Nik@nite: It's not a party til somebody's pushing the bus...

So below is a video representing our week in the barrio clinics. It couldn’t have been more fun...we had to get out of the bus and push or walk no fewer than 10 times. And watching Perdomo herding the oxen to pull our bus out of the creek bed/hole was classic.

I don't always have my own pictures of myself working but my friend Chris North hooked me up with a bunch. So here goes- here’s what I do when I’m not helping in the clinic or the schools or organizing stuff around here. We were with a bunch of great kids from Ohio and then Ohio Northern University over the last three weeks and I’ve seen some beautiful country. We’ve been up in the mountains and in some locations with no electricity. I’ve learned that water is power. With accessibility to water...you can have a garden and grow food. You can have cows and goats that produce milk. It makes a huge difference. So it was interesting as Chris interviewed folks and checked out our locations and we noted the change in places with constant water flow (the aqueducts are sometimes complete works of art here) versus those with little. I felt like I got yet another glimpse into the real life of the folks here. And of course there are the patients who will stay branded into my mind forever. The 16 year old with the heart condition. The man with a Parkinson’s-like disease who invited us to his house where we sat under a beautiful grove of mango trees. He told us that all of his children had been in the Child Nutrition Program years ago and were healthy adults today. It made me cry a little bit when I was talking to Perdomo about it. The woman with the baby with probable pneumonia. The woman with a 4 year old with severe self-mutilating and violent behavior issues who cried when I pulled her aside to pray for them in the church. That beautiful little girl had such amazing light-brown eyes...so full of darkness...so full of pain...crying...sobbing. We tried to speak truth into her...tell her how beautiful she was...how God had a plan for her life. Que pena. What pain. Her mother suffers alone...trying to keep her from hurting herself and others. And what do we have to offer...except to hold her hand and pray.

Okay it's not work but these shoeshine boys/street kids are just about my favorite thing. I found these two in the back of my truck when I was driving through town. :) You can see that I can't keep a straight face while I'm trying to yell at them.