Day 7

We started off our day by having breakfast at 8:30 a.m. at the usual restaurant across the street from our hotel. We then met with Victor and his sister Amalia. We shared with Victor our opinions about the overall successes of our trip to Xela, including visits to the two hospitals. The Guatemalan press arrived and recorded video of Victor explaining why our group traveled to Guatemala and visited their hospitals. Professor Northrup explained to the press how we compared Guatemala healthcare conditions to those conditions in the U.S. He also expressed to them, given the fact that health funds are low in Guatemala, that we as a class would like to write proposals to various foundations in the U.S. We hope that such foundations may consider our proposals and hopefully provide support to the Guatemalan heath care system. After the “press conference” came to an end, it was time to say our final goodbyes to the very welcoming Victor and Amalia. Amalia took all of the students e-mail addresses and sincerely expressed how she would like to stay in contact with us. Victor explained that we are all now considered to be his friends, and he would love to have us visit again. Professor Rust then thanked Victor for being so helpful and welcoming. Without all of Victor’s help this trip would not have been possible. Dr. Rust then welcomed Victor and his family to visit the U.S. whenever they wished in the future. He left off by saying, “Mi casa es su casa.”
After our goodbyes, we grabbed our bags and checked out of our hotel. We then put our entire luggage on top of the bus that would be taking us to San Lucas (this includes my spider-infested bag). Since it is the start of the rainy season, our luggage was covered with a tarp to prevent our belongings from getting soaked and we hit the road. After a quick stop at the local mall to grab some last minute items, we were on our way to San Lucas. This ride consisted of extremely winding roads up and down several mountains. It felt like we were back in Springfield riding a Six Flag’s roller coaster! Eventually along the way we stopped to eat lunch at a local restaurant.
It was after our meal that we expressed our appreciation to our translator Jairo and gave him a thank you card that included a group photo. We all felt it was necessary to show Jairo how thankful we were for his help. Although this is his job, we felt Jairo went above and beyond to make our trip more productive. Professor Northrup insisted that Jairo was better than any translator he had worked with before. With this being the first time out of the U.S. for many students, Jairo made the beginning portion of our trip very pleasant with his knowledge, skill, and sense of humor.

We then boarded the roller coaster…sorry…bus for about another hour and a half of driving. We then arrived at our hotel in San Lucas and ate dinner at the mission. At the hotel we met with Dr. Bruce Clemens and his students from Furman University. Bruce’s long time friend and fraternity brother, Paul Wise, who graduated from Cornell and works at Stanford, came to speak to us later in the evening. He spoke about the current conditions in Guatemala and the health programs he helped put in place, including the health promoters who monitor progress in the local villages.


Authors: Jeana and Hannah