This year, for the first time, Health for Humanity organized a 6 person triage team to go to the remote Alta Verapaz region in the northern part of Guatemala. The primary objective of this mission was to run "walk-in" clinics that would find those needing surgery and then schedule them in for treatment by our surgical team, who would be in Antigua at the end of October, and other surgical teams. By searching out and triaging the patients ourselves we hoped to avoid the problem of misdiagnoses which routinely occurs when qualified healthcare providers are not at hand to do the screening.

For the next four days we traveled each morning from our base in Chisec to different locations where we set up our clinics in whatever facilities where available. The first of these was on Monday when we set off before dawn for Canlech about an hour north-west of Chisec. Our clinic location could not be reached by the microbus so all the supplies had to be carried in.

The second clinic was at Semococh, twenty minutes south of Chisec, so we had a few extra minutes in bed.

On Wednesday, our third clinic was very close to our hotel in a part of the town of Chisec called Aguasuch. Once again the extra minutes we had in bed were really appreciated.

Our last clinic was held at Playitas a small community about an hour and a half north west of Chisec right up by the Mexican border. During Hurricane Mich the river behind the town rose and flooded the whole community. Once again we had to leave at 5.45 in the morning to get there on time. The dirt road was completed carved up with ruts and potholes but our expert driver Dan managed to keep the van from bogging down in the mud.

After the 4 clinic days were over we headed to Coban, from where we were going to visit three patients who had had surgery last year and whom we had taken home to their families. We left early in the morning and wanted to leave our luggage at the hotel.

We were encouraged by our visits to the families. Teodoro especially had done very well and we were delighted at the difference his surgery had made to his life. .