The surgical trip to Tejutla, San Marcos, Guatemala was a success this year. We began our tip from San Joaquin Hospital on a Saturday, May 28, morning & took a bus to LAX. There we met several others & flew to Dallas. More team members joined us there & we all arrived in Guatemala City that evening. We met for a team conference and enjoyed the last comfortable accommodations for 9 days. In the very early morning all 80 of us boarded smaller busses for a 8-10 hour drive to San Marcos province, near the border with Mexico's Chiapas State. We work in a small place, Hospitalito Roppe, which is set along a hillside with steep mountains & a view of a volcano from the open area where we dine daily. We performed nearly 250 procedures -- many cataract extractions, hernias, hysterectomies, a few gall bladder removals, 3 cleft lip repairs & assorted lumps & bumps. Our patients ranged from very young, and very old. A prosthetics specialist from Selma provided artificial limbs for nine patients and the dental team from Fresno was very busy extracting some teeth and filling others. Our accommodations are in various rooms & the rooftop of the hospitalito. The showers must be quick, whether warm or cold. We sleep on dorm like on cots provided by HELPS International's base in Guatemala City, along with many other items -- tables, chairs, anesthesia machines, autoclaves. We bring our own kitchen staff & food. It is a small village & we work, eat & sleep on the hospital grounds. On Saturday we pack up & take a walking trip to the town center. Many of my friends are Catholic & this year we met with the assistant priest, who agreed to do a mini mass for us. We returned at 3:00PM & he did some of the service in English. A few of had a very delicious cappuccino in the rectory, before walking to the "Gracias" ceremony given by the City. Lots of dancing & great music performed on the marimba, Guatemala's national instrument.

Up early again on Sunday for another many hours drive to Antigua Guatemala and lovely accommodations in the Hotel Guatemala, replete with a pool and soft, comfy beds. We have R&R there for a mere 2.5 days. One can rest & swim, shop, walk about the town to visit the many colonial ruins, eat at a variety of tasty restaurants, or take one of the many tours offered. Several people flew to the Mayan site of Tikal, others took a long hike/horse ride up the active Pacaya volcano.

Out of nearly 80 people. I was able to find only two others who were willing to go birdwatching with me. We were provided a wonderful young woman guide, who is trilingual -- native French speaker, who learned Spanish upon immigration at age 5, then English later. She went on to study ecology at Texas A&M and was the first environmental employee of the Guatemalan government. She has worked with the Peace Corps, does private tours & works with the government on a nature preserve, Cerro Alux. It lies between Guatemala City & Antigua @ San Lucas Sacatepequez. There we wandered along an open area and saw Steller's Jay (soon to be named Guatemalan Jay), nesting Eastern Bluebirds, Clay Colored Thrush (robin), Bronzed (red-eyed) Cowbirds. We then walked down through the oak-pine forest and saw Townsend's warbler, Slate-throated Redstart, Yellow-throated Brush Finch, Spotted Towee, Northern Flicker, Spot-crowned Woodcreeper, Black-capped Swallow. The guide & one other saw more birds. I was concerned not to fall on the steep steps & the birds would often just take off upon my arrival! One of those was a Brown-backed Solitaire. Our guide told us a month earlier there would have been many more migrants passing through on their trek to North America. It was a lovely morning & great to be out in the quiet woods.

If you'd have asked me the week upon arrival I would have told you how much this body ached from head to toe. The work is hard and the hours long. Now I can truthfully say it was very rewarding to be able to help others in the company of very good, longtime friends. There are many opportunities to volunteer with HELPS, if any on you ever have the desire.