Day 9: Village of Santa Familia

Our new favorite thing to run around saying is “por favor te mantengo se allanhado de los puertos.” That really just means “please stand clear of the doors” and I only know it from growing up near Disney world and taking endless rides on the monorail. You should see the faces of the people in town when we say it and wave with a completely straight face.
Another thing I’ve been meaning to write about is the tarantulas that we have officially started finding. We’ve killed two of the mother tarantulas. They were in the hallway of Sara, Ellie, and PZ’s hall. About the side of a tennis ball, we stepped on them to smash them and several hundred tiny little baby tarantulas came running out alive. This happened twice and it’s rather one of the most disturbing sights ever. Actually, it reminded me a lot of a scene from the move Arachnaphobia.
Today was slow! We started out with rain once again! Suddenly, no one is making fun of Audrey for packing her galoshes because they have come in incredibly handy. Now everybody is borrowing them.
We did see about 40 patients, but I think the rain kept many more away. When it rains here, it pours too! We wrapped up the clinic early today, but still managed to treat some life threatening conditions.












We left and went to another village to meet with a 70 year old practicing shaman. He took us on a long walk through his sacred rainforest where hundreds of healing plants and medicines could be found. He took us back to a grass hut and explained what they all did- including everything from treating diarrhea to treating male impotence. He has so much knowledge in his head, but he has none of it on paper so he’s trying to teach the generations to follow. After the rainforest hike and presentation, he conducted a simple Mayan prayer and we closed the night.

We’re all tired today, just finished dinner, and are going to spend some time hanging out with each other and recharging our emotional bank accounts.