We have Arrived

Así es la vida of the Hearts in Motion team.

A mixture of WSU Yakima, WSU Spokane, WSU Pullman, doctors, anesthesiologists, dentists, and other volunteers nationwide, we have arrived in Zacapa, Guatemala.

Not quite by Tuk-Tuk like Mindy in Sri Lanka, we took a school bus from Guatemala City to Zacapa three hours away.  What makes up the core of Hearts in Motion is the people, and because this group consists of students from all fields, origins and experience, the bus gave us the opportunity to sit down, get to know each other and share our excitement to get started.

The countryside is dotted with small banana, pineapple, corn and various other groves and fields.  We passed dozens of markets along the highway selling fresh fruit.  Watermelon was the most abundant, cut, halved and hanging for people to judge its quality.  We passed several trucks like the one pictured on the left along the two lane highway transporting the crops.







Everything from Guatemala City down south towards the border of Honduras to Zacapa is beautiful countryside.   The truck wound around curved roads around the mountains exposing small valleys periodically along the way.  At one point we saw some men fishing with a large net standing knee deep in the river that split the valley.  Cows were really common along the road as well.  I started playing "Hey Cow," a road game I discovered in Pullman where one yells to get cows' attention and score points.  I immediately got laughter from the program director saying that I "must be from Washington."


Needless to say, those of us trapped on the bus headed south learned a lot about one another.  Each of their stories continued to amaze me, and I couldn't believe the huge hearts that made up the wonderful company I had found myself in.


Carol Allen is a clinical associate professor in the nursing program at WSU Spokane.  Dressed in hot pink from head to toe, there is no mistaking her vivid personality.  She sat and told those of us on the bus of her incredible life.  Traveling 29 countries in less than 20 years, including a Fulbright scholarship in Africa, Micronesia, Japan, and Guam, she prides herself in being one of the founders of the trip to Peru for WSU nurses and has gone herself five times.  Constantly laughing and smiling throughout these stories, someone asks her what she wants to do when she retires.  Expecting an extravagant adventure, she informs us she wants to go to the Rose Parade, to visit the floats and to see the event in person.  She is full of laughs and fun, but she is business too and went straight to the hospital today to check out the facilities. I personally can't wait to see how she interacts with the Guatemalan people.

Daniel Morales is a Speech and Hearing major at WSU Spokane.  We sat under the blazing Guatemalan sunshine as he filled us in on how his life had prepared him to just love people unconditionally.  Growing up in a broken home, he worked two jobs to get away to build his own life.  He eventually visited several countries as a missionary, then joined the military as an EMT and eventually became a sergeant.  He is now pursuing his degree and helping 13 to 16 year old teenagers battle drug addictions at the Healing Lodge in Spokane.  His heart and love for people overflow through his laugh and his smile.

Last but not least, several of us got to meet the founder of Hearts in Motion, Karen Scheeringa-Parra, who is the red-headed woman in the picture.  Daniel and I were sitting with two other members of the program when he asked Karen how she had been inspired to start the program.  She looked across the table at Julie, who is pictured hugging her from behind, and said it all came down to her daughter.  She explained to us that she adopted Julie from Korea when she was little.  On the flight back she encountered a woman taking six dying children to the States to receive emergency heart surgery.  She was so amazed and overwhelmed with the actions of this woman that she was inspired to help and do what she could to do the same.  She told us how she worked for six months on visas and paperwork to get a child with a heart condition to the United States, when two days before the child's planned arrival, it died.  Heartbroken, she only became more determined to see her mission through and asked where her passion could be needed.  She found herself in Guatemala, and after thirty years of building and transforming the program, I now find myself here, writing to you from what her vision has created.

As mentioned before, what fuels this program is its heart, and there is no shortage of heart or passion within this group.  I am only able to highlight three of the people I was able to talk to today, but they are truly powerful examples of the volunteer mission in Guatemala.

After a day of settling into our hotel, tomorrow we get to work.