The Big Day!

Our numbers continue to grow.  Evan Conner joined us today.  He is a HHI volunteer who plans on attending medical school in the future.  He joined us just in time for the grand opening of the clinic.

The morning started early for us as usual.  The unusual thing was that several of us volunteered to run a marathon from the lake to the clinic.  One of our guides said it was about 8.5 kilometers or around five miles.

Hanna led the pack and eventually won a trophy for her efforts.  Being the old man of the bunch, I'm tickled to say I completed the run in just under 45 minutes.  Not bad, even if I do say so myself.  A rough run considering the grade was anywhere between 30 and 80 percent.  It seems like it was nearly straight up hill at times. 

Unfortunately our internet access is still less than ideal so we'll have to proceed without pictures or video.  MNU was able to skype the dedication ceremony back to Olathe to an audiance of about 35 students and HHI employees.  Dr. Morsch thinks it may be picked up by the local TV stations in Kansas City.

The people of Patanatic came out en masse to witness and support the dedication today.  Rough estimates had about 500 people in attendance.  There were many, many speeches.  Wes McCoy and Eric Unruh were the lead recripients.  A local artist painted a number of scenes of the clinic with volcano San Padro in the background.  They were so new that when they were presented, several of them were still moist with paint.

An interesting contrast between cultures involved the singing of the national anthems.  Our Guatemalan hosts sang a soft, melodic rendition of their national anthem and then it was our turn.  We knew we were out numbers 25:1, we sang with gusto!  We were proud to represent Rotary, HHI, MNU, Kansas and the good ole US of A!

Paz