What a crazy week! It´s been awesome, though. I feel like I´m being bombarded every day by intensity. I feel like, before coming here, I knew that poverty was an acute problem in Guatemala, but I didn´t know to what degree this was the case until this week. Any nurse could have an absolute hay-day in this country! Babies have coffee or coke in their bottles because their moms can´t afford milk for them, just for a very meager start. Thursday we visited zona tres, the cemetary, and the dump. First, zona tres: people moved into the city from the country hoping to build new, better lives and find good jobs. This didn´t happen for them, and now they´re stuck in the crevices of this huge ravine living in tin shacks. There is a path worn into the mountain leading from zona tres to the dump where people pay for the ¨privilege¨of digging through the trash to find things to sell for their living. There are women and children in there all the time; some women even give birth in there. Right beside the dump is the cemetary in which the wealthiest family in Guatemala owns a tomb that cost enough to more than support all of the people living in zona tres. So now my struggle is to figure out with this means for me. After discovering the existence of the clinic in the States, I really felt like my mission field changed; I´m not doubting that this clinic is where God wants me. So what am I doing here? Just learning Spanish? Soul-searching? Figuring out who I am and what the world is and Who God is on a different level? I still have a lot to figure out, but I´m okay with that. I came with so many questions and with the expectation to leave at the end of the semester changed; a lot of my questions have been answered already, but, for every answer I´ve gotten, at least 25 more questions have come up. But, I´m okay with that, too. I´ll never have all the answers, so I´ll just keep asking questions and learning as much as I can and figuring things out to the best of my ability. It´s good. :)
Hope all is well at home.
Amy- you are AMAZING. I don't know what else to say... You are so inspiring. I am very guilty of complaining about not having the extra money to go out to eat, to get my nails done, or go to a movie...but when I read things like this about how hard other people have it. I realize my life isn't bad at all. Yes, I may have some credit card debt, have to pinch pennies every week, & I might have a late bill or two here or there...but my live a very blessed, fulfilling life compared to a lot of other people. Thanks for the wake up call, Amy! That's just what I needed to make me see how truly amazing my life is.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're having an amazing time & I can't wait to read more.
xoxo