At the end of a long week.....

This has been a great week for dental health!!!   Approx. 800 children have received dental care.....several who had abscess teeth that would have caused very big problems for them.


We said good bye to the Dental Group.....Kids International this afternoon....we look forward to seeing them again next year. This is the third year that they have been working with us.


We also said good bye to a great volunteer who has been here with us for a month.....Tanmay , a Science Teacher from the U.S. has been tutoring children nearly every afternoon and also tutoring the Jnr. High school class in Tierra Linda 3 times a week.  The students did the more than 1 hour walk back and forth to come to Tanmay's classes.
They enjoyed the science experiments...especially the volcanos erupting and the egg drops from the tree!


They especially enjoyed the pizza party Tanmay held for them yesterday!


Today Mayan Families participated in an Environmental Fair that was held with several other groups.  There were groups there with recycling booths and many different things, our booth was the Spay and Neuter program for animals, we had a video , a screen , a sound system and a microphone...which made us the most popular amongst the other groups because they were able to borrow our microphone and speakers!    The fair was attended by lots and lots of school children.....and we hope that they enjoyed it.  One of our sponsored students danced at the fair with her school group. 


Dina and Mayerlin from Mayan Families visited Cristobalina, the young girl who has had her arms amputated.  They took her more food to fatten her up before she is admitted to the hospital in the next few weeks.  We are thrilled to share that Cristobalina is going to be able to go to the Ronald McDonald hospital and will be admitted for the next few months while she is receiving skin grafts and physiotherapy.    We are so excited that we have been able to facilitate this treatment.  Dina and Mayerlin came back with some beautiful drawings by Cristobalina, she is now even writing with her mouth! 


Julio and Gloria from Mayan Families recevied a call last night that a group of people had been evicted from their homes in a village near Tierra Linda.  The land had been in dispute for 9 years.  Their great grandparents had bought the land paying it off .....but they never received the correct paperwork.  The great grandson of the original owner apparently, found the original land papers and has now declared that he is the owner of the land.  This was being fought over but the owner turned up with a police crew and a bulldozer.    They gave the 12 adults and 22 children 15 mins to get their possessions and get out of the houses.   Of course, this was not enough time to do anything, the families were in shock...they never expected this would happen.   So .....the bulldozer moved in and knocked all the houses down....including all their beds, food and clothing.


The families were left with just the clothes they were standing in. 


Last night they slept in the open , today they built a shed out of the tin sheets that were on the roof of their houses and they are all sleeping in there tonight.


They are really shocked and don't know what to do . They are hoping that if they camp out on the land that the govt. will help them but their chances don't look good.
These poor people have no where to go. They don't speak very much Spanish, they are used to living from their crops. All the fields that they had growing were cut down by machete by the police.  


We are expecting that these families will need help in the next few weeks.


We had a very happy event today....a visitor bought a month's food for 6 needy families....we were able to bring the families into meet the visitor, they were so happy to get this food, most of them single mothers who are in desperate need of help with food.  


Another great event this week was delivering shoes to the little village of Pacaman....we gave out shoes to approx. a 100 children.  The shoes they had were mostly in very bad shape.  Many kids had shoes on several sizes too big for them and some had their toes squished into shoes that were way too small.


Others had shoes tied together with string, huge holes in them and barely hanging on.


I have never seen so many happy children. This is the first time we have been to this school and we hope that we will be able to go there again.


We are so grateful for all the shoes that we have received to help the children here!  Thank you!


And on an even brighter note, Lubia who many of you know , came back to live with her children.  She has been gone for nearly a year ........we hope that she will be able to find work and look after her children. Thank you to Carol and Caroline from this group who have done so much for this family during this time........


Susie, who originally, was a  member of this group, then a sponsor, then came to volunteer with us in Guatemala and became a valued staff member celebrates her 2nd anniversary being here in Guatemala and working with Mayan Families.  We are so grateful to have Susie and all the passion and energy she brings to her work here in Mayan Families. Susie has great respect and love for the Guatemalan people and she has helped so many with so much! 


Wishing you all a very  happy week end.
Sharon