GO TIME!

It's time to get our game-faces on. Carey and I hosted the first of our 20+ teams in 2009 (a dental team from Oregon), and now we're hosting a team from Florida to help us get ready for the big preschool opening celebration this Saturday (the school officially opens on Feb. 2). Some pics from the action...
Represent! Dr. Black and Tina from Oregon! (they're Beavers, not Ducks)
Open wide! At the clinic we do both fillings and extractions, but in remote rural locations (like here in Lacama), we just YANK (2-3 per patient). Unfortunately, many of the people don't brush and for a comfort food/cheap treat, drink too many sodas and eat a lot of sweets.
Favorite moment: an elderly Mayan woman comes in complaining of a tooth ache. I try to ask in broken Spanish which tooth she needs pulled. She opens wide, the dentist and I peer in...and she only has one tooth left! ; )
The team took photos of kids and families and printed them on photo printers they brought. It was a huge hit b/c the people don't have the opportunity to take photos (for obvious reasons). The frame above was pain-stakingly decorated by one gentleman. He was SO proud of this photo of his family.
Each little village has a "Committee" that gathers occasionally to make decisions affecting the community. A very important meeting was taking place when we arrived in Lacama b/c another nearby town had just taken justice into their own hands and killed several men who were kidnapping and ransoming locals. Unfortunately, with slow police/government response, this kind of vigilante justice is not that uncommon.U.S.A.! Dr. Black's son teaching 4 locals life's most important lesson: how to play american football.
Jay with one of our translators, Fernando. Nice guy - too bad that ugly jacket will make this his last time working with us.

Members of the Florida team teaching Jose, one of our other translators, the Hokey-Pokey. Guatemaltecos agree: this is clearly NOT what it is all about.

Floridians making up for their election year gaffes in 2000 by building the second level of the preschool and preparing the classrooms.

If you're the praying sort we could use a couple... I'm sure Carey has a lot on her mind trying to train her two teachers and get everything ready for the daily growing number of students signing up for the school, and I have now graduated from amoebic dysentery to the wonderful world of some yet-to-be-determined stomach bacteria. We both need to be at our best during this important time. Thanks!

Love you,

Jay