One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Medical

Today was an early start as we got on the bus at 8am set for Santa Rita. We had 4 different work crews going today, 3 construction and 1 medical. My crew, Sophie, Kathryn Scully, Sean and I worked with Antonio to built a latrine. We were dubbed the ambulance crew by Olman since all of us are either currently or have been slightly under the weather (don't worry parents, everyone is being taken care of- nothing a little extra water and pepto can't solve) . Nonetheless, the latrine was built! Our group also practiced our Spanish, learning key words like: martillo, clavo, escoba, pila y cuchara. We got back to the church after walking to two more work sites to try and built a stove and another latrine, but the supplies had not been delivered. On our walk back we stopped and visited Norm and Cindy's crew who were on their second sink of the day. Travis' crew had finished a stove and were onto building stairs for the office in the church. The energy was as high as the temperature!!
Once back at the church, we started vacation bible school and focused on the story of the loaves and the fishes. A few things we learned:

1. Children, like fish, travel in gigantic schools when you are the one with the stickers
2. If you are going to put out pom poms, plastic eyes, and pipe cleaners it works better to hand them out than to create one big pile and try to fend off attacks ;-)
3. The lesson was not lost, we learned to share what all we had

- Monica

It's never felt so good to be around so many sick people. I sat there at the makeshift "check-in" desk along with Sam, as we ripped up pieces of loosleaf and made some forms with basic information--things like name, age, where do you live, complaints/symptoms, etc. There was a sheet hanging from a clothesline in the back of our "clinic" (which was being held inside a basic, rectangular room with four windows, concrete floor, and plastic chairs) for private meetings with the doctor. Lynne and Dave manned the blood-pressure and temperature station while Sharon and Libby rationed out the prescribed medicines. There was a line of people standing outside before we were ready, but we got started as soon as possible. (to be continued by Katie Bailey)