Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - with a happy ending

Today, Monday the 30th of May, I was supposed to give a charla about diarrhea. I spent last week buying the materials and collecting the information I needed to be able to make the charla. Yesterday, I spent all day preparing the charla. I pepared seven charla papers (poster-size papers of information) with statistics about diarrhea, what causes it, how to prevent it, how to treat it, what to do if there are signs of dehydration, the signs of dehydration, and then I wrapped it up with a short game: on another charla paper, I drew (yes, with my horrible artistic skills I drew) a house with animals all around it, kids playing, people going to the bathroom in random places, dishes piled up on the pila, and someone filling up a water jug from the river. I then drew small pictures with “corrections” on them. For example, you would put the picture of the trash can over the pile of trash outside the house, and you would put the picture of the outhouse over the guy going to the bathroom behind a tree. So, after all my blood, sweat and tears - ok, only sweat - I practiced reading over the charla a bunch of times and tried to anticipate any questions that might come up, so I would be ready with responses. In essence, I was ready! So, why then, when I arrived at the health center this morning was I unable to give the charla? Oh, that’s right, because I’m a chicken! I got there and was so nervous. There were not even that many women in the Center this morning, but I actually knew two of the women their with their kids, which may have made me more nervous for some reason.

When I first arrived Sonia asked me if I wanted her to introduce me again before I got started and that sent me into shock. I asked her if I could wait a little bit - maybe until 9 a.m. before starting, and she said that was no problem at all. So, at 9 a.m. I didn’t mention anything about the charla and just tried to keep myself busy, then at about 9:30 a.m., the doctor was getting ready to stitch up a little boy’s arm, so of course I had to watch! And, to my delight, it took almost an hour. When I came out of the “operating room” Sonia had ran home for a little bit to tend to her sick grandchildren, which just let me off the hook even more - I wasn’t going to start until Sonia got back. I found things to keep me busy, like doing a puzzle with one of the little girls waiting with her mom, so by the time I saw Sonia again, it was almost 11:30 a.m., which was getting to close to lunch time. Sonia didn’t say anything about the charla. She knew I was nervous and she had even tried to get me to relax earlier. She said she would stand up there with me the whole time, so if anyone asked a question I couldn’t understand, she could answer it. But, as nice as that was and as much as I didn’t appreciate it, it didn’t calm my nerves at all! So, when she didn’t say anything about the charla, I felt even more guilty that I had backed out of it. I was sitting in the chair across from her, while she was doing the paperwork for all the patients they had that morning. She looked up and saw the expression I had on my face and asked what was wrong. I told her that I was really sorry that I was too scared to do the charla. She just chuckled and said it was fine - that there is plenty of time to do it when ever I feel comfortable. When I told her I was embarrassed that I didn’t do it, she told me not to be ridiculous and that I can just do it tomorrow, or later this week, or maybe next Monday - whenever I want.

The fact that Sonia was so nice about me completely failing this morning, makes me feel even more guilty for not giving the charla. I don’t know what my problem was. I know the information; I had practiced it so my Spanish would be more smooth when speaking. Still, it would have been my first charla by myself - that I prepared and gave all by myself. It was a landmark that was too much for me to accomplish today. But, hopefully later this week I will get another opportunity to do it. During the week, thankfully, there are not a lot of people that come into the health center, which means there are not a lot of sick people (hence the hopefully.) But, if there is a day this week with a lot of patients, I will suck it up and give my charla, if not, I will give it next Monday - NO MATTER WHAT! I will march in that health center at 8 a.m. ready to succeed!

On a happier note for me, today I went on a mission to find mangoes with two of the ladies from the health center. We met at the health center a little before 5 p.m. ready for our mission. We had walking shoes, we had bags, and we had energy. The aldea we walked to was a couple km away, which isn’t too bad, but it is uphill the whole way - and I’m not being sarcastic! But, as our luck would have it, after walking for about 10 minutes, a truck drove by with someone Janet knew, so he picked us up and took us to the entrance of the town - it cut about 20 or 30 minutes off our journey! After aimlessly walking around the aldea for 10 minutes, we finally asked someone where we could find the lady with the mangoes. We were almost there, only three houses away! Unfortunately the big mangos were not ripe yet, which is weird because most people’s trees are almost empty this time of year because all the mangoes have ripened and been eaten, but her tree is a late bloomer, I guess. So, Vilma and I each took 6 green mangoes (they will be ripe in a 4 or 5 days probably) and the Janet and Vilma each filled a bag with the other, small, mangoes.

Unripe Mangoes

When we were loaded up with all we wanted, I was shocked that the woman didn’t want any money for the mangoes! It seemed unreal to me. The amount of mangoes we had was probably worth more than $100 U.S., which in Lempia is close to 2000! Here the large mangoes go anywhere from 3 to 10 lempira, though - depending on the competition people have to sell them. But, this is just how people are here. They are so generous!

After we left that woman’s house, we walked about 150 yards and were at the house of one of the AIN-C promoters. To our surprise, she had mangoes, too - three even different types than the two the other woman had. We spent about a half an hour spotting the ripe ones in the tree and using a really long stick/pole to hit them off their branches! We were eating mangoes while doing this - it was basically heaven! After filling our bellies and our bags we said goodbye and thank you, and again, we were not able to pay for any of the mangoes!

The walk back home was all down hill, but with bags full of mangoes, it was still a bit of a work out. But, it went by very quickly because the whole way was an English class. Vilma, I realized, actually knows a lot of words in English, she just needs practice forming sentences! She really wants to learn, so I’m going to have to figure out how to actually teach English. I’m sure there is a “Teaching ESL for Dummies” book out there that would suite me just fine!

After dinner me and the family feasted on mangoes - what a wonderful end to a terrible day!