the landscape. Amazingly, a lot of the villagers living in huts with tin roofs, rotting siding and mud floors have cell phones. One family, clearly better off than most, even video-recorded almost our entire stove installation on their smart phone. Apparently those with phones use a pay-as-you go type of plan.

One of my personal highlights was being able to borrow Willy's Blackberry while in Xoxlac. Standing at the edge of a ravine where the signal was stronger, he dialed my daughter Hillary's phone number and I was able to reach her - all the way in Connecticut where she attends school - so that I could wish her a happy 22nd birthday. I kept our conversation short, but what a thrill it was to hear her voice and be able to send birthday greetings all the way from one of the more remote regions of the world.