Eye Surgeries with FUDEM!!!

February 3, 2009

I can’t think of too much to talk about as of late, just two things. First, is that I assisted our 3rd and 4th surgeries for the people who have eye problems. The first two I didn’t actually accompany through the whole thing, but since these two were for my neighbors I went with them for emotional support haha. I have been working with this group of people since the beginning of the year 2008, and now we are here a year later with the surgeries, wahoooo. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, but it did. The mayor’s office has helped out with transport to the capital and FUDEM has been very generous in helping out the people with little money for the operations.

One of the two had already entered into surgery and the second one is here waiting with the family.

Lightening the mood a bit by putting on the guy's hat who had already went in.

The second thing is that my birthday went by and it was actually pretty fun. We had one party in the main town where I do my internet work, and another (which was supposed to be a surprise) a few days later with my ADESCO. Fun stuff.

Alex and Nina Delfina made me a banner when we celebrated my bday in their house (where I do internet work) with hamburgers and hot dogs

very scary.

yummy.

Celebrating in the canton with the ADESCO.

We miraculously won another basketball game this past Saturday (I’m still trying to get a pic of our team up here) and we lost another close soccer game Sunday.

Ok, so I was late in posting this so, I now have a few things more to add before the end. The Scholarship committee that I am part of here in San Pedro Nonualco has chosen its 5 University Scholars for this year. We finished the selection process and held a meeting with the winners and their parents this week, the students are very excited. The San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee started the year before I got here with the previous volunteer and a small group of teachers, directors, etc. They are all volunteers on the committee, which originally served to scholarship kids to high school. Now, the government is paying for high school, so the committee is focusing more and more on University scholarships. All the money that supports these very, very able students comes in from the US and Canada. Take a look at the San Pedro University Scholars 2009. There are three that will major in Math, one in Medicine, and one in English.

Our University Scholars.

Finally, the festivals of “The Sweet Name of Jesus” have finished once again, which means that the pilgrimage has come and gone. I did it again, this time knowing a few more people, so, that and the fact that I knew what to expect helped it to go by quicker. We left from San Pedro at 3am, got to the reunion point with the group from even further away, and from there left at 530am and did it in under 6 hours this time. Fun stuff.

Waiting in the streets at 5 in the morn for the arrivals of Kid Jesus.

Part of the group I was with.

The gringo.

(we consider that word to have bad connotations, but the rest of the Latin world just uses it as meaning American haha.)

passing by a waterfall.

Part of the basketball team that I did the pilgrimmage with. (that guy stole my hat!)

Getting close to the end.

They also had different musical “artists” come through in those days in the main square, as well as a Cumbia group from Colombia. I forgot my camera those days though haha.
Check out the card table that my neighbor Mauricio and I made under a tree in between the two houses, hahaha. He found it about 15 minutes down the ridge and so we went and brought it back, along with other firewood. I tacked on the blanket that the planes give you from when I first got here, not too shabby.

The card table that my neighbor Mauricio and I made.

Also, I finally finished the then Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity, deep stuff. It took way too long to read, but there are a few things that it puts into perspective. In comparison, I read the Song of Roland (one of the oldest chanson de geste, so it is said) today in its entirety while in the hammock, haha. Charlemagne is the man, next to Roland of course :)

Roland and his horn.

“168

Count Roland realizes death is near:
His brains begin to ooze out through his ears.
He prays to God to summon all his peers,
And to the angel Gabriel Himself.
Eschewing blame, he takes the horn in hand
And in the other Durendal, his sword,
And farther than a crossbow fires a bolt,
Heads out across a fallow field toward Spain
And climbs a rise. Beneath two lovely trees
Stand four enormous marble monoliths.
Upon the green grass he has fallen backward
And fainted, for his death is near at hand.”

Song of Roland

(8th century oral tradition about the last days of Count Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, 12th century written ed.)