Long time no write...

I guess it is a good sign if there is no time to write...
we have been very busy fixing the birth center, getting equipment, moving forward with the paperwork and actually starting to hold clinic hours...
YES!
The clinic is open and little by little, actually some people are coming in.
Last week Clara inaugurated the birth center by having her little son...

the official opening will be this Saturday, with Champagne and Orange juice, and hopefully with all our sponsors and board members.
before the opening we will hold our first assembly, a very scary and formal event.

The week after Jessica from PPFA is coming to help us with the worst of all challenges, the report...
I wish we had more to show her, but our beginnings have been slower than at least expected, I'm trying not to loose optimism!

two months of silence

...do not mean that nothing has happened!
WE OPENED YESTERDAY!
The last months we did paperwork , means we have managed to become a legal association, and are in the process to get legal as a clinic as well. The municipality has authorized us to open the doors, and yesterday already a young girl stepped in and inquired about a birth!
Sandra, our pediatrician already has an appointment for today and other people have inquired about gyn services.
Now we have to learn to stick to opening hours, against all odds...I think all of us are having a hard time with that. Gabi has moved to San Antonio and is trying to get her act together and Jill is growing into her position as a volunteer with hopes for a future job.
Dr Menendez has been a great help and we are happy to have him as our director and advisor. I personally am learning a lot of new things, the hardest being how to actually coordinate and not inhibit, demotivate etc.
Just for everybody to see that we are not just talking but getting a women´s health center started, some photos:

Donations coming in!

After a long birth a few days ago, see picture, we are now concentrating on getting the MANOS ABIERTAS clinic going. We have so much support, I can´t actually believe it. Karin Reichensperger from the Message Program has been particularly helpful, see the picture from her warehouse at Familias de Esperanza!
We have about half of our medical equipment already at the clinic, not even talking about disposables...
and I just got an email from Dianne Thompson , from Antigua, who wants to donate our file cabinet! Thanks Dianne! (And thanks Terry, from the Revue magazine, who is publishing our ad for free which was how Dianne found out about us!!)
Yet another donor is Raul Minondo, somebody who has actually nothing whatsoever to do with our work, but who happens to have been a friend for years. Raul is giving us our beds and the fridge.

And , of course, thanks to the best friend of all, to John Mann. Are you ever done helping people?

The English Girls

Laura and Joanna from Oxford arrived the night before last...loaded with good things for both clinics and with even better intentions. The most important thing they brought though is their beautiful energy. They are enthusiastic and looking for how to help...meaning that though they already brought several suitcases full of teaching material and decorative posters, they now asked me for a list of the things most needed! Unfortunately they are still students and therefore just have access to certain things...but they are asking a friend they will be meeting up with to bring material!
By now I have several boxes waiting to go to Ciudad Vieja. Things are taking shape. Jill comes back the day after tomorrow! But we will have to find her at least a bed... so much to do!

progress...mostly

Time is flying and we are moving fast: the lease on the house is signed, it is being painted, Gabi is working on our logo, we had the first session with Griselda, the lawyer who is making our project legal. For all but one person we know who will be member of the association and the board. We might be able to get it in the works in time to open an account and receive the money... though we may not forget that we are in Guatemala and that things usually take more time than one thinks.
There has been a kind offer of a gynecological examination stretcher ( no idea how the thing is actually called), but it turns out it already belongs to someone else. But I trust what we need will show up.
Jill is still determined to help out, though she can not be paid by the project at this time, and Gabi and I are grateful, knowing that we will need help! A future intern has made contact with a distributor of medical equipment in Germany, who seems to be interested in donating some things. Everybody is being so helpful, this must be meant to be!

here's a baby!

finally...

There's a baby! It was long and hard but Angela made it...we are going to bed...