Guatemala 2016

November 5-14 we took part in another trip to Central America.  We went to Guatemala, principally in Quetzaltenango.  Here are some photos of some of our experiences there doing dentistry and also some humanitarian projects.

In the above photo you can see me in action here with my assistant Joe Horst.  He is a pre dental student and did a tremendous job assisting.  He was great getting instruments to sterilization and never seemed to tire.

 Steve and Matt were the incredible guys who were on top of things in the sterilization area with the autoclaves.  They got the instruments back to us and there were few if any mixups that I was aware of

 Each day a small group of the providers and the rest of the staff were able to go out and do some kind of humanitarian experience.  Some went to some homes of selected families and left them gifts, food and things like that to help lighten their troubles a bit.

 Here our friend Kristie Rogers is giving this family a beautiful quilt.  Kristin was incredible with the rest of our humanitarian team organizing and distributing a lot of things.  We had over 100 duffle bags that weighed about 50 lbs each full of stuff.

 A lot of homes are quite rustic like this one.

 Our humanitarian experience was at an orphanage.  Here I am with a bunch of kids showing them pictures of my grandchildren.

 The children are so precious and beautiful.

 On this visit this young woman was given a violin.  She has evidently shown incredible interest in music and word somehow got to our group that this would be an incredibly wonderful gift.

 I wanted to bring these two home with me.

 Here is my wife playing jump the rope games with some of the children at the orphanage.

 This is a photo of Joyce back at the clinic area as she is assisting one of the oral surgeons.  All of our anesthesia was local anesthetic.  We had to be careful on how much we could give because they are smaller in stature and we had to take care we did not give too much over a period of time.

 This is the board that kept track of where we were at as far as patients to see.  Each time a young patient was seated a yellow sticky with the number was put on the board.  At this time it is probably close to 8pm in the evening.

 One humanitarian excursion was to a Newborn Infant center in one of the hospitals.  Here New Born packets were given out that had some much needed supplies for the new baby and mother.

 These towns in the mountains are laid out a lot differently than the streets in the Salt Lake Valley are.

 When you visit homes and see these kinds of situations it is suddenly easy to appreciate the circumstances of life that we have.

 Here is a visit to another orphanage and they are going after a piñata.

 These young people that we took care of were wonderful throughout the clinic time we had.  This young woman not only was beautiful but we was so appreciative of the little bit of dentistry we did for her.

 This young man touched me immensely.  After we finished, he jumped up out of the chair and just hugged me and expressed how appreciative he was.

 Here is Joyce with our friend Nancy Ochoa.  She currently is living in the Guatemala City area.  This picture is in La Antigua and it is a shopping day, the last day of our trip.  We were able to acquire some gifts and souvenirs.  Originally we had planned to play some golf at a course nearby named La Reunion, but the Volcano Fuego erupted and threw some ash around and the course was closed.  Why I have no idea.  It is not that tough to golf through some volcanic ash and stuff.

 No, I do not do these kinds of veneers on the front four teeth.  She seemed to like them though.

It is pretty hard not to appreciate a face like this.  All in all we had a wonderful experience in Guatemala.  We worked hard, traveled hard and gave everything we could.  We have wonderful friends, we made some new friends that we cherish.  This is a perfect way I think to express my thanks at this Thanksgiving time.

36

Years that is.  June 29, 1979, Logan Utah.  She decided she would, so we did.  What a great life together!

In Front of the Supreme Court Last Tuesday

I had to walk from the Hart Senate Building over to the Cannon Office Building and then back to the Hart Building and then back to the Cannon Building last Tuesday.  If was busy in front of the Supreme Court Building.  I asked one of the Capitol Police Officers how many were in the force just for the Capitol Building; 1700 was the answer.  That's more than we have in my county, by far.  Anyway here are how things looked.  Observing some of the people it verified a maxim I often recite:  If you hang around long enough you will see just about everything.

Honor Flight

We had some time to kill Tuesday between visits with the Utah Congressional Delegation so we walked down to the Air Space Museum.  Yes, there is a McDonalds in there and we were hungry.  While eating a big group came in.  Honor Flight.  WWII Vets.  I loved talking to a few of them.  They are going to be gone in a few more years.  And yes they were eating McDonalds.  It was better than anything they had in Northern Africa, Sicily or Normandy; Guadalcanal or Okinawa.  All of them at least in their mid to late 80's and some 90's.  I hope we don't ever have to go through that again; I doubt we could do it again.

Around the White House

I was walking around the White House and noticed something different from the last time I was there a year ago.  There has been a fence around the White House with guarded gates from some time.  Now there is a small fence to protect the larger fence.  I guess the guy that jumped the fence has spooked the Secret Service so this is a stop gap measure.  Last year I had a great conversation with one of the Secret Service cops.  This year they did not look like they wanted to participate in any banter.  I went around the Old Executive Building and made my way through the Ellipse area.  There are some statues here and there--all blocked off.  I was wondering if I lived in the "land of the free" still.  Everywhere you go it is like this.  Even during the Civil War people could walk up to the White House and knock on the door.

Watching Kids Watch Kids

Some of the more lighthearted moments in my profession is when I have a youngster in my dental chair and brother or sister wants to watch.  They say stuff like "What's that red stuff?'  or "You know he never brushes his teeth."   I have one youngster who almost sticks his head in his older siblings mouths while I am working.  I love it.

Proud of My Street

For the past 6 days there has been a football sitting on the sidewalk across the street.  Just sitting there.  One might think the owner of the football must be lazy for not putting it away; and that may be true.  But the point I am trying to make is it just sat there.  Nobody stole it, nobody kicked it, nobody bothered it because it wasn't their's.  The same thing happens with bikes and things. They can lay on the grass for days and they just sit there.  I kind of like that.