The beach and a Prosthetics shop

Kids with hotdogs at the beach
Denise with 2 of the kids
This kid kept wanting to use my camera. This is his self foto. He got some really good pictures, better than any I take.
The little kids start learning surfing in the pool before they even start in the ocean.


I said I’d write about going to the beach with the street kids. It was WONDERFUL. It was a bit overwhelming to walk into a yard full of 45 kids from 3 to 18 years of age but we jumped into the pool with them and had a great time. I don’t know how these kids come to be at the shelter, but they refer to the foster parents as Mom and Dad. I’m guessing they may have been abandoned or mistreated and removed from homes. The place is run by an Australian couple. They look to be in their late 60s. They have young volunteers from all over the world, mostly English speaking countries. The little kids speak quite a bit of English now.

I was surprised at the kids. I´m guessing they must get some very good care, attention and have strong supervision because they were very well behaved and, for that many little kids, and assuming not great backgrounds, there were VERY few squabbles. They try to keep the kids busy. They have a home on the beach where they take them 3 weekends a month. The home has a pool with a baby pool in the huge back yard and a gate out to the beach.

We spent a lot of time at the beach. Those little kids were like fish. They had absolutely no fear of the water. There were huge waves crashing in and the little 4 and 5 yr olds were just diving right into them and laughing all the way! The bigger kids were surfing and teaching the next smaller kids how to surf.

We all had a great time. When my sunburn heals I want to go back!

The International Red Cross came to the Albergue Jesus el Buen Pastor today. They came with 2 prosthetists. Olga has wanted to set up a place where we can make prosthesis at the Albergue, but she is getting a bakery and a tire store set up first.

Well, these folks came wanting to know what our needs would be in relationship to setting up a shop for making prosthesis. It seems there was a place in Guatemala that was all set up but it didn’t take off, so all of the equipment is in storage in a basement. It looks like if we want to take advantage of this, we will need to build the building and find someone who is trained as a prosthetist. (Pick me, pick me---In 1980 I wanted to do that and I still have an interest, but it would take another 3 years of school. There are SO many things here that I want to do.)

They also said you need to be making a couple of hundred prostheses to really be worth setting up a shop. Kathrin has data that says by Sept of 2007 there had been 225 Hondurans who had had traumatic amputations in Mexico and were deported back to Honduras. With those numbers, calculating the percentage of immigrants from each country, she figures there were probably about 250 Hondurans, about 200 Guatemalans, and a few less Nicaraguans and Salvadorans who had amputations in Mx from train accidents in 2007.

The immigrants jump a cargo train to travel up through Mexico. In 2005 Hurricane Sam destroyed the tracks here in Tapachula, near the border. Now people walk or find other means of transportation to get to where the train starts up again. (One of those places is Arriaga, where I go to help for one week a month.) So now the accidents happen further north in Mexico where they get hurt hopping on the trains or fall off when they are tired after riding 2-3 days.

In those other cities they are taken to the hospitals, basic surgery done, and within a couple of days Immigration ships them back to their own countries. If we had a prosthetics shop here, we would talk with the hospitals, International Red Cross, Grupo Beto (Mx government employees who’s job is to aid immigrants), and immigration to see if they couldn’t be transferred here instead of shipped back to their countries.

So, this is one more iron that is going into the pot here. I’ll keep you informed if more comes of it.

Lillian in Taspachula

Fun

Saturday, Feb 23, 2008
Hi. This is just a quick note to say, yes, I did go to the water falls Sunday and had a great time. It was about 1 1/2 hrs from here by combis (those mini vans) and walking. As we were riding up into the hills/low mts we started smelling something so beautiful. It was the coffee bushes in full bloom. I can´t tell seasons here yet, but it seemed like it must be spring there with all of the trees in bloom. There were orchids hanging all over. They weren´t in bloom yet, but the plants were there.
The day was perfect; blue sky, little yellow birds, butterflies, the mist of the waterfalls on our faces, and no sounds except the sounds of nature. We saw horses and donkeys carrying gunny sacks of coffee beans up the path---all pure back to nature.

There were cashew trees. Cashews are so interesting. They start with a blossom, produce a huge nut shell, then continue producing a fruit that turns red. So, to look at the tree with the full fruit and nut you would see the branch, a red fruit about the size of 1/2 of your palm, then from the end of that is the nut that looks like a parrots beak. The fruit has a real dry tart taste.
I´ve also had Cocoa beans from the pod. The beans are sweet to suck on, then you wash and dry them, grind them and add sugar for chocolate.
I haven´t picked my mango yet, but there are mango trees in the back yard of the albergue so I hope to do that soon! Others have picked them and I´ve eaten them the same day they were picked. There is definitely a difference between picking it right off the tree and eating it and how we get it in the grocery stores up north.

Tomorrow I will be going to the ocean with Mayra (from here), Denise and Kathrin (from Germany), and 40-50 kids (from 4-18yrs old) from a shelter for street kids. I´ve not met any of the kids yet but Kathrin knows someone who works at that shelter so we´re all going along to help. It´s a way for me to get to the beach and I´m looking forward to making contacts with that shelter. I´ll let you know more after Sunday.

I guess my biggest accomplishment this week is that I´m driving more independently. I´m either driving Doris (Olga´s sister) for her errands or am driving alone. It feels good to know how to get around a little more.

We have started taking 3 of the residents of the shelter for physical therapy/rehab twice a week. They won´t do the therapy unless one of us is with them. Luckily, that means me! I am learning the exercises then work with the residents when they get back home. I had been working with 2 of the men but I guess I was way too easy on them. I would slowly do a few stretching exercises with each of them. At therapy they worked their tails off-----so I´m doing the same thing now! I´m getting more set for starting a rehab/exercise room at the shelter. I´ve gotten ¨stress reliever¨ balls for many who have had hand injuries (attacked with a machete, bitten by a cottonmouth snake, brain tumor, stroke) and they all faithfully carry them around and work with them. Today I got some stretch cords so they´ll be able to do some exercises more independently. I´m looking forward to setting up something nice for them and working with them.
I´ll let you know how the ´gym´ progresses too.

I´m still working on learning how to send pictures. I have lots and wish I could send them. I learned what I´m doing wrong but don´t know how to correct it yet.

Lillian

Notes from Arriaga.

Feb 12, 2008-02-10
I’m back at the Albergue Señor de la Misericordia in Arriaga this week.
Again the hemorrhage of people leaving Central America is overwhelming.
Yesterday I registered 26 men and 5 women from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. (Sixty-eight people were registered in the last 3 days.) Most are coming from Honduras. Nine came from one village in Honduras. They came in 3 different groups, none of them knowing that the others were coming. When they met here at the shelter it was the first time they knew that the others were also heading for the US. When I asked about it, they said you don’t talk about that. It’s all kept hush hush.

I don’t know why, but for some reason it seems like people think immigrants are fair game to attack and rob. (I guess that’s not a whole lot different from the prevailing political attitude towards immigrants in the US.) It seems that by being so vulnerable, it brings out the worst in people. They are robbed by bandits and gangs. They are made to pay bribes to immigration, federal and local police. I saw some statistics that said 51% of the abuses they receive are at the hands of the authorities. In the last 3 days I’ve registered 13 women. Of those 13, 1 had been raped and 12 had been robbed. Of the 55 men I’ve registered 26 had been robbed.

Bus drivers and taxis over charge them and tell them that if they don’t pay, they’ll turn them in to immigration. One guy this morning said they took 7 different combis (vans that transport people like a mini bus system) yesterday. Each combi should have cost about 20 pesos ($2). The first combi charged them 50 pesos and kept handing them over to the next passing on the word that they were to be charged 50 pesos each time. So, they were each overcharged 210 pesos (about $21). They knew it but there was nothing they could do.

Just to give you an idea of what $21 means to the poor, one of those men worked in a Maquiladora in El Salvador. He was paid $35 for a 7 day week. So, being over charged $21 was the equivalent of over 4 day’s labor. Try putting your salary into that equation, what is 4 days of labor worth?

On a lighter note. I told you it was hot here. Well, I use a fan most nights. For a couple of nights in Arriaga, my fan wasn’t working. I didn’t know that the fan not only helped for the heat, but it keeps the mosquitoes away! I was slapping my head, ears, face and arms all night. My face looks like I got a bad case of measles! Actually, I took a picture of it and it does show up---feo (Ugly)!

Feb 15, I left Arriaga today. Exhausted but glad that I had been there. When I leave I wish I didn’t have to leave. I want to just stay there. (That’s the same way I feel when I’m leaving Tapachula!) When I got back to Tapachula, Olga was asking me about my time in Arriaga. She looked like she was checking me out to see if I was going to tell her I was going to stay in Arriaga. Then she said there is so much stuff happening here, she is so glad I’m back. They had one guy here from Honduras who had been in a coma after being beaten. He was brought to the shelter while I was gone and he died. She said there are several more new people for me to be seeing. I’m looking forward to that.

I am starting to miss having friends around to play. I’ve met a couple of people that I think may become playmates!! I’ll keep you posted on the fun now too! Actually, I do laugh a lot here. That is probably why I’m able to just keep on with work and be happy. It’s kind of like being on the farm. You don’t count the hours you’ve been working, it’s just life and living.

Oh, PS. I have to tell you about the Duct tape. It was a great success. I saw people who had walked from Tapachula to Arriaga (It took us 4 hrs by car.) Their legs and feet were swollen, blisters over half of the feet. I cleaned them, put on Zinc Oxide and the duct tape, and they walked out of there!!!---Well, some of them did still limp, but they said it felt a lot better!

Lillian

Ash Wednesday

Tomorrow I`m leaving Tapachula to spend the next week at the shelter in Arriaga (Señor de Misericordia). I won´t have internet access for a week so I´m writing a short note before I go.

I´ve taken a big risk---I´m driving now! (Maybe it´s Olga who´s taken the big risk letting me drive!) I definitely need a copilot for a while. I need someone to tell me when I have preferencia (right of way) and need to keep moving through intersections so I don´t get hit from behind, and when I don´t have preferencia (right of way) so need to yield. It´s marked by red arrows (preferencia) or black arrows (no preferencia) painted on the corner buildings. I also need that copilot to tell me where to go. I am catching on to how to get to San Juan, Sam´s club, Chedraui, and Ahrrorar (the places where we buy in bulk), the hospital, the shelter Albergue Jesus el Buen Pastor, and immigration. I still have some difficulties finding my way home!
I´ve found immigration because I´m getting the equivalent of my ¨green card¨.
I can find the shelter because that is where I try to spend as much time as I can. I´ve been giving rehab. Mostly what I do is listen and talk with people while I am able to physically touch them--range of motion, strengthening, stretching exercises or massage. I´ve always treasured being able to place hands on people as something special that a nurse can do. Socially it´s not possible for others to touch the way a nurse or therapist can.
While I´m doing therapy I hear stories. A lot of stories about chanaged lives. D is a young man that had bilateral amputations. We started out talking about phantom pains. It ended up moving into talking about self acceptance and his spiritual journey. He said ¨we were each given a life to desarollar (develop). When my legs were cut off, I was given the opportunity to desarollar a different life.¨ That was so powerful and it came from deep inside of him, not some pious platitude. It didn´t happen for him overnight. He´s had his amputations for 3 years and he´s worked hard and prayed hard. He´s joyful, helpful, positive, funny, sensitive, grounded. When I asked him what he was like before, he said, ¨not like this.¨
One of my first impressions at the shelter was the joy that is so present. I didn´t expect it. After that conversation, I have a better understanding of the spiritual development that happens at the albergue. I´m appreciating the opportunity to learn and hopefully develop my spiritual life just being here.
With this I´ll close until after next week.
Good lent to you all,
Lillian

Background

Feb 2, 2008

I think I jumped into this blog without really giving a background on how I came to be here, who Olga is, or what the shelter is about. So, I’ll try to back up to fill you all in on this.

Last spring a friend said, ¨You’ve got to read Enrique’s Journey.¨ I did and I think you all should too! The book is the story of a young man’s journey from Honduras to the US. His mother left him and his sister with his grandmother to come to the US to be able to support them. It talked about her struggles and the struggles of those left behind without their mother. His journey was horrific. He was beaten and sent back many times but was determined to find his mother. The journalist who wrote the book stayed here at Olga’s house and in one part she talked about Olga and this shelter, Jesus el Buen Pastor. When I read that piece I just put the book down and said to myself, “I have to go there and do whatever I can.”
I started researching in the internet and found several sites, found a connection, and came down in Oct with another sister to check it out. When I got here it felt so right. Meeting Olga, I felt comfortable and right at home. Kathrin is a young woman from Germany who has been here for 4 years. I also felt very comfortable with her. So from then I started making plans to come down.

Olga is a woman a few years younger than I. She’s married and has 3 teen/young adult kids. She visited patients in the hospital and found so many from Central America who had been injured on their journey. Their wounds resulted from being attacked by people with machetes, shot by the police, immigration, or bandits, fallen or thrown off of trains and suffering traumatic amputations and whatever else might occur on the journey. When these people were being discharged from the hospital they had nowhere to go and no one to care for them. She said ¨Stay with me,¨ and they did. When her house could no longer hold them, someone loaned them a house. In 2004 President Fox (?) gave her a human rights award. With the money from that award she bought some land and material and the men who were staying at the shelter built it.

The shelter does have some money that comes from a Kellogg grant to cover some salaries. But, all the work that we do buying and selling little bits here and there is all for the possibility of keeping the shelter running and for the needs of the shelter guests-------- or whoever else calls on her (such as the burial for the man who died that I wrote about previously.)

Olga has dreams of making the shelter self supporting. She says, “If not, who is going to support this after I die?” She is in the process of setting up a shop for tire repair. (If you’ve driven these roads, you would also think that was a good idea!!!) She has ordered the equipment and needs another $8,000 to pay for the rest of that and expects to be able to build the shop for another $10,000. She also wants to set up a bakery and candy store in the back of the Albergue/Shelter as part of this self sufficiency plan. The shelter guests would be the employees. It will be a way for shelter guests to have employment and reinforce that they are useful and able to support themselves.

My dreams are a little more modest. I did say OK to being the official ¨nurse¨ at the shelter. For me that means I want to set up a rehab area. So, I’m out looking for a few basic things like elastic exercise therabands, a mirror so they can see themselves. Walking bars, an exercise ball, and I’ll need a copy of the Dr. Charles A. Long balance exercises. (Chuck, could you email those to me please?)

Before saying “yes” to being the clinic nurse, I did talk to Olga about going to Arriaga one week a month to help out at that shelter and do some foot care education too. She´s ok with that.
I think I´ve found a niche that is fitting so well!
Take care all
Lillian

Jan 31, 2008--Arriaga shelter and Tap therapist

I’m home sick today. My nose is running like a garden hose. I just plug the holes and it runs out my eyes! I’ve taken something for it but it doesn’t seem to touch it. However, it is giving me a chance to learn how to do this blog site. I’ll also wash my clothes (by hand). I don’t let them pile up or I could never catch up.

I said I went to Arriaga to see what was happening in the Shelter there. We arrived in Arriaga Friday night after dark. We stopped at the shelter that was full, full, full, full. Many come there to jump the train and they were thinking the train would leave Saturday. They never know when it goes--usually about twice a week but it doesn’t have a regular schedule. I got up to go for a walk before going to the shelter and just happened to walk toward the train. I saw people climbing up to the top, some opened a door and got in--one was a small woman with a tiny baby, some tied themselves to the boxcars because if they fall asleep as they travel--it may be a few days--they will fall onto the tracks. I took several pictures that I’ll try to put on this site. When I saw the priest, he said journalists come wanting to get pictures of the train and often never see it because it is just a chance that you are there when it goes.

After the train left I walked around the town. It’s about 20,000 people, breezy all day every day and windy like ND wind storms all night every night. It’s a farming and fishing town.

I spent the day at the shelter. No sooner had that large group gone on the train than more and more kept coming in. One person was kept busy all day just registering the guests coming in. They are coming to the shelter with their feet in blisters, many women have been raped, about half have been robbed; some by immigration, some by the police, most by robbers. There are many checkpoints on the road. The immigrants get off the road--they may have been riding in a car, bus, taxi, get out and walk in the terrain around the checkpoint and usually have plans to get back in the bus/car/taxi after the vehicle drives through. Robbers wait for the migrants to walk around the immigration check points and rob them there.It makes me want to bawl to see people almost literally pouring out of their countries. I keep thinking of Dorgan and his negative votes in relationship to immigration and have talked with Gabriel, his assistant on Immigration issues. I know Dorgan is a good guy, so I always think, ¨what would he do about this?¨ What would it take to convince people that something is going terribly wrong? No matter how many walls we build and how many laws we make, they are not going to stop this flood. People who risk all of this are desperate for a chance at life. Someone has got to do something that would allow people to stay in their own countries and be able to feed, clothe and educate their families. Walls and laws won’t do it. There has to be something economic done. I don’t know what it is, but it’s obvious that something is terribly wrong here.

They are adding on to the shelter in Arriaga. So far there have been over 500 people registered this year. They stay 1-3 days--so, that’s about 1000-1500 nights of shelter in the last 25 days! They have a lot of medicines and no one with a health care background. They are also planning to set up one room for a small clinic. I spent a lot of time cleaning and dressing foot wounds. I have to learn more about foot care when the person is going to have to continue walking for days in the same shoes that caused the blisters in the first place. There is a room at the end of the shelter that has it’s own entrance that can be made into 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. I told them I’d come when they have it ready for me .

When I got back to Tapachula I got off the combi (vans that run from the city center to different parts of the city) at the shelter here and called for someone to pick me up. (I still don’t know how to get to this house). When I went in, there had been a new man who came from the hospital. He’s got kidney problems, can’t walk, big swollen legs and a catheter that he had pulled out about 4 hrs earlier. He was a mess. I got him cleaned up, a new catheter in and was ready just as my ride came up.------------Boy, do I feel needed here!!! It’s a great feeling.

Wed, Jan 31, 2008
I spent the last couple of days at the shelter. Of course we started the day at 6:00 doing the buying to sell at the tienditas (little stands) for the day and mass. After that we came back to the house for breakfast and on to the shelter.
I am the ¨therapist¨ now. I feel like some miraculous saint. After I’ve done therapy, they can walk! Actually, what I think happens is someone is giving them TLC--physically touching and working with them and caring about them and that is VERY therapeutic! I work with Don F who had a car run over his good foot in the past so he has had skin grafts and has pain when he uses it. He had a stroke that affected his other side. I do the exercises with him that I’ve seen Mom doing after her stroke. I loosen everything up on his arm and leg like Chuck does for Mom then work on stretching and strengthening. When we finish, he’s been able to raise his arm about 6 inches higher than when we start. He has a little holy card of our lady of perpetual help at the side of his bed so we finish by my reading that prayer and we pray a Hail Mary together.+ If that were all I did in one day, I’d consider it a worthwhile day! However, I have lots of opportunities just as fulfilling.
I work with Don R who had a knee surgery and has a lot of residual pain. When he came to the shelter he could walk, but since he got a wheel chair at the shelter he quit walking. No one has been able to get him up and going. When I asked if he wanted to walk with me for therapy he was ready to go. It was painful, but he did it.
There is an old man (these old men are in their 60s!) who was out of it with alcoholism that affected his liver. They wanted to kick him out of the hospital, thought he was going to die anyway. Well, we’ve got him and he’s such a joy to work with! It feels like I’m watching Lazarus when I see him. He looks at the roses and a big smile comes over his face as if he’s seeing that beauty for the first time. He is so grateful for any small thing that anyone does for him.
Another guy had polio. He’s not so old. His mother died so he has no home to go to so lives at the shelter. Every morning he gets up and gets himself ready to bicycle off to sell. The thing is, the polio twisted up his feet and legs so he has rigged up a 3 wheel bike to petal by hand and carry the things he sells. You should see his smile!

Yesterday Olga said the nurse that is supposed to come to the clinic every evening to do treatments is very irresponsible, often not showing up. She asked if I would be willing to be the clinic nurse. I would love to do that, but I had told the priest in Arriaga that if he fixed up that extra room there for me, I’d come and work at HIS shelter. I want to go where I am most needed and can be of most help. But I don’t think there is a way of judging that there is more need in one place or another. I see so many needs and so many opportunities to help. I’m contemplating what to do now. One thought I have is to see if I could go to Arriaga one week a month to relieve the guys that are on duty 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. Maybe I could cover 2 days for each one of them. At the same time I could teach them about some foot care that I researched on the internet. (You will never guess what long distance runners recommend most for preventing and caring for blisters--DUCT TAPE!!!) The first person that comes down, I´m going to ask them to bring a few boxes of lancets that diabetics use to check their blood sugar. We can clean up the blisters, open them with a lancet and from there we will patch them up with Duct tape!
This is getting long so I better quit.
Lillian

My first 2 days

I´m just starting this blog and may need to do revisions as I learn more. I´m starting out pasting the first couple of emails that I sent out.
I appreciate all of the support I´ve recieved from the community, my family and friends. I hope to be able to keep you up with what I´m doing through this blog. I don´t want to send emails to people who don´t want all of them and I don´t want to miss sending to people who want to know, SO, If you are interested, just check my blog! In time I hope to learn how to download pictures and put them on here.

Lillian

Tuesday Jan 22
I don’t know if I should tell people this (But I will). I will NOT read it as an omen!
My flight was supposed to leave at 6am. I thought it was 7 am and hadn’t double checked it! Luckily Marian and Linda had taken me to the airport by 5am so I made it on time. I was the last one on the plane. I called Marian and Linda and Linda said "can you imagine how early we would have gotten up if we had known it was 6am?" I guess that’s seeing the cup half full!
I had never been to O’Hare airport. I don’t think I want to go back! It is huge and I had difficulty finding my way around. The departure monitors were all United flights and I was supposed to take Aero Mexico and there were no information booths to ask for directions. Obviously I made it through.

When I arrived in Tapachula there was no one there to meet me!! So, I pulled out my number for Olga and my phone card. The pay phone wouldn’t accept the card so a taxi driver called Olga for me. Olga had forgotten that I was coming. (Actually, I wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t there--either forgot or busy). However, what I didn’t expect was when her husband came to pick me up, he asked what hotel I wanted him to take me to!!!!!!
I guess when she flippantly responded "Come" to my question ¨"If I wanted to help at the Albergue, what would I have to do?¨ and ¨Stay with me¨ when I asked where would I stay--- I guess she WAS being flippant! She didn’t remember me! Well, she’s got me now!

Someone asked what I thought I would be doing my first day. I hadn’t thought about it. And no matter what I thought, I wouldn´t have imagined THIS!Last night before going to bed, I asked what time things start happening here. They said 6:30 tomorrow morning.
I was up and ready before 6:30 and there was no sound. At 6:30 Olga came out of their bedroom, we jumped in the car and started running. They make their living and support the shelter by buying wholesale and selling at 3 different places every day (pop, water, toilet paper, juice, gum, toothpaste and toothbrushes, yogurt, candy, cookies). We started running to buy what would be needed for the day. By 7:30 we had made 3 buying stops and went to mass. Came home to regroup, eat breakfast, then I was off to help with selling at a conference at the Seminary. 3 of the shelter guests were also there.
I’m learning how to make change with Pesos. I felt like a kid in grade school. They set out all of the coins to show me how much each was worth. They were fun folks to work with. The shelter has a lot of support from the Catholic community so the Shelter guests and many of the priests knew each other and were joking around together.
Olga has her family helping her--husband Jordan, 2 Sisters; Doris and Chela, bro-in-law Marco, 16 yr old son-Jordan, "like our daughter" Myra, and a niece.
Between them they run 3 vehicles to get the supplies, make sure that someone is always at home to take care of Angel, the 5 mo old hydrocephalic baby that had been abandoned in the hospital, cook for whoever gets home whenever, get Myra to school to teach, Jordan to and from school, drop off, pick up and care for Lillian, (a 5 yr old niece) from school, make visits to the hospital and pay hospital and pharmacy bills, and run the shelter. When I asked, they said this is a pretty typical day!
It feels like grand central station! Doris said, "So, after today are you leaving tomorrow?"
Nope! I haven’t been to the shelter yet except to pick up the 3 guests to help with the selling at the seminary. Olga said the nurse that is supposed to do dressing changes in the afternoon is not very reliable so I may be able to do that. If I did this running around every day I would be worn out in very short time. I have some expectations that I would be able to spend the majority of my time at the shelter.----but, who knows what will really happen.
They are all expecting me to drive --probably by next week.
So, I’ll keep you posted...........................This was just day one!
Lillian


Jan 24, 2008
OK, Day 2, in addition to the activities of the first day, add 2 journalists are doing a documentary on migration starting at this border, moving up through Mx, through Arizona and to Chicago. They spent the day with us.........with a microphone on Olga the whole day and a camera in her face........even filming us during mass. They knew this was just my second day but wanted to interview me too..........eewww I hate that and feel SO dumb when I try to talk.
Also add that an old man died in the hospital. He had been at the shelter a couple of years ago and Olga had been paying for a room for him to live in for the last 2 years. She also then ended up taking responsibility for his funeral. She ordered the ¨box¨ (It really was not more than a box with a little cloth around it). It was delivered to the shelter, the doctor took it to the hospital, we went to the hospital and helped them put his body in the box, put the box in the back of the pickup and took him back to the shelter. We went to get his death registered and took the documents to the cemetery, paid for a burial plot and paid some men to dig a hole, went back to the shelter to pick up the body in the box and took it to the cemetery to bury. Olga said if we hadn’t done that, he’d have been dumped in a hole like a dog.--His death not even registered. I didn’t realize that deaths are registered, but something about registering a death feels like there is more dignity to his life. The difference between being dumped in a hole and having a registered death makes it feel like acknowledging his humanity and human dignity.
So, that’s a bit of an update. ...oh yes, and all of this was with the cameras rolling!

Olga’s got folks coming and going all the time---including some famous people like Maria Schriber, ambassadors, writers like Isabel Allende, Sonia Navaro??, the author of Enrique’s Journey (the book that got me down here.) Sonia stayed here while she did her piece on Tapachula and this area. They said she was going to stay here for a week to learn what they did but couldn’t last---------it’s crazy here! I’m afraid I’m going to start loving it!!
Olga just keeps moving on.......laughing all the way--and I’m enjoying laughing with her.

We are getting a young man from Honduras at the shelter tomorrow. He’s coming to us from the hospital. I don’t know what actually happened to him but I saw him yesterday. He’s been in a coma for 4 months, has a fractured pelvis and I don’t know what all else. It looks like I will be using my nursing skills after all.
There are currently 18 people at the shelter. Many of them have had amputations for some time and you don’t see them around because they are also helping at the little stands selling pop, water, etc. It’s a way that they are earning something and learning that they can do something to make a living.

Tomorrow I am going to Arriaga with a priest who wants our community to take over running the shelter for migrants there! I asked if he thought the sisters should be able to speak Spanish. It never occurred to him that most couldn’t. When I asked what support the shelter gets from the diocese he said ¨Moral support, that is to say, support but no money¨. I am still going with him to learn more.

My Spanish is improving by the minute. Pretty soon I’ll be able to understand what they are saying! They slur and speak under their breath like everyone else in the world does....it’s just that they have to look at me, and enunciate very clearly if I’m going to understand. I’m afraid that when I go with this priest I’ll lose a lot of what I could learn just because I’m not as sharp in Spanish as I’d like to be...........but I’ll be much better soon!

Lillian