Thursday, August 2, 2007

Visiting Team - Update

This is Kirstin, Trish’s daughter. The fever that my mom mentioned in the last post has her down for the count, so I decided to write a blog about the visiting team (also mentioned in the last post).

Sheesh, where do I start?

As previously stated, my mom is sick with a fever, a headache, and cough (the pain in her side is gone). Other sick people include Rachel, Boo and Gus (my younger siblings). Yes, Rachel is in charge of meals for the team. She is still plugging away and plodding along, being careful to only handle food that will be cooked. Ellen, Rhoda and I are taking care of whatever she doesn’t dare touch (they are our gringo translators). Some of the team members have also been sick with tummy troubles, but for the most part they are on their feet ready to mix cement.

About ten members of the team have been going up to our property everyday to dig the foundation for one of our team houses. Yesterday, we started to mix cement. We also managed to spot several of the “ugly mystery bugs” and get sunburned. The original plan was for the team members to take turns going to the property and going to the medical clinics, but one group had to go to the property twice, because . . . the medical team got stuck up the mountain.

This is a team of firsts - the first team we ever hosted in Gracias (this was last year), the first team to work on the MV property, the first team to spend the night outside of Gracias and the first medical team to service Monte Verde in years, which is where they got stuck. The road to Monte Verde has been horse-only for a long time, but recently the government graded it. The First Lady’s Office requested that we take our medical team on the two and a half hour drive up there. On Tuesday, the medical portion of our team started up the recently graded road, which will probably remain passable for only a short time. I have been informed that at one point all three four-wheel drive trucks were trapped in mud, and that they did not managed to get moving again until late afternoon. Since it would be dark before they could get back down the mountain, my dad decided to continue on up, and so they slept in the town they were planing to visit. Yesterday afternoon they came home, tired and bruised. Rachel, who went with them, still cooked us pancakes this morning. What a trooper.

Today the medical team is going to La Iguala, and possibly the construction team will just go with them.

This is the part of the show where someone says “at least it can’t get any worse,” and then it does. Wow, I hope not.

1 comment:

Ryan said...

I was on that mountain with the team.