Category: Mexico

We just finished our second day of the medical trip. Yesterday was a long day as we got started at 4:30 in the morning leaving the house to travel to the location. I went with another missionary in town. We did not hit the bed until 10 last night, which was really the first time to sit down and relax all day.

We got to the meeting place and met with the team. They consist of 35 doctors and young people. It is split about half and half between doctors and medical students. The students are from Columbia (MO) University. The doctors are from all over the US. We have different specialties that are represented in the group.

The picture is from the first day of the clinic. We are in a different village each day. This picture is from the town of Yalcoba. Today we were Uama. In the picture you see a doctor speaking English, a translator speaking Spanish who is talking to another translator who is speaking Maya to the lady in the photo. We had need of Spanish and Maya translators. Maya is still very commonly spoken in the villages, especially among the older population.

I am not sure where we will be the rest of the week. But they will be other villages much like the two we have already visited.

One of our local attractions is in the running to be one of the new list of Seven Wonders of the World. The final votes will be counted 7-7-07 (get it?). Chichén Itzá has made it into the final running. There has been quite a bit of press coverage over the last few days about it.

The committe from Switzerland was here on Tuesday to experience a celebration of the locals showing off our wonder. (hmm, I know I read in the newspaper yesterday that the committee was from Switzerland, but I don’t find anything to support that now that I am looking on line.)

Today it was announced in the paper that the Pyramid (or Castillo) at Chichén Itzá has made it into the final 21 choices. So far there have been 27,000,000 votes cast! Wow!

Chichén is about an hour and a half from here. I have been about 5 times. It is a great place to go if the person/group that is going is at all interested and can appreciate what they are seeing. If they just want to see Mayan ruins, there are plenty of really cool places that are smaller and closer to town. That way it does not take all day and you don’t feel obligated to walk your legs off.

I had another day off that did not feel like one. My normal Saturday activities were canceled today and I ended agreeing to take a projector and film out to a village for the evening. The pastor who asked me to do this wanted me to provide the film. I have no films that are appropriate for what he wanted.

I had the film lined up, but got a call this afternoon from the person I was borrowing the it from who said that I could use the film but it would not be available until Sunday afternoon. I went into panic mode and started calling around to others who might have one of the two particular shows the pastor mentioned he wanted. I talked to 8 different people trying to locate a film. Finally one of them told me about a book store that was open late on Saturdays downtown. Most of downtown is closed by 2:00 or 4:00 on Saturdays. It was after 4:00 when he told me this.

I buzzed down town and found the store, but they did not have the film I needed. Then I was on my way home when I spotted another bookstore that was open till 5:00. I got in with 10 minutes to spare. They had one of the films.

With all of this going on, I also lost my projector today. I have a business that I rent projectors from. I have rented from them several times and they almost always have a projector available. Today I showed up before closing time to grab a unit…they were already closed. I called their cell number. Ended up that they had an event (they are a media production company) that they would be tied up at till 11:00 tonight. I needed the projector by 5:00. Two other friends who have projectors were using theirs today. I ended up borrowing one from another friend and was able to pick that up on my way out of town headed to the village.

I got going late, was late getting the projector, talked a few minutes and got on the highway late. I was not there as early as I would have liked, but got the system set up about the time they originally said they wanted to start–7:00. No surprise, but we did not start on time.

It really was a great event. It was well attended by many people in the small village. The church is actually located a village over, but they have people come from this village to their church. There were no public decisions for Christ.

And all I wanted to do today was have a long run and work on a computer program. I got my long run done and the rest of the day was spent running around town looking for film and projector.