ChiChi Guatemala - Day 1

Jim and I arrived in Guatemala with the crew late Wednesday nite. We’re here to do some prospecting on ‘mission’ opportunities with some of his Baptist colleagues. We spent Wednesday nite in Guatemala City and headed out early today (Thursday) to meet up with Steve Osborn, Jim's boy who runs an orphanage down here, and start the 4 hour journey to Chichicastenago ("Chichi"). The trip was great, as you can see it was a very clear day which provided the opportunity for some great shots. Along the way we visited some Mayan ruins (pics at bottom of post), my first time seeing any in person, in Ixime Tecpan. In Chichi we had the opportunity to visit the only hospital in the city of approximately 60,000. The place wasn’t very busy because it is a private hospital that has to charge, therefore many of the residents cannot/do not take advantage of the services they could provide with additional funding.

I guess I view this as yet another example of how the economics of providing health care, especially preventative health care, can be so screwed up. Nobody seems to makes money in the short term or medium term when folks stay well. Plenty of folks in the value chain make money though when folks are sick, assuming of course that the sick have access to the money or coverage. I am still processing and will see a lot more in the next few days. I’ll revisit then….

I have posted only a few pics here and have set up a photo album online. www.senteio.myphotoalbum.com
Below are some shots.