this one might be long since i'll be covering the past few weeks of my life

well... hermana has come and gone :( but i enjoyed the time i got to spend with her. in her first day of working in the hospital she (and me too) got to see an absess thing on this lady's back get popped. it was soooo cool. it was probably about the size of a golf ball and exploded chunks and gooey stuff like a volcano.

we also went up to Agua Fria with the pastor to do a worship service for the people of the village. the service was held on somebody's back porch. me, hermana, and 2 other girls that work in the hospital did the children's stuff in the kitchen area. one of the girls read then noah's arc and later we made the witness bracelets and i explained to them how to make them and what each color meant.

while hermana was here we got to meet up with our friend from Choluteca (which is where me and my family normally go in Honduras). Yeny, little baby Stephanie, and Yeny's cousin met us in el Valle de Angeles. it was sooo good seeing her again and finally being able to meet baby Stephanie. we spent a couple of hours with them in the valley while the group shopped.

as far as political stuff goes, everything is fine. there have been rumors that Mel is at the border of Nicaragua y Honduras but then again there have been lots of rumors about him and when he is coming and where he's at. one thing is for certain, i am safe where i am at so NO WORRIES.

this past wednesday i was sitting outside waiting for the wednesday night church to start and Ashley came up to me and said that BMDMI (Baptist Medical and Dental Ministry) was doing a medical brigade about an hour from the hospital and that they needed help. Ashley has gone on trips with this ministry many times so she knows the missionaries.
i had about an hour to pack and eat dinner before our ride was going to pick us up.
this medical brigade was sooo awesome. pretty much the whole town was involved. the kitchen and women sleeping areas were in the school (they canceled school that week for the brigade) and in the courtyard of the school were 3 portable/metal showers with a heated waterhose for showering. the pharmacy was in one of the churches. the medical clinicwas held in another building, i'm not sure what it was. the dental hygiene area was on somebody's front porch. the eye clinic was in somebody elses house.
in the middle of the town/village was a HUGE white tent where all of the services were held.
patients had to register to be seen by the doctors and get a card with all their information.
me and ashley did blood pressure and weight. and i could not beleive how high some of these people's blood pressure was.... i remember one lady's was like 209/109 or something ridiculous like that.
it was almost like the whole village shut down to do this brigade. in the medical clinic alone, i know we saw more than 2,000 patients within about 3 days.
all the dental area did was pull rotted teeth. i got to watch a few teeth get pulled.... they did have some numbing meds to help.

yesterday one of the contruction guys came in with an in-grown toenail or something similar to that and had to get the whole toenail taken off. i got to watch this too... and i've come to the conclusion that i can handle bloody nasty stuff, but something about pulling teeth and toenails makes me queezy to my stomache.

there is a minanite colony down the road and many of the people there are friends with people in the hospital. a lot of the younger people do translating for the hospital. one girl, Jamie, came to show Kenia how to crochet because Kenia always saw her doing it and wanted to learn. Jamie said she wanted to learn how to knit but nobody she knew knows how. i told her i could teach her, so today i went with her and 3 of her sisters to this place down the road from her house to teach her how to knit and her teachers.
i don't know what to call this place we went to, but they teach sewing classes and other craft classes and carpentry and things like that. so i got to teach them how to knit and it was soo exciting for me. haha. and while i was there, they were teaching me how to make pine-needle baskets. after being there for a few hours, they said they needed to go collect pine-needles. i figured we go down the road to the nearest pinetree and pick up some needles... boy was i wrong. apparently certain pine-needles are better than other. depending on how dry they are or what color they are determines if they are good to use for the baskets. we went hiking up and down hills (in skirts and flip-flops) looking for dead pine-tree branches to get the "good pine-needles". haha this was quite the adventure and now i have a better appreciation for the hardwork that goes into making these baskets... not only are they hand-crafted, but you also have to go on excursion to find the pine-needles you use!!!! hopefully i will get to go back tomorrow to finish working on my basket.
Jamie told me that there is a guy coming in a week to teach them how to make hammocks..... but i won't be her. i wish i would have met her earlier in the summer since we enjoy doing the same kind of craftie grandma stuff like sewing and knitting and making pine-needle baskets haha.

well now that my novel is complete..... until next time :)