This morning after breakfast of a boiled egg, beans, white bread, and liquid cereal we went to school. Patty covered ¨la familia¨before 10 a.m. then we headed out on a field trip. Today Patty has a ´practical´at the hospital for her training as a physical therapist. We found ourselves stuffed into a more or less 15 passenger van/bus for 1 quetzale (about 15 cents) and I had to pay her fair. I counted 22 people in that bus not including the driver and the ´town crier´who hangs out of the door drumming up passengers as it is his job to fill the bus. It was an experience! Remember that there are no stop signs and I believe only one red light signal that I know of and street markings are for show! Nobody dies!!!!
At the hospital I was able to see the ´hand and arm´portion of PT with pulley ropes with weights and hand massage from my perch in the hallway. I could not follow Patty in with the patient in small cubicles with curtains across the doors. They looked much the same as those from the Rehab center in Iowa. I sat next to a woman working on a blouse that she was crocheting while she waited from her husband. The hallways of the hospital were dark as are most places I have been in. There is a cost factor involved in using electricity here. Don struggles with the lack of light more than I do.
After PT we went to a huge shopping mall. While window shopping we studied Spanish by naming everything we saw. It was Chick Spanish¨for women or ¨español para mujers¨. While adding to my vocabulary we exchanged ideas on the clothes we like best, counted the number of stores from the USA (Burger King, Taco Bell, Subway, to name some). We had a great day.
Once again we ran across the director, Marlo, and got ourselves invited to a poetry reading at Patty´s college in the evening. We we got as much out of the evening was we did a Mass on Sunday--lets be nice and say we understood about 10 words.
Day is done!
