Dar La Luz

Manos Abiertas

2011-05-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

I arrived here at Manos Abiertas in ciudad Vieja, Guatemala on Friday to spend the next two months apprenticing with Hannah Freiwald. I finished my formal Midwifery training at Maternidad La Luz spring of 2010 and wrote and passed the NARM exam this past February in order to become a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM).

I have been excited to start bridging the gap between the role of a student in a school environment to taking a lead role in births, learning to trust my skills and intuition and testing the boundaries of my comfort level.

On Monday night I had my first opportunity to do a birth as the primary licensed midwife. Yarlin was a first time mom and started contractions on Friday. We saw her for a labor check on Sunday afternoon but things didn’t really get going until the following afternoon at which point she hadn’t slept in a few days. She had such a sense of determination about her and it seemed to me labor was as much a process of giving birth as a process of emotional letting go.

It felt like forever since I had attended a birth and I felt nervous that somehow it would feel unfamiliar, like the eyes of my knowledge would have closed and slipped into a deep sleep but as I soon discovered the sensations of birth, the feeling, smells and sounds all came flooding back to me in a few flutters of the eyelids.

I feel so honored by the trust that Hannah has put in me and feel as though I have already made leaps and bounds in the short time that I have been here, even if it is just in my own way of thinking.

Ups and downs

2009-01-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

At last I have found some inspiration to write here. The last few days have been hard not knowing how I am going to survive financially and feeling overwhelmed and burned out by the program. Exploring my options for getting licensed in Canada can be somewhat scary as I see a long road stretching ahead of me. Today I woke up clear of that turmoil and fear with a new fight to make it through and reach my goal. A new sense of drive and clarity.

I'm now in my second quarter. On March 1st a new group of students will arrive and shortly after that we will write our 2nd quarter exam and become interns. We then will be in the teaching role and be taking on more responsibilitys. I'm really excited for this new challenge and look forward to sharing and consolidating my knowledge with the new students.....

The clinic has become so much easier and I'm signed off on pretty much all of the skills we are required to have and be supervised for the first ten such as pap smears, blood draws, physical exams and new born screens (we have to poke the babies feet and make them bleed, its horrible). I don't have much to measure my Spanish up against. I can ask the same questions over and over again but lack the flow of easy conversation that I wish I had.

I've now been to over 30 births and caught 9 babies. Each one has been such a big lesson and such a blessing. The clinic is really slow right now and its been 9 days since I caught a baby and I'm already starting to miss it.

I've been in the program for four and half months now and already my hands are learning what to do. I won't be leaving here until March 2010 as I need to graduate an 18th month program to be eligible to write the PLEA exam which if I pass will enable me to register as a licenced Midwife in Canada. Leaving here seems like a million years away, I can only imagine how much I will know by then of that time. All of my knowledge is starting to come together and feel like something that I can really feel and touch.....I feel so blessed by the support systems that I have near and far.

Tears to ecstasy

2008-11-09T12:30:00.001-08:00

This program is like falling in love and then out of love everyday. It seems like each time a woman arrives in labor and it is my turn to be her Midwife I open my arms wide, my heart jumping and I fall in love in moments wanting to share every little thing about her with the people around me, wanting them to see how amazing she is feeling blessed that I got one of the “special” ones. I marvel at how she walks, breaths and moves. And then I watch as she gives birth, as life emerges from her body, as she pours her physical strength into the task at hand. Seeing her face as she holds her baby for the first time, a look of dazed shock and then an over joy as she knowingly takes this small being into her arms and begins the processes of nurturing her child for life.

Other times the world seems to be crashing down on my head and I doubt myself and wonder if I can actually do this program, actually complete it. I feel as though I am drowning in it all, my essence slowly seeping from my body, my creativity dead and sleep becoming a fantasy. Some days my actions are robotic, the same questions asked over and over again. Get file, run through questions and vitals, put file away and move onto the next and then the next and then next.

Some days I step outside and look up and around me. Hear church bells in the background, laugh at the kittens outside or breath in the air and marvel how the sunlight reflects on objects around me and I remember.

Tears to ecstasy, tears to ecstasy.

2008-11-06T20:58:00.001-08:00

My first catch

2008-11-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

September, 23, 2008. 7:21am

Evolution

2008-10-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Change has occurred in the air. Tonight is cold and blustery, I am wrapped in scarves and sweaters against the cold and they feel oh so good. Today is a big day for my class as we begin catching. We have been shadowing the primary care giver the last few weeks learning the ropes of the clinic and getting comfortable with the flow of birth at MLL. Now we are the ones that will be shadowed by our interns and they will be assisting US. In another three weeks we will be flying solo. Many of my class mates are nervous but I’m mostly just excited. So far almost everything has come to me really naturally and feels really right on many different levels. Thats not to say this program stretches and test each and everyone of us to our own limits...

I now actually enjoy drawing blood and am comfortable giving breast exams. We are also able to do pap smears and physical exams. It seems that whenever I begin to find my footing in the clinic another skill is added on. It certainly keeps me on my toes and straining my eyes forward to whatever comes next.

This afternoon Juana , a woman who’s birth I was in the other day came in for her postpartum appointment. She was a walk in client so we had to do her initial which usually takes a few hours while she was in labor. At one point her and her husband asked what kind of pain medication we had. I will never forget the look of shock on her face when I told her we had none. She was 35 but it had been sometime since she had her two others kids who she had birthed in the hospital. I told her that it was very possible and that many women give birth here without pain medication but with lots of assistance and support. When she asked me if I myself had ever given birth I had to say no and felt rather silly about it. Seeing her positively glowing face of joy today was an amazing feeling and her reaction when she saw me was even more heart touching.....

Fall birth

2008-09-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

I was in my second birth this morning. It was beautiful and surreal, dappled fall light coming in through the open door and church bells chiming in the background. My body helped support the mama's and when the baby came out I was christened with vernix. She scooped him up into her arms and studied him with wonderment and astonishment covering her face in vernix and laughing as she met her little boy.

Nacimiento

2008-09-26T18:42:00.001-07:00

I drifted off to sleep after writing that last post, joking with the other girls that a woman would come in complete and pushing. As I am still in orientation in the clinic we are "shadowing" the interns and watching the roles that each of them play in the birth. I had shadowed Olympia as primary a few nights before and we spent the whole night with a young girl having her first baby. At around five in the morning she and her mom decided to go to the hospital, I suspect there was some strong persuasion going on from grandma as she had difficult obstetrical history. It had been a long night with a bit of a sad ending so I was hoping that perhaps on this shift Olympia and I could complete the circle in a sense.

We both thought it was a joke when we got woken up an hour or so later being told we had a complete and pushing mama! I took the role on as documenter recording each new progression of the labor. For example: head born @ 11:57 am. Baby born at 11:59am, September 25th and so on. In retrospect I was a little shaken by the power I had simply as a documenter, especially in this birth. I made the call that it was 11:59pm when I could have seen the clock as 12:00am which would have made her birthday September 26, a date that she will be used to identify for the rest of her life. Part of being a student at MLL requires that we write a birth report after each birth with our reflections on that birth. Here is mine.

First and thousandth birth....
Allisson’s birth was the first and the thousandth for me. It simply was, as I am, and seemed less of a mystery then I had anticipated. Birth. Beautiful and complete, yes I know this, yes this is familiar. More familiar then anything has ever has been. I am struggling to find the words to describe it. My emotions and thought process seem slow and glitchy. Attempting to find the end of my thoughts to be picked up and examined seems fruitless. It is complete, a full circle with no ending and no beginning to it. I don’t think anything else in life has ever felt so whole and so completely satisfying.

After Allisson was born I lay on the on the bed beside her while her mama was taken care of.
As I listened to to her breath, the thump of her heart and the gurgles of her tummy I was struck with how defined and perfect she was, this creation of woman’s womb. Her skin was so soft, vernix tucked into the roles of her neck, her eyes closed tight against the bright light and her tongue and mouth rooting. She represented to me the beginning and as I looked at her I also saw the end and I found bliss in both.

clinic

2008-09-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

Another day almost done at the clinic....its 10pm and my second full shift here. Its been another crazy/wonderful/mad/super tiring day. I did my first breast exam, another initial (which takes a few hours of interviewing in Spanish) watched a pap, attempted to draw blood, and another gazillion things I can think of right now. My last shift here I was up all night following another student in a labor sit. They ended up going to the hospital so I still haven’t seen a birth but am getting the hand of listening to fetal heart tones and feelings bellies. Its so amazing how much can be learned in 24 hours....Off to try and get some sleep in case a laboring mama comes in, I’m up for the birth again...

some more pictures....

2008-09-24T07:50:00.001-07:00

Juarez at night

The food bridge bride into Juarez

The view from my bedroom
window in the morning

Shocked at deaths, Guatemala trains midwives

2008-09-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press Published: September 19, 2008

Guatemala is trying to reduce the number of women who die during childbirth by providing basic medical training to some 15,000 lay midwives in villages around the country.

More than 600 women die from complications of child birth each year in Guatemala, where midwives deliver six out of every 10 babies. These lay midwives are often the only help available to rural women, and most have no formal medical background.

President Alvaro Colom has announced a five-month program to provide them with training in the basics of gynecology and obstetrics, including how to identify complicated pregnancies and avoid preventable deaths.

"One of our biggest challenges is solving the problem of limited access to health services, and the shortage of qualified midwives in rural areas," Colom said.

For each high-risk pregnancy the midwives refer to a doctor, the government will pay them US$20.

"If we're able to get these women to see a doctor, high-risk cases could be identified and we could take steps to prevent them," said Jackeline Lavidali, who directs Guatemala's reproductive health program.

Guatemala plans to enlist non-governmental organizations already in the field to do the training, using financial support from the United Nations and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

But many obstacles remain — including roads and transportation that are so poor, it is nearly impossible for women to quickly reach a doctor even if their midwives have identified problems. That's why the government is trying to create maternity houses near bigger hospitals where rural women with high-risk pregnancies can arrive days before giving birth.

Francisca Raqueq, a 65-year-old midwife, has helped deliver babies for 50 families in the last 25 years in the village of El Llano, 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Guatemala City.

She said the nearest clinic is 15 miles (25 kilometers) away and it would cost US$70 to rent a pickup truck to get there in an emergency during labor. That's a small fortune for farmers who make US$4 a day.

Sited from:
www.iht.com

Mole

2008-09-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

We are now done orientation and will begin integrating into the clinic and working 24 hour shifts. Its been an intense three weeks and more information was crammed into my brain then I thought possible. We all went out for mole (a mexican sauce made out of chocolate and 17 different spices apparently). The restaurant we went to was supposed to be the best on this side of the border. I was certainly not disappointed with my first experience....

Becoming

2008-09-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

I have come to accept the fact that the only way to make it through this program is to surrender. It is all consuming. At times it feels as though some great external gravitational force is pulling at every cell in my body. It takes a sense of organization, not just for the stacks of papers and hand outs but organization of the mind. This program is seasoning us as Midwives, we are Midwives. We are gaining our experience and our knowledge through assignments, creating folders, information and protocols that we will use in our own practice. We are defining ourselves and what mid [with] + wife (in the archaic sense [woman] ) means to each of us.

Transition

2008-09-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

This morning we went to the hospital to familiarize ourselves with the facility so when a woman transports due to complications of labor we know where to go. After we went to the best place in town to get tamales and ate them from a view point above El Paso. On friday orientation ends and we begin working 24 hour shifts in the clinic. I am starting to see a weariness in the group and in myself. The learning has been intense and I’m starting to wonder just how much more information I can absorb. Each class is so important and even missing five minutes can set you back as the information is so vital. Things are going to be more emotionally intense when we start working in the clinic. I have been speaking little to no Spanish and feeling a need to start exercising that muscle in my brain so that I am able to work with the clients in appointments and help them labor. The only way I feel like I can really prep is reminding myself to breath breath breath for the moments that I know are going to come. These past weeks have been all consuming with my time off usually spent trying to make the apartment more homey or studying. I’ve gotten a lot of homework done which feels great. The information that I learn from doing it feels so important to know and I am so interested in it it rarely feelings a chore. All of it is to help me become a better Midwife and to expand my knowledge which I am hungry for. Right now the 18th months ahead of me seem like forever. I’m looking forward to settling into my life here a bit more. I love it here and want to feel like my life is balanced and complete which it doesn’t feel like right now but its getting there. Its a real blessing to have a home that feels as good as it does and to have such a great roommate.

An El Paso evening

2008-09-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

Driving along the highway in the evenings is really amazing. The desert sunsets mixed with the city scape make a strange but beautiful site.....

Venipuncture class

2008-09-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Taking blood is something that I have always been a bit scared of. Something about pushing that needle into the skin has always made me a bit panicky. Whenever I've had blood taken for testing I've never been able to watch it happen and still wasn't able to in class. Pushing the needle in wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The tricky part was stabilizing the barrel and inserting the tube into the barrel to collect blood without letting the needle go in deeper and through the vein or accidentally pulling it out. By the end of class I successfully filled four containers in a series of two punctures. We also tested blood sugar levels and hemoglobin by quickly pricking each others fingers will small sterile dart like tools. It was an emotional day for all of us though some of us held it together better then others.

Labor support and postpartum fetal assessment classes at MLL

2008-09-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

A lesson in Spanish....

2008-09-06T18:21:00.001-07:00

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that, in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.'
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.'
So, a student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?'
Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether 'computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la Computadora'), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.
The women won.

Placenta

2008-09-05T11:22:00.001-07:00

Last night I had my first clinical shift (just 3 hours) and was able to examine a placenta. Holding something that I have been reading about and studying for such a long time not to mention something that creates life felt pretty emotional. My moment was interrupted by another student jumping in and I felt a bit shaken. Later at home when I told Jessica I started to cry over my "interrupted" moment and then started to laugh realizing I really must be an MLL Midwife if I get so excited over a placenta and tired and emotional enough that it evokes tears!

Settling in

2008-09-04T11:46:00.001-07:00

Writing this from the glow of my computer and candles. Jessica and I are about to spend our second night in the apartment, my first night alone in my own bed and room! We had it set up that our beds would be delivered last night but only one came. This afternoon after school we cleaned the apartment like mad women and started to make the place feel like home. We still don’t have electricity so when it gets dark we spend our evenings strolling the isles of K-Mart eating Taco Time or devouring cereal and warm milk in bed.

Tomorrow is our fourth day of our three week orientation. So much has happened in the past three days I don’t even know where to begin or end. By 9pm my eyes are watering and I am so ready for bed. Tomorrow after a full day of classes I have my first clinical shifts. Its just three hours of following an “intern” (a student that has completed 6 months) and getting a feel of the clinic. I’m looking forward to it.

Classes have been amazing and beyond what I expected. Everybody is so kind and supportive and always checking in and assuring that they will be there every step of the way holding our hands until we are confidant. As the program is excellerated things move fast, really fast. In five and half weeks we will be catching babies. In two and a half we have a long list of things that we must be proficient at and be signed off by the licensed Midwife on duty who overseas the whole clinic.

I know in retrospect I will realize just how much I am absorbing and learning. Right now its all about getting up in the morning, spending all day in class and then rushing around trying to get all the little nitty gritty things taken care of. I’m so thankful that I have Jessica, my partner in crime to make jokes about the “El Pasonian” driving (ITS HORRIBLE) and talk through the moments of panic when we realize how many assignments we have. Were both so happy to be here but also hanging on by our finger nails, trying to stay on top of everything.

El Pasonians

2008-08-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

The dust of our arrival has begun to settle and things are working out for Jessica and I. A few days ago I put money down for an apartment of my own, ignoring my instinct. The next day Jessica and I visited the apartment that she had arranged before she came and we decided that it would work for both of us. I lost a little bit of money but in the long run I will save a bunch as we won’t have to buy double of everything! The apartment is currently being fixed up and should be ready for us on Tuesday.

We’ve been stalking craigslist for decent cheap furniture which is not as easy to come by as other cities. We did find a couch we both fell in love with (hide a bed included so if anybody wants to visit we have a place for you now). The only problem was that we couldn’t move it across town. After a bit of brainstorming I suggested we call the manager of our building, Angel, and see if he knew of anybody with a truck and we were in luck!

Yesterday we went to our apartment and met up with Don, the owner of the building and his massive truck. He drove us out to the west side of El Paso where we got our couch. He then took us on a bit of a tour crossing the state line into New Mexico and then drove us along the border where Texas meets Mexico. It was really interesting to hear from him what life on the border is like. Right across the slow muddy river lay another world; shanty towns and poverty. El Paso is certainly not the most pretty place to look at but homes on this side are not made out of scrap metal. Our tour guide explained to us why there was plexiglass set up at intervals. He told us the sometimes the Mexicans would shoot at the American border patrol to just be assholes. Funny, I didn’t see any Mexican border patrols on the other side.....

After dropping off the couch Jessica and I spent some time walking around down town El Paso. It was incredible, shop after shop after shop stacked to the ceilings with cheap discount clothes and shoes, plastic Jesuses, plastic guns, cowboy boots and every other possible cheap discount wallet or pair of knockoff Gucci sunglasses you would ever want.

El Paso is a strange place, straddling two different worlds. Its rough and reminds me of the gathering of debris when several streams or bodies of water meet. Things become caught, colors meld, creating something new and possibly stranger then before.....

Visiting the clinic for the first time

2008-08-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

This morning we headed to the school. When we turned onto Magoffin street my heart jumped into my throat and I became so nervous hardly believing that I was here, in El Paso at the school that I have been working so hard to get to for so long. I had to take a second in the car before we walked through the front gate and up the creaky steps. Several men sat on the porch waiting. “Buenos dias” felt good and strange on my lips. Walking through the slamming screen door is a moment I will never forget. A hallway stretched in front of us, the walls covered in posters. To my left was a waiting room filled with about ten or so mammas and babies. To our right one of our soon to be colleagues was doing an initial appointment with a woman. We didn’t get to chat with Kaley, the director of the school, but we did get to walk around, check out the kitchen and upstairs. Its hard to believe that I am going to be living and breathing that place for at least a year and how familiar it is going to be....

Jessica and I are now back at our little home lounging around after a fantastic lunch of fresh tortilla’s, cheap and amazing avocados and really really hot salsa which we ate over frying pans playing the role of plates and using disposable plastic spoons collected throughout our trip....

Arrival in El Paso

2008-08-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

So. El Paso, Texas. First impressions? Big, crazy drivers and hot and humid. The rest of our road trip was a stretch for both of us, our zest for the road fading. We found a cheap youth hostel in Denver and crashed out in the heat of the afternoon. I woke up feeling woozy and ending up worshipping the toilet bowl on the old tile floor and later at a gas station. At around 8pm we were fed up and decided to hit the road. Jessica managed to drive for a few hours while I squeezed my eyes shut ignoring the road and praying to keep what water I had in my stomach down. At around 2am we pulled into a truck stop and took a glorious nap on the grass for a few hours. We eventually made it Albuquerque and stopped at a big health food store and stocked up on cheap goods like crazy amounts of apple sauce on sale (the jars will be great for storage later) and mac&cheese for a $1 each. When we pulled up to our car in the parking lot with the shopping cart the guy in the car next to us started laughing asking how the heck we were going to fit it all in my little car. We just laughed and went to work with our magic fingers cramming apple sauce into every possible corner, praying we wouldn’t be hit in the head by it for the last four hours of our drive. When we finally made it to El Paso we checked into a week by week hotel place that ends up being really cheap....

From the road....Downtown Denver

2008-08-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

6:53am
I’m writing this from the road. We just crossed the state line in Colorado and are on our way to Denver. We are now in our fifth state and rocking our way to El Paso. We’ve had occasional stops but have pretty much run right through, many bugs have met their demise on our windshield and we have passed every-type of road kill there is (none that we are responsible for). Right now time seems to be standing still. We have been eating pavement for breakfast lunch and dinner since noon yesterday but feel triumphant to have made it this far in such a stint! Our cruise into El Paso should be dreamy and quick.....

Later....
Jessica and I are sitting like crazy ragamuffins in bakery in downtown Denver. Crossing our fingers for a hot shower and somewhere flat to rest our aching backs and heads through the heat of the day...

Visiting Kate in the Kootneys

2008-08-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I head to the boarder and onwards to my new home. Its strange thought, leaving B.C, especially having spent a few days with Kate here in the Kootneys. The wilderness, the green, the tree’s and picking carrots from the garden all feel so right, I feel so at home. I know now for sure that I don’t belong in the city, that I conform to it too much and feel so much better when I’m rolling in the mud. The transformation that I have seen in Kate after her spending these past weeks living on Hollow Frog Farm is truly amazing. She has taken on a such a lig htness of spirits, of freedom
and breaking away from the structure that has been ruling her life these last years. I am so thankful that we’ve had this time together. As she put it so eloquently this afternoon while we were lounging on the river bed in the wetlands “we are just being” and what a fantastic thing that is....

Before I left the city Emma and I went swimming down at Wreck beach. I swam way out and was struck with what surrounded me. I began crying feeling as though I had forgotten how to appreciate the beauty around me. I also recognized the strain that working in the DTES has done to me. When I realized that I would be able to come back to B.C and appreciate it in a whole new capacity which will be facilitated as a midwife my spirits soared. A seal appeared shortly after watching me with its big, oily eyes breathing heavily as the rain fell down around us. Its been good to reconnect with the spirit behind what I have been working so hard for.

Kate is making salad dressing as a write. The sky is blue marked by the towering dark tree’s surrounding this cozy home in the forest. Tomorrow I hit the road and just keep going. I’m attempting to capture this moment, this feeling of serene grounded freedom before I begin speeding transcontinental.....

SusanSavageRumbaKukaluLucka

2008-08-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this from a little cabin on Hollow Frog Farm near Nelson, B.C with Kate by my side. My trip to El Paso (the long way around) has begun. Mom and I drove up to Vernon on Monday which made leaving Vancouver easier and gave us a chance to hang out and name my GPS with the fantastic name of Susan Savage Rumba KukaluLucka.....

Attempting to fit my life into a car....

Saying goodbye to Greg and Tikka...

Susan on the road....

heartfelt thanks

2008-08-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm back! And so my journey continues.....After several months here in Vancouver I am ready to go (literally ten minutes ago). Everything has been done and I get a few days to relax and finish my medical terminology list with 223 definitions that I've had to define...talk about time consuming! I've read my ten required books and written the ten required book reports and am ready to rock'n'roll in my little green Toyota Tercel nick named La Tortuga (the turtle).

On Monday I'm heading up to Vernon and mom's coming! From there I head onwards (with my spiffy GPS device my grandparents gave me) to spend a few days with Kate in Nelson and then onto Spokane where I will meet up with Jessica. I found Jessica through the mutual class list for all the girls that are starting at MLL this fall. We've been emailing back and forth and have clicked. I'm really happy to have somebody to do the drive down with and share the excitement of this oh so exciting and yet overwhelming adventure....

I'd like to send out a thanks to all the people that have helped me get ready and been such amazing supports. To Heather (mom) and Greg (dad) for housing me, hugging me, helping me buy my first car and get it ready for the road, for encouraging me and dragging me away from the books when I needed it the most. To Susan (grandma) for buying me my long awaited scrubs and Denis (grumpa) for helping me in all my financial aspects not to mention all the love, support and encouragement that they have offered. To the amazing Kim and David who have helped me out so many times including helping me buy computer so ya'all (practicing my Texan accent) can follow along on my journey! To Connie who helped me map out my road trip and bought me a beautiful stethoscope to listen to all those baby's and mamas heartbeats. Thanks to Rick for giving me a big financial boost right when I needed it the most. Thanks to Shamir and Surrinder for providing me with a room and haven over the summer and to Gail (my second mama) for helping me get in touch with all the things that I had forgotten.

The support that I have received from everybody and from so many different directions has been truly overwhelming and I don't even know how to begin thanking all of you...

My car mascot provided by my great aunt Sandy!

And my true journey begins!

2008-03-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Well...after nine months(funny that I decided on this school nine months ago....), of thoughts dreams, tears and adventures my wish has come true! I have been accepted into Maternidad La Luz, my new school!! My program begins in September and will last for three years. I am currently in the Virgin Islands and will be returning to Canada in the near future to begin preparations for the next step! Thank you for all your support and love and stayed tuned as there is much much much more to come!!!!!!!!!

Spanish lessons on a volcanic lake

2008-02-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

I´ve been in San Pedro for the last week, a beautiful town on a volcanic lake in Guatemala where Kate and I spent new years. The first few days were tough, I found myself getting way more attention from men, especially older men then I wanted and was wondering how great being a single female traveler was! Things have improved however..Here´s a little update for you all as I have been spending my time.-..

I felt something here at new years. An energy, something.....I´m so glad I was able to come back and go through it. I´m eating really good food, doing Spanish three hours a day and reading for most of the rest of it. The last two days I have hiked up into the real Guatemalan part of the town where I can get delicious and HUGE liquados in a bag for only 5Q. On my way to school I am going to go to a yoga center that is offering three day spiritual classes. Last night I dreamed of whirling dervishes. Yesterday afternoon I went to the Buddha bar and drank a massive pot of tea and then treated myself to Pho noddles and a glass of red wine while I watched a slow Alfred Hitchcock movie. Yesterday as I was washing my few clothes by hand I asked myself ¨what is life?´and realized that life is reading books, that it does not have to be seen as ¨down time¨ or a ¨break from life¨ because it is life! Yesterday I swapped the book I finished for Eat, Love, Pray AND found that I have a podcast on my ipod from the author! I´m feeling introverted and shy, awkward around people but its OK because right now I am finding sanctuary in myself. On Monday I head back to Guatemala city to pick up my visa and return to Copan.

Orphanage in Antigua

2008-01-30T11:41:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Antigua two days ago to spend some time with my parents before they head to California and then home. Mom and pa made a connection with an American woman who has been living here in Antigua for the past 14 years. She runs an orphanage and does international adoptions. This morning mom and I decided to head over to the orphanage to spend some time with the babies. The building and compound was beautiful with a sufficient amount of staff members caring for the infants. There was more then 30 babies that the staff were in charge of. Mom and I spent the whole morning rocking and playing with the babies, it was tiring but fun!

Roatan

2008-01-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

Anna, Sara and I have been in Roatan since Monday afternoon staying with Miss Peggy, an RN that started a clinic here in 2001. She has a team of doctors visiting from the states and does an amazing job of organizing and running the clinic. Her clinic is in much better shape then the hospital where we visited the first day and which doesn't even have running water! The "isolation room" in the hospital only has a screen door to bar infection. Much to my frustration I've had really dry wracking cough all week. The last few days I have stayed at home and not gone to the clinic in fear of exchanging infection with the patients. I also have a case of Ring Worm on my leg. Its not as bad as it sounds and is actually just a fungus on the skin. Its a round red spot about the size of a toonie that I at first thought was a spider bite with broken skin around it. Sara has it too so were able to share the cream for it, I call her my ring worm sister. Lucky for me I have a team of about six doctors and three nurses to treat my various ailments! Tomorrow we will take the ferry back to Copan and then two buses. The trip will probably take about thirteen hours.

Visiting a missionary project

2008-01-19T08:13:00.000-08:00

On Thursday morning Anna and I got up to catch the 7 o'clock bus to meet with Peggy, a woman that Anna had made friend with at NGO conference back in October. It as my first time on the bus heading to San Pedro Sula, the nearest city to Copan. The fist part of the road is really windy. By focusing out the window and drinking water I managed to keep myself from getting really car sick. Others were unfortunately not as lucky as me. At the beginning of the ride the bus attendant starting handing out plastic bags. I jokingly said to Anna "are those for puking?" and she said yes! Turns out it the bags came in handy as a little boy and then an old lady used them to vomit into. When the little boy was done puking the mom opened the window and tossed the bag out the window and right beside a poor man walking along the road!

When we got off the bus to transfer Anna and I stoped at a small stand on the corner to have a quick breakfast of baleadas, a Honduran specialty that I am rather fond of. A baleada is a flour tortilla folded over with re-fried bean paste a sprinkle of sour almost feta like cheese and some cream. It makes for a rather tasty treat. As we were eating our next bus was preparing to leaving so we hoped in, balancing our baleadas trying to not get beans and cheese all over ourselves.

When we arrived at Cristo Saluo, the clinic that Peggy and her fellow missionaries have been running for the past sixteen years we were warmly welcomed. There was about fifteen people, all gringos from the states at the clinic. It was more white people that I have seen together in a while! It was a bit of a shock. In the morning Anna and I got a tour of the clinic and then helped cut open medicine packages for easier access. After an hour or so we all piled into a mini van and drove a short distance to a village where they do outreach. We handed out food bags which contained coffee, a bag of beans and rice and a small book portraying Adam and Eve in cartoons. Peggy is an RN and we visited several patients that she has been taking care of while down here. The first one was a man with high blood pressure.

The next was a man that had dengue fever and then a sixteen year old who was ready to give birth in the next few days. Anna and I went into the small mud hut with Peggy to exam the glowing mom to be. Peggy showed me how to listen to the heartbeat of the baby with the portable heart monitor. I also felt the position of the baby. It was very cool and was the highlight of our trip for me.

After lunch at the farm, a compound on a grassy hill where the missionaries always stay we headed back out to the villages handing out more food bags and visiting people. Malnutrition is rampant in these areas and it was really apparent in a lot of the people. Two sisters in particular showed the affects of lack of proper nutrition very clearly. The eldest girl was 19 but looked about 14. Her body was greatly underdeveloped. She does not menstruate and will never have kids. Her little sister was around two or three with blond hair white skin. Due to her malnutrition her body was not able to produce enough pigment to reach her hair and skin.

The malnourished girl and her 19 year old sister.

In the evening we had dinner at the farm and then everybody went off to church. I stayed behind with two other women as I was feeling really tired and had a soar throat. I was fast asleep by 7:30. In the morning Anna and I helped load up six midwife bags which contain the essential tools for delivery, two boxes of kids chewable vitamins and wheel chair we are going to give to a local man here in Copan that uses pads under his knees and wooden blocks in his hands. He has no legs. Once again we all loaded into the van, a truck following us with our supplies to yet another villages located outside of Chequila where people have made their homes out of scraps from the garbage dump near by. The ground was thick with flies and everything was made out of scraps of garbage. It was easily one of the poorest villages I have been to and reminded me of Riverton City, a place in Kingston Jamaica where people have made their homes out of other peoples trash.

These photos are from the various villages we visited. They are not photos of the garbage dump village and seem rather nice to compared to the other homes!

After visiting the village Anna and I were dropped off in Chequila to catch a bus back to Copan. After lunch at a small restaurant on the side of the road we started walking in the direction of the bus station. We were quiet the spectacle! Anna is four months pregnant so I tried to carry as much stuff as possible. Between the both of us we managed to carry our personal backpacks, the six midwife bags, the two boxes of vitamins all precariously balance on the wheel chair.

Eventually we made it back to Copan safe and sound though dirty and tired but very happy to have such valuable supplies! Tomorrow we are heading to Roatan to visit two more clinics and do more research for the project.

Finding Centre

2008-01-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

Some days the freedom I have created for myself is wild, beautiful and addictive. The ability to be so transient, to choose the next step, the next place to go with few inklings of responsibility. Its thrilling, to feel ungrounded or pulled in any direction. The freedom to recreate myself over and over again in each place I come to. Other days I feel as though I have to cling to something, anything familiar or else I shall be swept away. I've cut ties from home. A trunk of stuff, a cat and the love of friends seems to be the only thing that would bring me back to my old life. No job, no school, I could just keep going. Some days I relish not having a sanctuary and some days it scares the hell out of me. Some days I feel as if there really is no solid ground beneath my feet. Its taught me to settle into myself, find peace and place of home deep within my belly as apposed to looking for it in something external, a person, a place or a thing.

Back To Copan

2008-01-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

Ahhh...its so easy to neglect this blog, especially when traveling!

Kate and I spent an amazing new years on a volcanic lake called Lago Atitlan. A few days later she returned to Canada and I am back here in Copan to work on the Life to Life program and am working in Libelula, Anna's fair trade store. It feels really good to be back in Copan. My first night back here I woke up feeling really nauseous and spent the night throwing up and running a bit of a fever. I was glad to be home when I got sick though! Martiza took excellent motherly care of me bringing me soup in bed and offering to give me an injection in the bum. Much like India they seem to think that injections are the cure for everything here! Its amusing and a bit sad.

It seems like everyday time is speeding up. I guess that's what happens when you fall into a routine. I'm finding a renewed energy to study Spanish and am benefiting from the steep learning curve that am being rewarded with. I'm also appreciating the warm weather and sunlight here. Today as I wrote in my journal I was reflecting on what a different January this has been so far compared to my past ones!
Sometime next week Anna and I are heading to Roatan, an island on the east coast of Honduras to research several clinics, one specializing in AIDS, for the Life To Life project. I'm feeling really happy to be engaged and learning and feel like I have a good solid balance of things in my life right now.

was supposed to fly back to Canada on March 5th but have forfeited my ticket and am flying to the Virgin Islands (Bahamas) at the end of February to find work in the tourist industry instead of returning back to Vancouver.

I'm starting to finish up the last touches on my application for school and gather up the last bits of needed information. I'm really hoping that they have room for this September as I am feeling really inspired and excited to start Midwifery school!!

Christmas+Newyears

2007-12-28T07:42:00.001-08:00

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It was a quiet Christmas here in Xela with my parents and Kate. We exchanged a few small presents, made crepes in the morning and spent the afternoon hanging out and playing card. I've enjoyed my time in bustling and busy Xela. I will soon be heading back to Copan to start working on the Life To Life program and to continue studying Spanish which has begun to slacken with all these English speakers around!

Kids Christmas Party in Xela

2007-12-23T18:35:00.001-08:00

The last few days mom, Greg, Kate and Jorge have been all consumed with the preparations for a Christmas party for a temporary state run kids home. I’ve been having a tough time adjusting to the altitude and have needed to sleep lots. I’ve enjoyed cooking the last few days and being able to share the food which is much more inspiring then cooking solo which I did a lot of when I was house sitting.

Yesterday all the hecticness came to a head and the party happened. When we arrived at the massive cement prison-like home in the morning it was like arriving in a zoo of children. The boys’ and girls’ ages ranged from the youngest being about one, to the oldest girl being about twenty-five with some mental challenges. Many of the other children also had mental challenges of various degrees. The eldest was really really sweet. During the bus ride to the place where the party was held she kept singing on the bus and kissing my cheek. The party was held on a beautiful peace of land that is made available to state employees for little holidays or picnics.

From the beginning I noticed a rather cute and sad looking boy that my heart went out to right away. Our guess was that he is autistic and turned out to be the trickiest of the kids. He managed to get through the gates of the compound several times before the guard caught him. He wasn’t able to speak but communicated in a grunting and gesture manner that caught my heartstrings. By the end of the day he only wanted to be in my arms, holding tightly to my neck. It was really tough to let him go.

Antigua and Montericco in Guatemala

2007-12-20T07:20:00.002-08:00

After spending a few days in beautiful Antigua Kate and I took a three hour shuttle ride to the coastal town Montericco where we spent a few days soaking up sand and surf.

Antigua....

Montericco......

Antigua

2007-12-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Antigua, Guatamala last night to find Kate in our hotel! We spent a quiet evening and made noodle soup in the hostel instead of joining the throngs of party animals. I´ve had a really bad soar throat all day and think I´m fighting off an ear infection. Kate is also tired from a hectic few weeks of exams before leaving so we had a chill day exploring Antigua and napping in the afternoon.

I´m really happy to be out of Copan and seeing more of Central America. I really feel that Copan is home now and keep saying ¨well in Copan....¨ Its nice to have a homebase here. Were off to the coast for a few days tomorrow to catch some sun before heading to Xela to meet my parents for Christmas.

Partera's Christmas Party

2007-12-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

Mom and Greg left Copan yesterday after spending a week here. We have had sunny days on and off since I arrived here but mostly rain. The day they arrived it cleared up and stayed hot and dry for the whole week! It was so much fun to hang out with them. They lived here two years ago for six weeks so had lots of old friends to visit. I found it to be a nice break from studying and enjoyed the company and comfort after I got my last wisdom tooth pulled and which turned out to be really really painful. I have to go back in a few days to get the stitches out…..

Today we had a little Christmas party at the main health centre for the midwifes in the neighboring villages. There was about forty in total ranging in age from the youngest who was seventeen and had a two month old child to women in their sixties. It was such an amazing feeling to sit in a room with all these women from different generations and levels of experience connected by one strong thread, to help women in childbirth. Many of the women were illiterate. I felt a sense of sisterhood with them, coming together against many odds to share space and time. There constant smiling faces and enthusiastic attitudes was a beautiful reflection of their work. Many of the women had to travel really far. One of them left her house at 3am and walked for six hours to be at the centre this morning.

There was a meal for the women and then presents were handed out that Dr. Carla, Anna, Ariel and I worked on wrapping last night. The presents consisted of plastic thermoses, plates, containers, sets of plastic cups and other odds and ends. Once all of the presents were handed out using a number and draw system the women started to open the present’s tentivley. The next thing I knew the room was filled with glowing and thrilled faces. Ariel and I talked about how different things are here compared to Canada. How if a set of three plastic plates were given to somebody for Christmas it wouldn’t be a big deal at all and laughed at as something that could simply be bought in a dollar store but here it made these women’s days. When everybody started to disperse there were many hugs and kisses and feliz navida’s from the women as they left the centre.

Things with the Life to Life program that I mentioned in a previous entry are starting to shape up fast. The website should be up in the next few days and word is quickly being spread. Different options for renting a clinic here in Copan are starting to be discussed and considered. I’ve decided to return to Copan in January and February to continue working with the program.

2007-12-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

My mom and Greg arrived here in Copan two days ago. Its been so much fun hanging out with them and visiting friends that they made here two years ago. Today we went to the mayan ruins which Copan is famous for. They were so beautiful, the land around them so green and well kept. I was really struck with a sense of tranquility and silent peace while exploring.

There was a massive tree and we decided to take a picture of me underneath. After sitting for the photo I felt something bite and jumped up to see I was sitting on an ant hill!! I turned around to see my bum was COVERED in them, my mom just screamed and jumped around and Greg kept saying help her! Mom and I ran around behind the tree and up into the forest so we could try and get them out from inside my pants!! It took a good ten minutes and I have been left covered with red bites all over my back and lower bum...ouch.

The coolest granny in town

2007-12-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

Apparently this sprightly little lady is the grandma of grandmas here in Copan kicking it at the ripe old age of 99. She's somewhat of a clown to the neighbourhood, always rambling one about things that make no sense but who couldn't love a face like that?? She refused to let me take her picture and kept covering her face until Maritza came over and bribed here with a ten limpiras to let me take her photo.

Cultural Taboo

2007-11-30T18:33:00.000-08:00

My teacher, Mariela.

I finished my intense week of school today. I was really sad by the end! I had a total blast with my teacher and will miss our daily conversations and mix of work and play. At the end I was talking about how I wasn’t sure where I was going to live from now on and she offered me a place in her house! I feel like my learning has come leaps and bounds from where I started last week. I hope to do another week of studying in January. It all depends on finances as it isn’t cheap.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is world Aids awareness day. Yesterday Ella and I dropped off about six hundred condoms with a gringo who is organizing stuff for tomorrow. He runs an art centre of sorts and has set up permanent residence here. Later when I was digging in my bag at school for a pencil I pulled out some condoms that I had missed. My teacher, Mariela asked what they were. I asked if she had ever seen a condom before and she shook her head no! I was shocked so I opened one up and gave her a demonstration on how to safely use it. Afterwards I blew it up into a balloon and tossed it onto the floor of the classroom and we both forgot about it. Today when class started she told me that the director of the school was angry at her for it being in the classroom. I told Ella on break and she told her teacher and it turned into a bit of a fuddled mess with Mariela feeling worried that she was going to get into further trouble for it. Ella and I were both rather shocked at what big deal it was made into. It was yet another reminder of the taboos and lack of sexual education in this country.

Pure Honduran Goods

2007-11-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

I've befriended one of my schoolmates. Last night Ella came over and we watched a movie and made popcorn in a pot on the stove! We were both surprised at how well the popping went. We made it candied by melting brown sugar and margarine (butter would have been better) and drippling it all over the popcorn, I highly suggest trying it! We had a good laugh at watching the popcorn pop through the glass lid and talked about how in many ways everything is an adventure in Honduras. This morning she came over and we both took Tucker for a walk in the jungle while macho guys drove by in their trucks kissing their fingers and whistling. I found myself laughing and relaxing, loving the company and simple comradery of another female. Its Ella's first time traveling on her own, she left Belgium three weeks ago. Today over black coffee and purring kittens we talked about travel and being in foreign countries. I think we both found a lot of comfort being able to talk to somebody about the ups and downs of it all. She has a travel blog too and we talked about how easy it is to only write about the good stuff. To not mention all the small things that ware you down. At home one doesn't even think about crossing the street, buying fruit, catching a bus. When travelling even the simplest things become a whole new venture and it gets really tiring. We talked about how wonderful traveling looks from a distance and how its easy to forget about the down right dirty grit of it all. The smells, the lonley times, the desire to be involved in the culture but finding ways to be involved in a way that you want to be and not in a way you think you should be. All the things that she has struggled with and continues to struggle with match mine. Its nice to take a breath and have some conformation from another person.

By the end of class today I was itching to move around and didn't want to practice any more past tense verbs so my teacher and I walked over to the local market and bought one of the local delights, cigars. They supposidly rank the third best in the world and cost me a whole five cents each! Ella and I are going to give them a try tonight.

Hotsprings

2007-11-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the local hot springs with the other kids in my school. Every afternoon from 1:30 to 5:30 we study in separate rooms with your teachers. Throughout the week the school organizes a few local outings for the students. The hot springs were a major let down. There were two options. The first only cost twenty limpiras ($1) and the second was 200 ($10). The first got you into the "pools" which were empty and access to the river where a water fall of EXTREMELY hot water meets up with the cold river. The second and more expensive option let you up a little higher into the mountains where it was more spa like. Most of us chose the cheaper option and had a heck of a time trying to feel comfortable. It was either MUCH too hot or MUCH too cold, we tried in vain to make a decent wall with the rocks so as to get a good combination of hot and cold in the pool where we sat but none of us had much luck.

I'm really enjoying being in school four hours a day for the most part. My teacher and I were really playful today making jocks and playing around in Spanish. I asked her how much she makes an hour, 36.80 limps! That’s about $1.50. I'm paying the school about $6 an hour. It really reminded me of what different worlds and countries we come from.

escuela

2007-11-26T17:45:00.000-08:00

My charges...

The last few weeks I have been studying at the locally run language school, Guacamaya, with Julia the teacher that my mom had a few years ago and is about half my height. This week she is on vacation so I decided to check out the larger language school here in Copan that is run solely by women. I had a rather lazy weekend recovering from having two of my wisdom teeth pulled and was feeling ready to be challenged mentally and take my Spanish to the next level. For the next week I will be studying with my teacher, who is the same age as me, for four hours a day. Since I started house sitting I have not been speaking as much Spanish as I was when I was with Maritza and found myself converting back to thinking and writing in English. Four hours of conversation and studying has once again switched by brain to Spanish and it feels good. I was really surprised with myself today how much I could understand and how I could carry on a conversation. I am starting to be able to form complete sentences instead of knowing only a few words. After each day of school I find myself leaving almost surprised and how much I love it.

If only the answer was that simple...

2007-11-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

I’ve recently started reading a book called “In the land of God and Man” written by Silvana Paternostro woman that was born into a high class Latin America family but later moved to the states and become a journalist. In reading her words I have begun to become more aware of the culture around me and am beginning to understand what I see more and more.

Through a thread on FaceBook a conversation has come up around the issue of birth control and thoughts on solutions. In this entry I’m going to try and address some of the things that I have witnessed being here in Central America and quote some of the disturbing and shocking entries in the book that I mentioned above.

If only the answer was as simple as handing out condoms and addressing education issues with the women. As I have begun to discover the issues go much deeper then that…There are several factors that must be taken into account. Religion, many people here are Catholics and it is against their beliefs to use birth control. Another is availability when it comes to reaching the smaller towns and villages. And yet another obstacle is the culture itself along with suppression. The roles that men and women play here are very old fashioned by many western standards. Living with Maritza I witnessed this first hand. Even as a doctor she is still the woman of the house and is responsible for the meals, cleaning and child care (with the help of the two other women which most families would not be able to afford.) In the book Silvana Paternostro talks about the women’s reluctance to bring up the use of condoms with their partners. Many women believe that it is not their place to bring such things up and see sex as part of their duty in the marriage. As I become more fluent in Spanish I hope to be able to begin talking with the women first hand.

Here are some of the shocking entries found in the book, In the land of God and Man:

“In Argentina, last year, a cook as accused of systematically raping his eleven-year old stepdaughter every time the girl’s mother-his wife-left for work was immediately released from prison when he announced he would marry the girl. Under Article 132 of the Penal Code, his ten year sentence would be repealed if the marriage took place: ‘In the case of violation, rape, kidnap or dishonest abuse of a single woman, the delinquent who will marry the offended will be exempt of his sentence, if she consents after she is restituted in her parents’ home or to another safe place’. The girl, who was pregnant, accepted the offer-with her mother’s consent-to marry her mother’s husband, her rapist, so that the newborn would have un papa.

In Peru the penal code states that ‘a women who causes an abortion, or consciously allows someone else to practice one, will punished with no then two years of her liberty or with community service of 104 days.’ In Colombia she can get up to four years in prison. But scarier than the legal punishment was the list of methods used to have them: knitting needles, clothes hooks, spoons, umbrella rods inserted into the vagina. Women of all ages take a wide range of pharmaceuticals and folk medicines. The list ranges from effective and dangerous to ridiculous and dangerous: high doses of estrogen; laxatives; marijuana mixed with oak and avocado or parsley and coriander. They veterinary prostaglandins or inject muscle relaxants, swallow bleach or cheap hair dye or laundry blueing mixed with urine. They will use anything they can afford or get their hands on to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Many dance and drink for days. Some pray. Others make themselves fall intentionally from roofs, staircases, trees. The last item on the list sent a chill down my spine: Voluntary blows by the husband in the stomach.”

Anna, Maritza, Dr. Carla and some other women are working on getting a program started here in Copan. It’s called:

Life To Life
Vida a la Vida
Addressing family health and education in the Copan region

Mission

To provide comprehensive, affordable, and sensitive health care to reduce infant and maternal mortality, and improve the quality of reproductive health care and education available to women and their families in the Copan region.

To support and improve training of rural midwives to improve their skills and enhance their role as outreach workers and community educators in remote Maya Chortí villages, thereby enabling partnerships between midwives and health centers and the communities they serve.

To provide dynamic and gender sensitive youth education on the topics of self-esteem, sexuality and HIV/AIDS, and to provide prevention programs, testing, treatment and counseling for HIV/AIDS in the region.

Here are some of the stats that they have gathered on women here in the area of Copan Ruinas.

THE MAYA CHORTI OF COPAN
The highest concentration of rural poverty in Honduras is found in the western region of Honduras, including the department of Copan, which also has the greatest concentration of extreme poverty, with an estimated 71 per cent of indigenous peoples living below the poverty line. There are over 220 Mayan villages in the Copan region, encompassing Copan Ruinas, Santa Rita and Cabanas, with a population of over 70,000 indigenous people.

Copan has some of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the country, high teen pregnancy rates and an untreated AIDS population. The indigenous Maya Chorti population is especially marginalized, live in remote areas and are under -serviced in every way, especially in access to education and health care.

The average indigenous Maya Chorti woman living in the mountains has between 7 to 10 children, and children are literally dying of malnutrition, starvation and diarrhea. Maternal and infant mortality rates for the remote Maya Chorti villages are among the highest in the country, with the majority of women in rural areas giving birth alone or with the aid of a midwife who has little to no formal training or sterile equipment. Many infant births and deaths go unreported, but the scant reporting that takes place indicates that mortality rates are high. There are very few health services available in the remote mountainous areas of the region, as many are only accessible by foot, and not at all in times of heavy rain. Because of little to no health education services in the remote Maya Chorti villages, there is generally very little knowledge or access to contraception and family planning methods. It is not unusual to find 12 year olds giving birth, and the doctors in Copan Ruinas have seen 19 year old women with three to five children.

Finding Beauty

2007-11-20T16:57:00.001-08:00

The voices and words of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Neil Young lulled me into a sense of peace today. Day to day life here has simplicity to it which I rarely find. The feeling of cutting an onion or running my hands along the cutting board, of doing dishes under a thin stream of water or washing a shirt by hand. I find such pleasure in these moments because I am not rushing onto the next thing. I’ve started cooking for myself and love the challenge of discovering places to buy food, using my Spanish in the fruit and vegetable market and creating meals for myself. I have chickpeas in the crock-pot as I write that I am going to make into a coconut curry. My time is filled with the basics. Cook, clean, study and just be. It’s a wonderful thing which I haven’t had for awhile. It’s been a pretty transient summer moving from place to place since July and I’m enjoying the sense of settlement I have now. Every morning I take Tucker for a walk, the golden retriever that belongs to Anna and Andy the couple that I am house sitting for over the next two weeks. This morning as I followed the winding, muddy, garbage strewn trails with Tucker I paused to look around me and to absorb the scenery. A thick leafy green sky above my head, the hills a rolling canopy of jungle. The calls of roosters, dogs, bugs and birds providing a constant background of noise. I often catch myself walking through life with my eyes focused down being careful to watch my step and not trip instead of taking a chance and looking up. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I’m doing, instead of enjoying what I am experiencing.

60 mothers to be

2007-11-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

Anna, Maritza and I met up with Dr. Carla at the main clinic here in Copan on Thursday. Once a month there is gathering specifically for expecting mothers. Maritza gave a demonstration on the steps of labour with the practice dummy and then coffee and cookies were handed out.

Before I left Canada I gathered a suitcase of baby clothes donated from my grandparents and some friends that had just had a baby, after the demonstration I handed them out. There was around sixty or seventy pregnant women and it was rather hectic and a bit of scramble trying to make sure everybody got something! The blankets and socks were the most popular. Most of the babies that I have seen here are usually wrapped in rough, brightly coloured towels.

Prenatal check ups

2007-11-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

This morning I headed out to a small local clinic with Carla, a local female doctor. She spends one day a week working in a small clinic four kilometers outside of Copan that was far from well equipped. When I went to the washroom there wasn't even running water to wash my hands with. I set myself up beside her in the small office with a stack of thick files that she would spend the day working through. The waiting room was full of expecting women. The first woman came in with a tiny premature baby. I was shocked to find out she was two months old! From the look of her face and movements I'm guessing she had Down Syndrome. Her skin was almost transparent, her hands making jerking movements. The mother was silently crying over the baby as the the doctor talked to the woman that had accompanied her. Later I found out that the grandmother of the infant had died the day before. My heart ached.
The rest of the day followed with prenatal consultations and check ups with the women in various stages of pregnancy from two weeks to eight and half months. First came the questions of where do you live, how old are you, is this your first child. I was shocked over and over again at the ages of the girls, they looked as if they should be in elementary school! One woman came in, she was 33 and this was her fifth child. After her came a sixteen year old expecting her first. Turns out they were mother daughter and their due dates were a month apart! Doctor Carla was great letting me listen to the heart beats of the babies and locating the heads. Several of the baby's were turned in different directions and we had fun guessing what part of the baby we were feeling and watching the babies kick or punch their moms so hard we could see it!! It amazed me how each one was so different, varying in size and even feel. The first few women I touched I almost felt high. To make that contact and begin learning was such an amazing and inspiring gift

My weekend....

2007-11-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Kisses

Carving of the moon goddesss....

Maritza brought home a mannequin from the clinic to practice birthing with...out comes the rubber baby!

The neighbours cat munching on chicken..

The neighbours mom...

...in the window.

The view from the road when walking into town

My first steps towards becoming a midwife

2007-11-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went back to the clinic to visit the woman that I had witnessed giving birth the day before and brought her some baby clothes which she was thrilled about!!!! I've decided that going to the clinic is not that best use of my time. Instead I am going to focus more on my Spanish. Since my mom was there, two years ago, things have changed. Its mostly male doctors now and in retrospect the birth was far from respectful or caring! I had a conversation with Maritza last night and she was saying that women no longer want to go there and ask her to attend their labors instead of going to the clinic! After our conversation Martiza pulled out a pamphlet written in English stating the goals of a new non profit organization she and about five other women, from Canada, the UK and locally want to start. Its a program designed to teach women in the community about health care and an apprenticeship program for Midwifes!!! It looks totally amazing and I really want to get involved.

Last night Danya's aunt came for a check up. She's due on the 10th and Maritza was saying that I could be her assistant with the birth! Martiza showed me how to measure the belly and thus determining the size of the baby. Its a big one! She also had me listen to the heartbeat and feel moms cervix which were surprisingly hard. I was so thrilled to be doing even the most simple thing and excited to be learning things. Afterwards Maritza and I used the Partera/Midwife books to talk about some health concerns around her age and possible risks with the swelling in her legs.

I'm struggling with the food and feeling slightly sick after meals. Lots of white flour, potatoes, sugar and almost no vegetables. Everything has a meat flavor to it or bits of flesh floating in it like the chicken noodle soup for lunch today which turns my stomach. Last nights dinner was more white noodles and yesterdays lunch was more potatoes. The beans I am fed here and there are good but are also always smothered in an really really salty and slightly sour cheese that turns my stomach...

My first birth experience...

2007-11-07T14:11:00.000-08:00

I`ve been here in Copan for five days now and time is already starting to muddle itself in my mind. It hasn’t been an easy adjustment and I suppose it never is. I seem to have forgotten my other experiences and transitions when coming to a new country and adjusting to the culture, in the past. There are very few people here that speak English. When I do come across somebody that speaks English well enough to carry on a conversation it feels like a huge treat to be able to speak and share even the simplest things. Already I find myself translating English words to Spanish. Even in writing this I find myself halting and feeling almost awkward, lacking the flow and pleasure that I usually get from writing.

My first two days here, Maritza took me to the local museum where we browsed Mayan artifacts, sacrificial tools and carvings. The next day we went to a local sanctuary for rescued birds. Some of the parrots could bite up to 2000 pounds with their beaks and live up to 100 years in captivity! There were also spiders the size of my hands that had created massive webs between the banana leaves. These gave me the willies!

At first the food was delicious and exciting but has begun to lapse into repetitiveness. I´m sure soon enough I wont even think about it. Pretty much every single meal consists of corn tortillas, beans, rice and really salty cheese. The maize (corn) is brought in on donkeys and ground up in a store down the street from the house. The beans are always cooked in some sort of meat, sometimes I find pieces of brown shriveled-like flesh amongst them. The concept of being a vegetarian here seems to only go in partially. Hey, as long as your not actually eating the meat it must be OK to have hearts, kidneys and bones floating in your soup or beans! I´ve been so revolted a few times I just couldn’t eat it. I ended up skipping lunch yesterday. I had bit of a fever so wasn´t hungry anyway.

Yesterday I started at Guacamaya, the local language school. Julia my teacher helped my mom learn Spanish when she was here two years ago. Its been nice to have the extra structure of learning on top of the stuff that I have initiated learning myself.

Having had a few days to settle in, I headed to the maternity clinic
this morning. Maritza had taken me there a few days ago and introduced me to Dr. Nelson and explained that I was planning on
studying to be a midwife (partera) and was looking to gain some birth experience.

When I arrived today it was a different doctor on and nobody had an idea where I had come from or why I was there. I arrived at around 8:30am and spent the whole morning in the waiting room. I started to wonder what the hell I was doing there and why I thought I could just march in and get involved in such a thing as birthing when I can speak only a little Spanish and had never before even witnessed a birth! When I was peaking in my frustration and thinking it was time to take the 15 bus ride back to Copan, I hear my name being yelled down the hall, “Maya!!! Maya” I ran down the hall, the next thing I knew a smock was being thrown at me and I was in the birth room with a woman on the table, her feet in the metal stirrups. There were two women in the pre-delivery room where they ride out the contractions until it’s time to give birth. I had seen the woman briefly but didn't think that she was near ready as she was very quiet and her belly seemed really small.
But there she was, ready to deliver!

The doctor and his attendant took it all very casually, squirting the woman's crotch with a big plastic water bottle full of water and soap. Underneath her was a garbage can with a plastic bag to catch the water, blood and other matter. I expected it all to take so much longer. After the birth I asked her how many children she had, this was her second. As the baby moved further down the birth canal the doctor reached in with a pair of flat ended scissors and snipped the amniotic sac at which point water and blood came shooting out and w all jumped! Before I knew what was happening a small black patch of hair started to show itself at the opening of her vagina, retreating at times as she rested between pushes. The mother bore down in an almost eerie silence, the doctor inserting his finger in such I a way that made me visibly cringe and the doctor and his assistant laugh. After the head came out everything happened so fast. I was shocked at how hard the doctor pulled on the baby’s head, turning its body! When it was out he held the small purple thing in his left had as be clamped the umbilical cord with his right. I was shocked at how almost animalistically he handled the newborn infant, almost tossing it onto a small metal tray with a rough sheet and blaring light. It took only a few seconds for the baby to start crying letting out its first feeble gasps of air. What a way to enter the world! It didn´t even seem like a baby to me. I found myself not so much interested in the newborn but more in the mother and her reaction after the birth. I felt almost voyeuristic in standing there watching, a complete stranger. Something that would never happen in Canada. I had an intense moment of culture shock comparison and what different worlds she and I were from. At one point we were alone in the room, we locked eyes for a few seconds the only real interaction that we had. In lacking the language to speak to her, I hoped that for those few moments I was able to convey all that I felt by looking into her eyes. I wanted to thank her over and over again for letting me witness such an intimate thing as this. And like that it was over....

When I left the clinic a few moments later to catch the bus to Copan I found myself shaking with adrenalin, shock, excitement but mostly pure awe without the words to truly express the experience of my first birth.....

My first few days in Copan

2007-11-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

Arrival in Central America

2007-11-04T10:24:00.002-08:00

Yesterday morning at 5 40am local time I landed in Guatemala city airport with a bump.... I think only then I realized where I was. Somehow this trip seems to have snuck up on me.
I waited for almost an hour for my bag to come through, the last one of course, before heading out of the airport into a mass of pressing bodies and expectant faces holding up signs. I had a bus booked leaving a few hours later to Copan Honduras where Maritzia would be picking me up. What I failed to remember being so exhausted was which bus station it was! It took some time working with a cab driven in broken English and a few words of Spanish to figure out where I needed to be. Luckily in the end we figured out, with me paying an exuberant price in American dollars since I had no currency (lesson learned).

When I arrived at the bus station it was closed so I spread myself over my bags and passed out. For the next 7 or so hours I was utterly useless and would have been left behind in the bus station if I hadn't been woken up. When we arrived at the border I was once again fast asleep and drooling. I was rather dazed and confused and spent some time bumping around the border digging for American dollars not sure where I should be. When I finally arrived in Copan and saw Maritzia I was so relieved. It was an intense and long trip starting off with a nerve racking American border crossing where people were being searched and where the customs officer scowled and looked at me in utter disbelief when I told him where my final destination was. "Why would you want to go there?!?!?!" he said in utter and confused disgust.

Maritiza lives with her husband and two kids. David (three months) and Natalie (I'm guessing about three and a half) and Dunya the young girl that helps around the house.The house is located strait up a cobbled road off the Gran Plaza in downtown Copan. Its a simple house with iron gates creating one wall looking out into the courtyard. Attached to the house is a room with several beds and a shelf of books that she sometimes uses for births. In a few weeks she will be helping Dunya's sister give birth in the room. This is where I sleep.

I'm still feeling spun and not totally present, it always takes me a few days to "arrive" in a place, especially after traveling. I'm also adjusting to the intense humidity. Even though its a pleasant warm temperature out I find myself shivering with the dampness....

2007-11-01T23:03:00.001-07:00

Tonight I had a little going away party...it was a hectic day but nice to have a chance to wind down and visit before I leave tomorrow. My grandparents, Susan and Denis, gave me two books, The Midwifes Hand Book, published by the Hesperian Foundation in both English and Spanish. My first textbooks for school! They will end up being a key asset as I start working in the clinic speaking only a few words of Spanish!!

Off I go

2007-10-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

Pre-trip crunch time has begun. Its hard to believe that soon I will be in Honduras attending my first births and stundying Spanish! I leave Vancouver on Friday, November 2nd catching a shuttle down to Seattle and then a flight to LA. I have a three hour stop over in LA and then catch my connecting flight to Guatamala city arrivintg at 5:05am. From there I head to Copan in Honduras where I will be living with Marzia the doctor and assisting her in the clinic.