Saving Lives

9/7/2010

 
Alright so here is the long awaited concluding post. I apologize that it is so long in coming, but the past few weeks have been a slow flurry of events. Not that I was actually doing all that much besides hanging out with people, but you know how it goes when there are people around, you just don't feel social sitting down and writing a blog posting. ANYWAY I found this blog posting that i had not posted. I will write a conclusion in the next posting

Ok so I am sure that many of you who read this will be furious that I did what I did, but today I donated blood. I have been wanting to for a while but didn’t have an opportunity until today. I made sure to ask around and make sure that things were safe, and I was very aware of the procedures they used ( and when I wasn’t happy enough with their method of cleaning my arm I cleaned it more myself). Anyway, all is well so far. However the more important thing is that I actually found out right away who my blood was going to. Turns out that Jose Manuel Reyes needed A+ blood, and the hospital did not have any to give him. His mom was fervently praying that there would be some way for them to receive the blood, and I happened to decide to donate today. It was such a sweet moment of seeing God work in mysterious ways. I will not be able to donate for about a year after I get back which is why I was so eager to donate here, and it is so sweet to know that someone could use my blood right away.

Tonight we went to Delia’s house again for dinner. We had so much fun with her and Paula. Delia has not been working during the days this week and so we were really concerned that we would not see her again before we left, and we were not getting a hold of her by calling her so we decided to just walk to her house. As fate/God would have it she drove by as we were walking and we got a ride. Paula was there too and we spent the evening dancing, learning new Spanish, teaching more English, making topoios, calling random men that they were trying to hook us up with, etc. Everyone here is absolutely obsessed with matchmaking, boyfriends, marriage, etc. It is pretty incredible.

Today was also an interesting day because Amber was gone to La Ceiba so I was in the hospital on my own. I was planning on helping Jairo with rewiring a room, however he had Cutin helping him and I was literally just sitting on my butt, so I decided that I could do better things with my time. So I left and tried to do some interviews. I had a fairly good interview with Tanya in Laboratorio (which is also why I decided to donate blood today, cause I was sitting in the donation room) and then I also conducted one with some of the nurses and doctors in Labor y Parto. It seems to be difficult to really find needs that it will be easy to focus down into one specific need, but hopefully there is some useful information that results. Sandra has been really helpful and she said that she was going to ask around and get more info. It never ceases to amaze me how welcoming people here are. For example, I had a lot of free time today, so I went and bought the women in laundry a pepsi and just sat and chatted with them for a while. Then I was really hot and the room for x-ray is airconditioned so I decided to just go sit in there for a while and I met Jackie and chatted with her for a while. It really doesn’t matter if I don’t know them at all, they are just so willing to welcome us into their rooms and chat for a bit. The other day there was another x-ray technician who also invited us in to the room to just relax for a bit and cool off. I have been really trying to take advantage of my free moments to build relationships, sit and listen and ask questions. I think it really has been such an encouraging experience for me to see how much just building relationships really can help. In the states I feel like there is less opportunity to just sit and drink a Pepsi together, but here that is what life really is about. And that is certainly something I will miss!

Anyway, it is late, and tomorrow is our last full day here so we have LOTS to do!! I wish I had just a few more days, but even then I am sure it would still not be enough.

 

Blessings!

Ginnie
9/14/2010 06:31:53 am

Jen I really enjoyed reading your last few posts! gosh all of it sounds so exciting.. and that is incredible about giving blood!


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