August 2024

Miguels tooth, Waterfilters and other adventures

Early August we finally decided to make another trip to Comalapa. Miguel (click here) has been calling me almost every day, complaining about his tooth ache. Several times I told him to go to the dentist and have it checked out. But this is harder than one would think. Miguel lives in a small town in the mountains of Chimaltenango. He needs to catch a collectivo (little bus) in order to get to the next bigger town called Comalapa where there are dentists. But the collectivos only go there 3 times a week. So in order to have his tooth checked out, he has to get up at 5am, catch the collectivo and drive the 90 minutes to Comalapa. Once arrived, he has to go find a dentist. Miguel though has great difficulty talking, which makes it hard for the dentists to understand him. So his mother – who does not like to leave the house – has to go with. He went to the dentist, but they did not notice anything and gave him some antibiotics. The pain got worse, and finally we decided to go pick him up and bring him to the dentist. Watch how we went to the Dentist to check his teeth:

video

Since we were heading out there, we decided to also bring some filters from ECOFILTRO to replace the waterfilters we brought a couple of years back. First of course, we gave one to Miguel and his mom, and to his two sisters. One of them is a single mom with two beautiful girls. They sleep all three of them on one bed, live in a tiny house and live off of the land. Miguels sister works her little piece of land – high up in the mountains about a 60 minute walk away – where she plants corn and other vegetables. Her husband left years back to start a better life in the U.S., where he now has a new family. His wife and the two girls he left behind in rural Guatemala.

The other filters were given to families along the way. There is the family which we installed a new stove (watch here). This family of 5 live in a tiny little house with her mother nextdoor, a small cow and a pig and a few chickens running around the house. I have not met her husband yet. The three daughters are very comfortable with us and yell and scream when they see us driving up the small road, happy to see us (knowing, we might bring some toys or gifts). This time though, we only brought a filter, but the girls still enjoyed it very much and used the carton as a toy to play with. The second one figured out, that a part of the carton can be used as a crown.

We also brought a filter to the family Curruchich. They always are happy to see us and enjoy the short visits, never skipping an opportunity to invite us for lunch or dinner. This time though they were off to church, so we quickly installed the filter and went on.

Futthermore did we bring a filter to the family Serech and Susanna. Susanna, being 93. is still walking barefeet and was currently suffering from a cold, so we left her a few bottles of Colloidal Silver, which we also gave to Manuel Serech and his family. We also brought a filter to Manuels Sister in Law and his mother and to a few more families on the road. In total we gave away about 15 filter replacements and 3 filters for new users.

In order to to all this, we had to go twice to Comalapa. The second trip, the one where we also gave away the filters, we had to go pick up Miguel and bring him to a specialist, since the regular dentists in Comalapa do not extract teeth like Miguels. The specialist however is only in Comalapa once every two weeks. So getting his tooth pulled required us to go to Comalapa the day before the specialist was in town, and the entire next day to pick up Miguel, get his tooth pulled, and bring him back home. Watch that adventure here

Later that month we also went on to visit a local hospital where dedicated people do some 600 surgeries for children and adults with cleft lip and palet. The person in charge, a woman from Holland called Tess, is doing incredible work for the poeple in Guatemala. Feel free to visit her page here

We also decided to take a few days off and went to the beach, after several invites. A good friend invited us to her wonderful stay in beautiful pacific ocean town in the south of Guatemala. Since her workers and people around seemed to all have a flu, we of course did not just relax all the time, but took care of some people that needed help. The Spooky2 machine, the colloidal silver and the holographic stickers took care of it very quick. 

 

 

And while we did all that, we did take care of some other people, including a friend with Pneumonia, Cynthia with stomach cancer who according to her doctors should have died over a year ago, but yet still is with us. We also went to a beautiful place in the mountain side of Antigua where we took care of hotel workers and the owner – as a thank you we got a free stay. I am so thankful and grateful for all the help we receive and the adventures we enjoyed this month.

I want to give a special thanks to Pito, who has had the heart to donate a car to the oneQclub. This makes it so much easier to move around and bring filters, food and whatever else is needed, to rural areas of Guatemala.

It is a joy to be of service,

Sebastian