Day 3: The first leg of the journey home

Morning in Beautiful Guatemala

The morning of our departure dawned: clear and crisp and beautiful. Danny’s fever seemed to have subsided in the night. The migraine gremlins who live in my head were re-thinking their strategy after I’d hit them with a dose of my super-duper migraine medicine. Gracie entertained Danny while we got dressed and ready to head for the Children’s Home for breakfast.

Wake-up call

Things took a bit of a turn once we got to the orphanage. First of all, it was hot and loud inside. Second, Danny was not at all interested in solid food and began to feel feverish again. And finally, as we sat down to our breakfast of warm milk and cornflakes, I turned my chair to face a reluctant Gracie and pinched her finger between our two chairs. Gracie screamed, and my head suddenly began to throb. There was no consoling her and I was sure that all the nannies were questioning my ability to parent an additional child.

We all left without any breakfast. I felt terrible about leaving uneaten food behind, but we had to get out of there.

Luckily, my diaper bag has the solutions to all life’s problems buried inside. About 15 bandages later, Gracie declared herself healed.

The band-aid cure-all

Romalia came by to go through Danny’s toys with us. When she arrived, Danny was playing happily on the floor with Gordon. She told Edwin that she was very relieved to see him relaxed and enjoying his new family. Dear Romalia went through each toy and, via Edwin, explained when Danny got each item, what its significance was and how he liked to play with it. She showed us how she carefully kept the letters we wrote him under his mattress. We had sent a picture of Gracie in a zip-loc bag. She told us how Danny would press the picture against his face and smile. She showed us the first toy he ever received, a cute stuffed dog. But most poignantly, she showed us the bear we had sent to Danny many months ago. She said this is his favorite toy, and told us how he hugs it and curls up against it every night. This information has helped us comfort him now that we’re home and even as I write this, he is curled up with his bear.

We were so grateful to have her loving words translated. Otherwise we never would have known the best way to comfort Danny when he wakes up at night. We never would have known that when he starts saying “lalalalalala” it means he wants something and is about to get frustrated if he doesn’t get it. We would never have known that her heart was at ease with his leaving now that she had met his loving family.

Finally it was time to go. Romalia walked Danny out to the car and put him in the car seat. This was something she wanted to do. It is only now that I think about it, I realize how difficult it must have been to put the baby you loved most in this world into someone else’s car. She said she was afraid to see him cry when she put him down. And sure enough, he cried and reached for her. My heart broke for both of them. We promised again to send pictures and assured her that our love for Danny was boundless.

And then we were off.

Our plans were to take an alternate route down the mountain side. This was a more scenic road. Without construction, the journey would be a little shorter then yesterday’s. The trade-off was that the road wound up and down the mountain about three times before connecting with the Pan-American Highway. Edwin explained that the road followed old Mayan foot paths.

OK driving in Guatemala… Let me tell you a bit about this. Big has the right of way. Cars beat humans, trucks beat cars and busses beat everyone else. Motorcycles drive in between lines of cars. To get anywhere you have to be aggressive. One more coat of paint on these cars and they would be scraping each other. While there was less traffic on our road down the mountain, there was an added element of suspense around every corner. You see, every corner was a hairpin turn that was completely blind. Edwin beeped the horn at each approach, but there was always a moment where we held our breath and expected a huge truck to come barreling around the curve.

But skillful driving and excellent descriptions of the countryside we were touring made for a beautiful descent. We passed people digging into the side of the mountain to mine for sand. The mountain was literally honey-combed with caves, all illegal, all in full sight of law enforcement. One had to wonder when these caves would collapse and bring down half the mountain. One also had to wonder what kind of poverty brings a person to take such great risks to earn a few Quetzales.

Because we were worried about Danny’s health, and my head was splitting open, we made just one stop on the peaceful if somewhat odorous shores of Lake Atitlan. But Gordon had the video camera out of the window for much of the ride catching the scenery as we passed.

How we spent our summer vacation

We travelled through marketplaces tightly packed with people and vehicles and donkeys. The contrast between the staggering poverty and the beautiful faces and clothing was breath taking. Even in extreme poverty, people were carefully and proudly dressed. Children were obviously adored and cherished.

Finally we arrived back at our hotel. We were so worried about Danny that we asked the concierge to help us find a pediatrician. She warned us that it would be expensive. This kind man travelled across town after business hours to our hotel. He stayed for a half an hour and gave us his personal phone number to call any time we had questions or concerns. The cost was $100. This is less than half of a regular 15 minute visit to our clinic.

The Doctor carefully examined Danny and told us that he was nearly certain that he had Pneumonia. He said that while he generally hates to use antibiotics, he wanted to treat this aggressively especially since we were flying out on Friday. He also said that the medication Danny was being given at the Eagle’s Nest was actually harmful and making his condition worse. The medication was making his heart race and was making breathing even more difficult.

The Doctor also reviewed Danny’s immunization records and we discovered that he was not given the Pneumonia vaccine. Also, contrary to what we were told, Danny was never given Chicken Pox vaccine.

Armed with prescriptions for an antibiotic, a steroid and another medication to help clear his bronchial passages we settled in for the night. This entailed Gordon filling our prescriptions, Gordon taking care of entertaining the kids and getting them to bed and me taking hot shower after hot shower trying to beat out the extreme headache that was now not responding to anything.

It was a long and painful night, but suddenly at about 10:00 pm, after a last ditched attempt at pain relief via a strong cup of coffee, my headache lifted!

Morning was on the way and with it, our long awaited Embassy appointment!

Siblings, deep in thought