Meet my Family

Liam: 1 year old, Liam has beautiful blue eyes and the loudest scream you'll ever hear! He's certainly mad when he's mad, but when Liam is in a good mood it's the cutest thing you'll ever see.  He gets all giggly and startes singing; it can be hard not to want to kiss his chubby little cheeks and when you do it makes him giggle even more! One fun fact about Liam is that eggnog is one of his favorite things in the world.

Auggie: 3 years old, Auggie is the adorable little trouble maker-hug giver of the house. He loves to check everything out and make messes by getting into things which he's not supposed to get into.  One thing which he says a lot is 'why?'  When he's covered in paint, when the dogs covered in paint because of his handy work, when the floor has baby powder sprinkled everyone on it and when there are no more matches left because he lit them all.  Another thing he likes to do is change clothes, a lot.  He likes to change it up too and wear things in new creative ways like, for example, underwear over your shorts instead of under them.  He is also the sweetest boy I've met and never fails to say that 'why' with a cute little smile and innocence which always makes you think that he had no idea in the world that was he was doing is naughty.  Auggie is very cuddly and never hesitates to give you a big hug or to hold your hand.  One thing which he does a lot which just melts my heart is he'll look at you and say, "Guess what," as his smile gets bigger;  "I loove you."  One fun fact about Auggie is that once he threw a lit match into the garbage can and it caught on fire.

Ethan: 6 years old, Ethan knows best.  He is definitely the oldest and is turning into an expert reader.  He has this funny little drawl that you can hear sometimes when he's talking that sounds country almost.  He loves to talk and I'm definitely a fan of always being about to have a conversation about batman or the ninja turtles:)   He's also a great sport about telling me what certain words mean in Spanish when we're at church or hanging out with our friends. One of his favorite things to do is to play tricks on people like sneaking up behind them and scaring them.  Many a time I've let out a little scream when he sneaks up behind me and scares me.  He also likes to coordinate with Auggie attacking me with tickles even though I'm *cough cough* not at all ticklish. Fun fact about Ethan is that he tried out second grade this past week because first grade was a little too easy. 

Ellen: As she likes to tell people when they ask if I'm her daughter, Ellen had me when she was 16 so you can do the math.  She has beautiful eyes, which she passed down to all her kids, and a great smile which she doesn't hesitate to use all the time.  One of my favorite weird little things about Ellen is her voice, which is just nice to hear.  She has a great sense of humor and one of the funniest things she does is yell at the dog.  Whenever the dog, Tiki, runs away, he always comes back having rolled in something dead and smelling terrible.  Ellen will yell and him as a punishment and it's the funniest thing in the world.  She'll say in a very stern voice, "If you want to go back to living on the street then go ahead.  You don't get to roam the streets where you came from all day and then expect to come back here and sleep on your soft pillow every night. You're being a very bad dog. Shame on you!  Shame on your mother!"  Then she'll turn around, we're both laughing and it's just really funny.  She's also one of my two favorite mothers and great at it too.  Her kids definitely get a lot of love and laughter which are two of the best things if you ask me.  Fun fact about Ellen is that she and Kyle have known each other for a vary long time and they even went to the 8th grade dance together. 

Kyle: Just like Ellen, Kyle became my father when he was 16.  Kyle has a great sense of humor and loves every movie that has ever come out.  One thing which I love about Kyle is that he threatened the teenage boys at church that he'd shoot them if they came near me.  I think this is pretty awesome.  (James Rhodenhiser-Do not try at home. Love, your favorite child)  Kyle is great at playing the guitar and has created and taught a really good worship team at church.  He's also makes the best, and I mean THE BEST, coffee ever by toasting the fair trade beans and home and knowing the perfect way to brew it.  He makes a delicious breakfast of bacon, french toast, and pumpkin spice latte (which he makes from pumpkin that is cut and cooked at home) every Sunday which we all look forward to greatly.  Fun fact about Kyle is that he loves bow ties.  He has figured out how to sew them himself and has about a million different ones which include awesome patterns like the avengers.

Parade Pictures

On Thursday there was a parade for Revolution Day. Jennyi, Luis and I rode the bus downtown to watch it.  

One group did a really cool dance that involved swords which was my favorite part.

 I felt really sorry for the millions of girls wearing 6 inch heels!  

Revolution Day!

       Yesterday there was no school because of the Mexican Revolution, so we went to Stone Island.  We drove to the Golden Zone and walked over to where the boats board that take you to the island.  Stone Island isn't actually an island, but it's isolated from Mazatlan because it is on the other side of a long inlet.  In fact, when there was a cholera outbreak in Mazatlan a long time ago, people were quarantined to Stone Island.

       We walked down to the dock and there were a bunch of little fishing boats and birds.  There were people selling fresh fish and fruit in the hot sun as we waited for the little ferry to fill up. 

       After the boat filled up, it went lopsidedly humming over to the island.  We hoped off and rode in an auriga(a taxi which is basically benches in the back of a pickup) to a restaurant on the beach. 

       They were fixing the roof while we were there and ^here^ is what it was made of.  A worker was perched up high tying the branches down, and it looked really pretty with the fresh cut limbs.

       We were seated in the sand at a little white table, and we set to work eating tacos and drinking coconuts until we were full.  Then we went crazy swimming all day until our eyes were blinded by the salty water.  Auggie and Ethan(two of my brothers), loved playing a game where I was the boogie board and they got to ride on my back while we caught a wave.  

       Because of the low tide, there were millions of shells beautifully scattered along the shore, and we spent a lot of time looking for sand dollars and big shells.

       One of the many people walking along the beach looking for business had a giant Iguana! 

Some fisher men caught a little sting ray by accident.

       After spending all day thinking about getting out of the ocean, but then remembering how warm it was and just staying in, we shook the sand off our towels and headed out.  One auriga ride, one boat ride, and one car ride later we were, tomato faced and salty haired, home. 

The Clinic

          For the last two weeks there has been a medical team from Iowa here, and I had the pleasure of helping them.  All but two of the doctors were either PA students or residents.  Coming to Mexico and doing free clinics for two weeks was one of their rotations.  They did clinics all but a couple of the days that they were here, and did them at a different location each time.  They all stayed at a hotel and drove a big white van filled with suitcases of medicine to that day's location. Kyle, Ellen (my parents here) and I would met them there and would set to work setting things up. The way that it was set up was when you walked into the building, all of which were big barn-like rooms, there were twentyish chairs set up.  People would sit and fill out a little paperwork while waiting to get their vitals taken.  Perpendicular to the lines of chairs, there was a triage table.  Laid out with all the little machines needed, the patients would get their vitals taken at the triage table. Next there were another section of twentyish chairs set up in the middle of the room for them to wait to see a doctor.  The doctors were set up next to tables around the edges of the room with their equipment, and there were five or six stations with a doctor total.  On the side of each table there were two chairs facing two chairs, two for the doctor and translator, and two for the patients. After being seen by a doctor the patients would go to the pharmacy to get their medicine, which was set up with tables medicine and maned by the two doctors which are in charge of the whole thing, Katie and Bill.
          On my first day helping, I took peoples vitals.  Another lady and I were on either side of the vitals table taking temperatures, blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar and weighing people.

          I thought that taking peoples blood sugar was the coolest because you had to poke them with a little needle, then suck up the blood with a little machine which vacuumed it up and measured it. (Don't worry though the needles were pre-packages and we used a different one for each person.)

        There was part of my first day that they we were short translators so I had to jump in the deep end and learn how to swim! But it actually was pretty great. I ended up translating everyday and the two doctors that I mainly worked with were a lot of fun. Eric, who I was with most of the time, would explain everything to me and ask me what I thought the diagnostic was based on what he had taught me. He had me look in peoples ears, mouths, and look at the skin infection if there was one and explain to me what I was seeing, which meant I learned a lot! Emily, who I translated for a little, and I had a lot of fun working together to understand and talk to the patients because she speaks a little Spanish too.  As with Eric, she would explain things to me and I even got to listen to a heart murmur, and use a really cool tool to look into someones eye and see their optic disc.

      When I took this picture we had just gotten there, so we hadn't started yet, but usually all of the chairs were full and we saw between 60-140 patients each day. 

       Translating was hard, because I'm not at all fluent, but the other translators like Dave (Seen above in the blue shirt) helped me out with words I didn't know and I was able to do a pretty good job.  It was really awesome to see how I was improving on a day to day basis and especially on the last day, because I could see how far I came. 

        There was one day were that we did the clinic outside.  The piece of land that we did it on was in the middle of a field of tar-paper shacks.  There was one lady that come by who had been stung by a scorpion.  She was holding the scorpion that had stung here in her hand when she came in, and said that she had gotten stung because she was trying to catch the scorpion to pickle it.  

         There was a lot of people who came in with gripe and tos (cold and cough), but there were also a lot of different ones like gum stuck in an ear and osteoporosis.  There was a really wide spectrum of people and level of sickness.  From one person who had symptoms which meant she could possibly have a brain tumor, to people who came in with skeptical stories and no symptoms who probably just wanted some free medicine. 

         This is the pharmacy.  Bill and Katie, who run the whole show, bring all the medicine with them from the US in millions of suitcases. 

         It was challenging and a little stressful at parts, especially when patients were talking really quiet and fast, but overall it was a ton of fun and an awesome experience to work with the doctors.  Not only were we helping people, but it was also a blast to hang out with them.  I went swimming and boggie boarding in the ocean with them a couple times at their hotel and it was really interesting and fun to just be around them.  

  

       You definitively learn by doing, and I leaned a lot these past two weeks both with my Spanish, and with saving lives:)

The Dump

Yesterday I went to the dump with a medical team from Iowa. We gathered at La Vina in the golden zone and packed up the mobile kitchen.  After piling into the back of a truck, we stopped by Sams club to get 740 hot dogs and buns, and then on to the dump.  The way the garbage and recycling system works here is that instead of collecting them separately, there are people who sort through the landfill and collect recyclable items which then they sell to companies who do the actual recycling. The landfill is at the top of a big mountain, so you have to drive up pretty high.  The view as you drive up is spectacular because you can see the whole city and the ocean. 

There were a ton of people and birds combing over everything.  It was really muddy because of the recent rain and it smelled terrible.   

We parked the mobile kitchen a little ways from where people were working and set to work cutting up oranges, cutting open the buns, making 'Happy Sauce' (Mayo, ketchup, salsa, jalapenos, and mustard all mixed together), and grilling hot dogs.  People formed a long line and we handed out the plates topped with two hot dogs, oranges and chips.  A lot of people asked for a bag which they filled with 2-5 plates to take home for their families. We handed out 370 plates (740 hot dogs and buns) total then drove back to the church to clean up.

The view from the landfill

The Mobile Kitchen