Hearts in Every Sense of the Word

I thought about writing a really descriptive dramatic post but I'm going to save you the drama and just lay it down. So my neighbors are back. If you have been reading any of my other posts you will know about the history of Clari. In short, she lost a baby last year when she was going into labor and the doctor was too busy with another patient. It is common here. So then about 3 months ago Clari starts getting bloated and her lungs fill up with fluid and she can barely walk or sleep. Well, after months of trying to figure out what the hell is going on with her via the Floating Doctors, it has all come to light pretty much today. It seems that she must have gotten an internal infection as a kid and it is now causing heart failure. It seems that she needs heart valve replacements. So there is that. We found that out today and she goes to David again sometime this week hopefully to take a bunch of tests and make sure that is what it is.

So, last night was Clari's first night back along with the rest of her family and I walk in to say hi and all that and I start talking with them about random things and notice that there is this random little girl sitting quietly watching TV. I've never seen her before. Come to find out, about a month ago, Clari's uncle had gotten drunk, fallen off a balcony and died leaving his kids behind. The mother abandoned the family years ago. So the kids got split up between the family members and Clari and Beli got the little girl they always wanted in Jovana. Here is the part that I was going to make dramatic; she is an adorable 6 year old and is constantly smiling. She is sweet, soft spoken and doesn't seem to affected one bit by the fact that her mom abandoned her, her dad just died, and she was forced away from her brothers and sisters to live with a new family. I've never seen anything like it and it really does warm my heart knowing that there are some of us that are able to keep giving love in this world even though it has done everything but give love to them. Of course its going to be hard for Beli and Clari to take care of the 3 kids now especially when Clari will need to go to the doctor and all that, but she is in good hands or least better hands than most other families in the community.

Jobs

I've been offered two jobs in the last week for some odd reason. Good ones too. I guess good work does not go unnoticed and the fact that my service has been so successful thus far is really showing I'm a valuable asset. I still have 7 months here and I don't plan on leaving early. There is just too much I want to do here and I really do believe that more small push in the right direction can get the artisan group to a new level of income.

Cacao

I now get someone asking me for cacao or our products to be shipped to the states about once a month. Some of these people read the articles I've put together or have done the tour. It is crazy. Of course the group is not ready to handle anything like that at this point and probably wont be for some time, but it is interesting and has got me thinking about the possibilities of bringing the chocolate products into the states when I'm done here. It would give me a chance to continue to help the community as well as maybe provide myself enough income to not be poor anymore.

Engineers

One of the tech people that will be part of the Engineers Without Borders group that will be coming here later in the year came to do a preliminary diagnostic on the river to see if it would be good for hydro electric. Alex was his name and he was great. The people from the artisan group showed up in good fashion too and there were about 5 of us that went all up and down the river looking at different locations. My favorite part was when I had to do depth calculations in the river in my clothes. Alex also looked at the spots we would like to build the office, restaurant, and the grinder room and we talked about what we could do to fix the water system here. Unfortunately we discovered that the river would not be a good place to do the hyrdo system as it has rocky cliffs, swells up to more than 30 times its size sometimes, and is a little far from the artisan house. So its back to solar power for our power needs. I was able to get a quote for a solar system that was reasonable and it looks like we would have enough money for it too. Another big problem that we ran into is that the person that was supposed to build the grinder has apparently skipped town and isn't coming back. I found that out after I got the door slammed on my face when I went to his house. I don't think the rest of the family is too excited about his departure.

My Health and Other Stuff

I haven't been sick with water born illnesses in awhile and its nice. I am pretty tired most times but that is normal for me when its a billion degrees outside.

I have started teaching English solely on the computer with Rosetta Stone and the students love it. We used the funds we got from the chocolate fund raiser in Boquete to buy the solar panel and all that and now we have it all set up. I have to pull them off of the computer sometimes because they just want to keep going on it. They now know how to start the computer and the program too so pretty soon they will be able to do it themselves. Good stuff.

My heart has been acting up. I'm not sure why but I've had a little bit of chest pain and sometimes trouble sleeping because of it. I can't even touch coffee right now and when I do it feels like my heart is going to blow out of my chest. I'm coming to the reality that I will have to have another surgery and that I might have to get it checked out while I'm here. I've been waiting on this just in case the Peace Corps wants to kick me out because of it. If I have to get another surgery or there is any concern they would send me home for sure to get it done and I'm sure I would not be allowed to come back. I still have too much work to be done here so I'm going to wait on that until I'm positive that things are going as good as they can go here.

I'm helping the Mirna in my community put together her presentation for the Women of Chocolate conference in Guatemala still. I got all the wording down good and it pretty much just needs the slides to be put together. She still doesn't understand the information or how the slides work but I'm sick of explaining the same thing 10 times. I told her to practice and get back to me.

I don't know if I mentioned this before but I met a lady in my community that lost half of her children to sickness. Half. She started with 10 and has five now. She laughed and said they were “gifted back” to the sky. She is a pretty happy lady and the only one in my community with a gold tooth. I spent an evening once playing dominoes with her kids while it was pouring down rain. Can you imagine someone in the states loosing half of their kids and joking about it or even being able to function. It sometimes amazes me how much emotional strength these people have. There is something to be said that they have no choice so being tough mentally is a coping mechanism. But still....