Monday, February 15, 2010

All's going well

Just a quick post to let you know that our great team of 27 arrived at the airport Saturday, and we actually got through customs with our 54 giant bins of eyeglasses-and-medicine-and-toothbrushes-and-lotion-and-vitamins....and more in about an hour.

We`re staying at the beautiful La Brisa de Carmelo retreat house in Santa Tecla, which has great food, private rooms with private bathrooms with hot water, and gorgeous gardens. Sorry about that, you folk from earlier years who stayed in steamy dormitories or shabby guest houses.

Today we began our clinics - a long, hot day, but everything really went very well and the people of San Juan Opico were patient, hopeful, and generous. We enrolled a full group for cataract surgeries in May, managed an emergency or two, heard some heartrending stories, and gave out many packages of vitamins, tylenol, antibiotics - and toothbrushes.

As always, it´s a wonderful group of doctors and interpreters and assitants from PeaceHealth and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and a wonderful group of local volunteers - joined by Rosa Aguiar, our splendid volunteer from Comasagua, who helped us get the eyes clinic organized. Walther Jorge Martinez, a volunteer in our Panchimalco clinic two years ago, came by with his aunt who was getting a gynecological consult. Lots of hugs all round.

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