After a midnight flight out of Seattle, a 3+ hour layover in Houston, and a quick 2.5 hour flight to Guatemala City, I am here! It was a long trip, but it was as smooth as could be hoped for. My neighbor on the flight out of Houston, a student named Thomas, is scheduled to begin PT school in August and we had a nice conversation about the trials and tribulations he can expect along the way! Now that I am only 3 months from graduation, I was able to pass along some of my personal experiences and hopefully give him some useful tools for dealing with the fire hose of information that is about to come his way. Because in the end, it is worth every second, especially when you get to use your newly acquired skills to help out the local population in a place like Guatemala.
It was a long and tiring day but the group is fully assembled. We were met at the airport by two HIM representatives, Jasmine and Bert. They were absolutely lovely and saw us safely to lunch and out of the city. My preceptor Asiya, a PT in the Baltimore area, and I are working with two SLP’s, Julie from UW and Rosemary from San Jose CA, and we are joined by an undergraduate student, Tanja, from UIC who is preparing to graduate and start PA school. We have six days of clinic to look forward to, and it all starts bright and early tomorrow morning!
