An Eventful Sunday

Well, we've had a busy weekend here in Bolivia. Yesterday the hospital hosted a community picnic and soccer tournament to raise funds for needy children in the community. People from the community made traditional Bolivian dishes, ranging from a type of chicken soup to a dish of chicken, pork, and potatoes cooked in a pot buried in the ground. During the meal, a youth group from the Iglesia Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd Church) presented an evangelistic drama, which was received warmly.

The soccer tournament ran from about 11:30 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon. The Hospitals of Hope team won their first game by forfeit, which took them to the semifinals, where they lost narrowly. I don't know the exact number of people who came, but I would guess that there were a couple hundred.

That in itself would have been enough excitement for one day, but that was actually just the beginning. About 5:30, the guard came to the guest house to tell Mike, a physician assistant specializing in trauma, that an accident victim had just been brought in. For the next several hours, we were at the hospital, where Daniel and I translated and brought supplies while the staff and Mike worked on the patient, who had deep cuts on his face and several fractures. The hospital was already nearly at capacity before this man was brought in, and a few more people were brought into the emergency room over the course of the evening, leaving all of our patient beds full and a couple of patients on beds in the hallway. The hospital has been consistently near or at capacity while we have been here this last week, making us realize how badly our planned addition to the hospital is needed.