News from Tela

2/7/12

Update on projects:

3 de mayo Agricultural Instituto – roof is on and completed.  The interior of the classroom has been filled with sand by our volunteers and the community members – adults and children.  2 translators are assisting.  It needs to be leveled and then will be cemented.  The community comes in large numbers to help do the manual labor.  Colleen and I went to the uniform store and ordered all the uniforms for the students at this school.  They need only the shirts not the pants or skirts.  The children walk for miles to come  to school.  Adults also attend  as this school teaches a n agricultural profession.

Dental clinic – going great.  This is being held at the old Tela hospital (UMIS) that is now used for administration of the all the centro de saluds – it also has medical labs and they hold clinics there.  Yesterday Julie had 85 patients and extracted 63 teeth.   Julie is being assisted by Jose, Brittany – our 17 year old volunteer and two Tela American school translators.

Hogar Materno – interior painting is completed.  The stenciling around the windows will be done today.  The exterior is painted today also.  Great volunteer project – because we have two interior bathrooms – they feel like it is like working at ‘club med’.  The inauguration for Hogar will be next Thursday.  It looks beautiful and we will be putting in the furnishings beginning tomorrow. 

UMIS – the two rooms that we are renovating to be used for labs…scraping will be done today and painting tomorrow.  Bertil and John are working on this with one translator – Oscar.

Soccer program – we met with Roberto who heads up the rec program in Tela.  He will work with Will and our youth volunteers to organize the ‘gifting’ of the great amount of cleats, uniforms, socks, soccer balls, etc.  We also have some bats and mits for baseball.  The ceremony to give to all the teams will be Wed. 2/15 at 3:00.

One man stopped by to visit the Hogar yesterday  and look at it.  He was so touched by the building and the idea of what it means to the community – he was drawn to tears.

The weather has been great – sunny,not too hot.  All is going well.

Lois has done fine with the brace/boot.  She returns Sat. with 5 other volunteers.  30 new volunteers come on Sat.  We will total 48 next week.

Linda