Recharging the batteries!

We do not hold our clinic over the weekend, and our first free day was an incredible Guatemala cultural experience, thanks to the generosity of the local Lions Club. We gathered by the Cathedral in the town square and posed for pictures while we waited for our vans to arrive. Our European team members were one of the popular subjects, with cameras flashing all around. In this picture you’ll see from Europe: Emily (U.K.), Xavier (Spain), Cristina, Lorenzo, Massimo, and Fabio (all from Italy).

We traveled in 3 microbuses from Santa Cruz del Quiche into the surrounding mountains where we visited some small, historic Quiche villages called Najxit and Panajxit. We also visited some Mayan ruins at Q’uma’rkaj. The view of the mountains and valleys was breath taking.

Many of the indigenous Mayan people who we are helping at the clinic live in these villages. We felt very fortunate to get a close look at how they live and work, and we could see for ourselves how they will put their glasses to good use every day.

The Panajxit area is known for producing the beautiful woven Guatemalan textiles that are used for the colorful traditional traje outfits worn by the Quiche women and girls, and used for carrying slings, headcovers, wraps and much more. These are the outfits and accessories we see on the people coming to the clinic every day. We visited a small textile house that is connected to the home of the vice mayor of the area, and saw how they die the yarn, spin it and weave the colors together into patterns. Xiomara, our team member from Miami, FL, was lucky enough to get to try on a Quiche women’s traditional outfit, called a traje. She had a great time striking a pose in her lovely outfit.

We visited a couple of sacred ceremonial sites that are far off the tourist paths, and were treated to a visit with one of the most important spiritual guides of the Najxit area. At a visit to some Mayan ruins, many of our team members walked deep into some catacombs that were part of the ruins. It was a challenging team building exercise as we held onto each other to find our way through the narrow and dark passages. The only light came from a few scattered ceremonial candles. Just outside of the cave, we were very lucky to witness a few Quiche people holding a traditional ritual around a fire with red, white and blue candles. It was celebrating a very important day on the Mayan calendar, the first day of the Mayan new year.

On our way back to Santa Cruz, everyone in our group couldn’t stop talking about how this day was incredible and how lucky we all were to experience it together. We look forward to seeing more of these people in our OneSight clinic next week and will have an even deeper appreciation for how they live and how we are helping them.