The AIRPORT MOOD SWING…

There they are!!!

We picked Casey and Peggy up at the airport (great mood) on the 5th but had to drop them off today at 10:30 (sad mood).  We are no longer allowed to stand and say sweet goodbyes – for this reason alone I am all for removing the threat of terrorism.

On 5 August we took Casey and Peggy to the “Bambu Resort” in Mazatenango, Guatemala.  It is a resort in name only.  They have decent air conditioning, concrete beds, food and are close to Hospital Shalom where Casey worked on some medical equipment.  We were going to work on a surgical light but it had been removed.  We tweaked a couple of patient monitors, an EKG, got frustrated with an endoscopy system, cleaned contacts on Hall System battery recharger, took one Hall batterypack back to the states for overhaul, a footpedal back to the shop for a solder repair (done!), pm’d a Nonin portable Oximeter and getting parts to repair another.  And Casey was disappointed (genetically passed on from perfectionist grandfather) that we didn’t get more done in ONE MORNING!!!!  I, her daddy on the other hand, was stoked!…

You see she has a shop and a bunch of other biomeds backing her up.  If her spare part is not immediately available it can be overnighted (what is that?).  Our parts come with the next team or next container.  So she has advantages on her job site in the states, BUT we have the advantage of just getting the work done.  We don’t have to have a work order number, we can just work.  We don’t have to fill out forms between tasks, we just get ‘er done!… when we have the parts.

Mazatenango is in the midst of a Dengue Fever outbreak so we wanted to get out of there but we had one more stop that required staying another Bambu nite.  Did I mention the ants???  and the tractor trailers with their Jake brakes??? Oh well we slept and ate breakfast at Sarita’s after checkout, the Bambu’s credit card machine was broken and they tapped us for all the cash we had.  And then to Hospital Santa Fe in Chocola.  The roads in places have been washed away, one main bridge is collapsed and we crossed a military engineered bridge adding 30 to 45 minutes to the trip.  But the Mitsubishi van is a real soldier for trips like this.  We shook breakfast all the way down to our knees by the time we got to Dr. Sergio and Veronica’s place.  Casey went over two anesthesia machine’s and we have ordered spare parts to fix

I love working with my adult children

one of those.  Hopefully these are coming with tomorrow’s group.  We had an awesome lunch – Sergio teases the girl’s about it being raccoon or monkey, not sure which.   After eating we find out that Veronica is about three days into a bout of Dengue fever.  If we had known we would not have stayed, but then they are not going to complain because they know we would have left early.  You have to love these folks.

We started home about two hours later than I wanted to, but…  then there was the “quick” stop to see Dante, Carlos and Sylvia’s new son.  He is handsome as you will see in the photos.  We made plans for a return trip with Marty Hand and Mike Davis for this coming weekend.  We hope to fix a surgical microscope and now we heard of a sterilizer that failed this week too.  After that quick stop we are only 4 hours off my planned day. but… home with our girls late Saturday night.  Church on Sunday and an easy day.  Monday and Tuesday work in the shop on several pieces of equipment fixed some, some not.  Cleaned the shop.  Container came Tuesday afternoon, borrowed Orphan Resource forklift as ours is out of service.

Met one group Wednesday morning early, but traffic delays, one truck lost I think and I am back to my four hours off my schedule again.  Back to the house pick up the girls and off to Antigua for a break.  The girls shopped and I finished one book, taste tested coffee at several cafe’s (Contesa on the square – still the best coffee in Antigua) and got 3/4 through another book.

Back home Thursday afternoon, clean up and met the Tejeda Harris family at Hacienda Real and had a quiet evening just visiting with family and the deepest of friends.  Then there was this mornings necessary torture of dropping our girls at that dag gumb airport…in the photo album linked here there are 70 photos.  I always include information that is not in this posting, so enjoy please.

I know some of you prayed, are praying for Casey and Peggy and us.  We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

In Christ

Dennis and Cindy McCutcheon