Our Weekend in Panajachel

We just arrived back to Guatemala City after an amazing vacation in Panajachel. Panajachel is in the Guatemalan highlands and provides views of 3 volcanoes and sits on Lake Atitlan. The trip from the city to Pana (an abbreviation we picked up from locals in Panajachel) is important to mention when describing our trip. Up in till this point our group has only been exposed to a few select places in the city and nowhere outside of it. This bus ride provided us with insight into different parts of the city, villages and towns outside of the city, and everything in between. It is hard to describe everything we saw on our trip but I’ll start by mentioning a few things are adding more pictures than I have been—we all took a lot!

      1)   To start, driving in Guatemala is, in one word, dangerous. There are no speed limits, lanes are   often disregarded, it is seldom that cars yield to pedestrians, and the exhaust that is emitted to the   countless “chicken” buses driving around would definitely be illegal in the states. Driving is   always…exciting and during rush hour, even more so. 

A view from the car.

      2)   The city is divided into 22 different zones. Our hotel is in Zone 10, the safest zone. Besides     Roosevelt, Zone 11, we stay in the area near our hotel. This trip took us into other zones where many   patients coming to Roosevelt to live. We were exposed to  more communities of cinderblock houses,  dilapidated store fronts with children playing out front, sections of highway covered with workers  from the villages returning home to places we wouldn’t consider homes at all. Once we were in Panajachel it was interesting to see many children wearing shirts that had clearly been donated from the states.

Children staring into the street from their from yard.

Looking down on a village in Sololá

     3)   There were political messages everywhere we looked including billboards, the side of the  mountain, painted onto shops and homes, on guard rails, etc. As we left the city we observed a large  number of signs for LIDER, the Libertad Democrática Renovada. We were later told that this party spends an exorbitant amount advertising particularly outside of the city. Many villagers are unaware of exactly what the political parties stand for, many do not speak Spanish, and many are therefore without the  means to vote in an educated fashion. There are campaigns that pay families and towns to paint their logo on houses and mountains etc in order to secure the vote of the villagers. Unfortunately the most prominently advertised campaign, LIDER, is not the most attentive to the villagers needs.

Home supporting it's party.

One of the only proper billboards with a political sign.

We got to our hotel in the middle of a downpour and decided to spend the rest of the night at the hotel restaurant chatting and playing card games, excited for the sun to come out so we could begin exploring the town.

Saturday was amazing, we started with a traditional Guatemalan breakfast complete with beans, plantains, eggs, tortillas, queso de oja, and, of course, coffee. We then wandered around the market place, spoke with vendors about their products and often whether they are familiar with Roosevelt—everyone is. 

A view of a shop in the market.

We then took a boat across Lake Atitlan to San Pedro, a volcano and island. We enjoyed walking around this “hipster” island complete with plenty of rocks to jump off of into the water, hidden restaurants and cafes and views that are hard to forget. As we were enjoying San Pedro, anti-government protests were beginning around the country read more here. We are interested to see what results from these protests in the coming days, weeks and so forth.

Enjoying the lake from San Pedro.

The boats we took from Panajachel

Once we got back we headed to dinner and a bar, Pana Rock to listen to some live music. The band that was playing definitely had talent but we weren’t sure what to think of the falsetto singing and strange electronic noises. We spent Sunday morning relaxing on the docks, kayaking, swimming and taking a last minute look at the markets before heading back to the city, sad to see such an amazing and relaxing weekend end, but excited to start a new week of work at Roosevelt. 

The view of the volcano from Panajachel.

Day 10: What a wonderful Wednesday

We had another day full of success! We arrived at the hospital as usual in the morning and continued to work on the ventilators and other equipment. The most exciting part of the morning was fixing another ventilator, especially after we thought that the particular machine we were working on was a lost cause. This ventilator in question originally wouldn't even turn on. 

The screen wouldn't light up, no buttons functioned and the shrill alarm that always sounds whenever a broken vent is turned on didn't even sound. We started with looking at the CPU disk, a part of the circuit board. Knowing a different vent was a lost cause as a result of an internal leak we got out our tools and opened them both up. We took the circuit board from the one vent to exchange with the other and gained functionality of the buttons and alarm and, using typical troubleshooting skills we switched different screens and, after dozens of screws, loose wires, matching and reseding connectors the vent came to life. Just to make sure, we got it approved by Mainor, the respiratory therapist, who was likewise excited to see the progress we had made. There is literally nothing better than knowing you have brought what was essentially a broken and dead piece of equipment back to life. 

Mission accomplished

Feeling great after taping yet another "funciona" sign on the newly working vent, we moved on to sort through yet another pile of broken machinery. We explored the mystery that is the broken equipment room in the corner of the new ICU.  From it, we salvaged another pulse oximeter, and also managed to find the missing part that was the only reason that it was not working, so we got that machine working too.

A lot of the equipment we've found is in extremely bad shape. It's clear someone else attempted to repair it or mettled with it the past

Our guinea pig

A nurse brought us three more ECG's today as well, but we weren't quite as successful with those.  Unfortunately, two of them were missing parts from their printing mechanism. It is completely possible that the devices themselves were functioning fine, however there's no way of knowing because they don't have the capabilities to print the output information.  We used Huy as our guinea pig to test the last one, but still could not figure out what was wrong with it.  Regardless, we are optimistic about the other successes.

After our day at the hospital, Andres, one of the residents, was going to take us to Antigua Guatemala to sightsee. However, Andres is now also sick.  He looked pale and exhausted, but despite that, walked all the way to the ICU to tell us personally that he could no longer take us to Antigua but that Carlos (Dr. Morales) and Daniel (a doctor at a different hospital) could take us instead.  We are ever grateful to him  and wishing him a speedy recovery!

Antigua itself was absolutely beautiful.  It used to be the capital of Guatemala, but after a devastating earthquake, the capital was relocated to Guatemala City, where it remains currently. 

A view from the street, if you look closely you'll find a flat area on the mountain with a cross

 Now Antigua is a lovely little town, with gorgeous old churches, colorful, squat little buildings, and amazing restaurants.  It is exactly what it's name indicates; Old Guatemala.  We first stopped by a colorful market, filled with vendors with bright stands of handmade trinkets and souvenirs. We used our bargaining skills and walked away with bags of goodies. 

Mayan craft market

We then went to a traditional Guatemalan restaurant, where they served the dishes directly from large clay pots complimented by homemade tortillas, tamales and, of course, guacamole.

Some of the typical meat-based soups

 On our way back to Guatemala City, we stopped at a placed called El Mirador, situated on a small mountain overlooking the valley of Guatemala City.  The view was gorgeous! The picture certainly does not do justice to the sight of the sprawling city lights surrounded by the night sky and the bright moon.  It was a fantastic way to end an already amazing day.