And then there were three.

This is the first week without the big Oppenheimer group (nine people) and I must say, I miss them all, its very strange to go from 12 people to 3 living in a house. I can see the appeal of a big family now (although that doesn't mean Im going to have 12 kids…definitely not). We went on a city tour today to the “nice” part of Guatemala City, the group went to the “poor” side of Guatemala City last Monday (when I had to go cell phone shopping…ugh) so it was a nice contrast for Cynthia and Rika (the two ladies I am with now). The tour ended up at Paseo Cayala, a very wealthy development that is a 5 million dollar project, has the highest security in Guatemala City and boy is it nice. It looked like Santorini, Greece with all white buildings and Mexican tiled roofs.  We walked around looking at the designer shops and had some coffee at this quaint restaurant called Saul. Very contemporary. Gotta love my coffee shops J

Today in the burn unit I was allowed to start bandaging the kiddos. Today a three year old came in, 32% of his body was burned, second and third degree. Poor thing. Luckily they give them an anesthetic while they wash their wounds and he was knocked out while we wrapped him. The level of sanitation is pretty comparable to the U.S., especially here in the burn unit because infection is the number one cause of illness. I was also invited to go to a conference led by a doctor from Chile who was covering the topic of different compression bandages, I wont go into detail as Im sure this does not interest most of you, but I found it pretty interesting, especially since past patients came in and showed how their burns were healing (all children), strangely most of the children have electrical burns. The electric wires are on the ground and if they are digging or playing on the ground, they could accidentally grab it, not knowing what it is, or it hits them :/ but these kids are true survivors and its amazing to see how strong they are. Thank goodness the culture here is very touchy because I love to give them huge hugs…although I told our driver today to “dame cinco!” (give me five!)…and he just looked at me like I was crazy….until we got in the car and he told me to give him five in English (we teach each other things on our 30 minute drive to the hospital)…we have obviously become fast friends….he gets my sarcasm and vice versa.