Wednesday, May 8th. Temple day!

Today began like our previous days during the week.  Groups left the hotel anywhere between 6:40 AM to 7:15 AM.  This was particularly fun today since the group did not return to the hotel until late from organizing and running a health fair at a local church stake center and no one in the group got to bed until 11:30 PM or later.  The students Mike and Charity have helped take charge of the groups going to the communities outside of Guayaquil, since Mike received an ORCA grant through BYU and Charity is the Sondra´s research assistant.  They helped head up the group that gathered more data in regard to children´s diet, iron deficiency anemia, and interventions being implemented for it.  Other groups went to the Luis Vernaza Hospital and the maternity hospital.  Every day drives home the striking differences and similarities.  Despite a lack of resources the hospitals in general have very modern equipment to deal with the health problems of today but lack space for semiprivate rooms and often struggle with being understaffed.  It has been great to see what they are able to do though.  Guayaquil has a relatively new burn unit that is the best in the country, which receives burn patients from all over the country including Quito, and there are thousands of births every year at this particular maternity hospital.

In the afternoon a group headed up by Suzie again visited the Municipio to teach first aid, CPR, and nutrition.  When the entire group had returned we had the opportunity to attend the temple here in Guayaquil for the second and last time during our stay here in Ecuador.  Our entrance was far less dramatic than before though, since we were coming with our usual driver Luis.  The time before, which I do not believe was written about, we arrived directly from teaching the bomberos (firemen) who gave us a ride in ambulances to the hospital.  Not only did we arrive at the temple in two ambulances but for whatever reason during our commute the bomberos left the flashing red lights on, though it seemed that the traffic did not really pay attention to the lights or give us any special treatment for it.  Needless to say, it gave the temple workers a start as they could only assume that something had happened inside when ambulances showed up with the lights on.  We all had a great experience again at the temple though and were able to appreciate the spirit of the Ecuadorian people as well.  Posted below is a picture of the Guayaquil temple with a few of those in our group and again the temple by itself.