Guatemala – Day 5

First off, we survived our first Guatemalan earthquake last night. All of us felt it except for Carol, but we like to make it more dramatic by saying, “The earthquake left Carol unconscious.” In all seriousness, we are totally fine and safe. Thankfully, Tio Juan had informed us about the frequent earthquakes earlier this week, and told us that tremors are pretty common and typically not a big deal. So, when our beds started literally shaking in the middle of the night, we knew we were probably fine.

Today, we headed back to Anini and were ready to get right to work. Having been there the day before, the TEAM was better equipped to handle the needs of the kids. Charity and Kelly were able to make adjustments to 7 wheelchairs – they’ve become quite the pros! They also gave AFOs to a 19-year-old boy with hemiplegia that was dragging his foot. He was the sweetest boy and very polite, and we could tell the orphanage workers really cared for him.

We were gladly interrupted to participate in a relay race to celebrate the Euro Cup, and also to jump on the trampoline with Rogelio (the little boy we mentioned in yesterday’s post). It was very fun and rejuvenating!

Carol was able to work with one of the interns at Anini today. He was really interested in learning and following through, particularly with the babies. The attitude in the room changed dramatically from yesterday, and there was a lot more trust in what the TEAM was doing. The nannies were much more open to us giving them suggestions.

Carol also sat down for an hour with the special education teacher and was able to distribute a lot of information documents. The teacher was incredibly grateful, and they are going to continue their relationship in order for Carol to provide information and plan for future needs.

We left Anini feeling incredibly encouraged, and then to top it all off, our driver shared the story with us of how he adopted his youngest daughter. He started it off by saying, “This is a love story…” and we all immediately teared up. Then he started crying and we lost it! It was such a sweet story, and made us love him even more…

We’re so thankful for all the children and people we’ve gotten to meet and interact with this week. It has been truly humbling.