On Saturday, you won't believe this, we got up and 5:00 a.m., got dressed, ate breakfast and walked ten blocks to Ochenta. The wheelchair basketball team was going to Landivar University in Guatemala City to do an exhibition game and program on Transitions. We went in two vans and a pickup truck loaded with the special wheelchair basketball wheelchairs. Just before we pulled out, someone noticed that the right rear tire of the vehicle we were riding in was flat. Fortunately, because Transitions wheelchairs use bicycle tires, there was an air pump available. Once outside of La Antigua, Alex started looking for a tire shop. They all have signs with the work pinchar (puncture). We finally found one and the attendant quickly started taking off the tire so that he could repair it. It turned out that there were three nails in it. It had been serviced recently and, according to Alex, the lot where the auto repair show stores the vehicles that are ready to be picked up seems to have a lot of nails. You would think that they would try to remove the nails from the lot, but I guess they don't repair tires and aren't interested. By the way, the repairs, which I assume were similar to the plugging used on nail punctures back in the states, cost Q30 ($3.90). Alex didn't have anything smaller than Q100 and the tire shop didn't have any change (a common situation in all small businesses in Guatemala, so I paid the bill.
We soon were on our way again and arrived at Landivar University at around 9:20 a.m., about twenty minutes after we were scheduled to arrive. Of course, in Guatemala, that meant that we were early.
Landivar University is a private Jesuit university. The tuition is not cheap and the facilities reflect that fact. Everything I saw was first class and surrounded by a tall wall. All entrances and most buildings were also patrolled by armed guards.
We unloaded and assembled the chairs and headed for a covered, outdoor basketball/fútball (soccer) facility.
It's really a first class facility.
Next to the covered court, a similar court open to the sun was in use by a college women's fútbol team.
Like always, the basket ball was enthusiastic and energetic.
After all, there's a trip to Mexico City in the offing.
Alex later told me that he'd like a similar facility at our new site in San Felipe de Jesus. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this sports facility probably cost more than everything else we're going to have at San Felipe, including the $280,000 land.
After the exhibition game, which ended up in a 7-7 tie, although none of the players knew it, we moved to an indoor presentation area that was totally inappropriate for what we were going to do. The verbal presentations were fine, of course, but the video we showed, a CNN-Guatemala special on Transitions, was totally washed out by the light coming in the floor to high ceiling windows on two sides of the facility. At least they could hear the commentary.
After the video, Alex and the guys talked about their disabilities, showed and took off their prosthetics and, in general, proved that they were not defined by what they lacked, but by what they did.
Nazario, who has no arms, showed this prosthetic which replaces his missing arms.
He then proceeded to whip them off and immediately put them back on without any assistance.
Freddy showed his artifical leg and then proceeded to remove it, hold it up on display and then replace it on his stump.
At the end of the program, Alex had the entire group come forward to show that what you could accomplish was more important than what you might lack.
On our way out of Guatemala City, we had Alex drop us off at the Mixco Hiper Paiz (pronounced Eper Piez), which is the Guatemalan subsidiary of WalMart and which resembles the WalMart Super Stores. I didn't take any pictures of Hiper, but here are several of the four-level shopping mall attached to it.
This isn't your WestLand Mall! (a one-story mall in West Burlington, Iowa)
Driving around the third level, where the food court was located, was a rubber-tired train carrying young passengers with parents running along side.
The fourth level was a hospital, which was very convenient, since the food court was on the third level.
After having second lunch (breakfast was at 5:30 a.m. and first lunch was at 10:30 a.m.) at about 2:00 p.m., we decided to head back to La Antigua. We had been on the street for only about five minutes when a chicken bus heading for La Antigua appeared. We quickly boarded and knew we had finally arrived in Guatemala. By the way, it was a Blue Bird, but I didn't think to check to see if it was from Mount Pleasant.
Once back in La Antigua, we were welcomed by Hermano Pedro and proceeded to walk back to our casita. It had been a long day and we arrived around 5:00 p.m. and promptly took a nap.
No comments:
Post a Comment