Bucaramanga, Colombia

Last Monday and Tuesday we traveled to Bucaramanga for the purpose of meeting with government and hospital officials to discuss the Neonatal recusistation training which will take place in October. We accompanied Dr. Jeff Zollinger and his wife Mary. We met with Health deparatment people from the state and the city as well as toured three hospitals that will participate in the training. We also went on a little tour of the city. Bucaramanga is famous for its shoes, leather, gold and silver and even baby clothes. There are two stakes in Bucaramanga and the NRT training will be held in a beautiful new stake center that opened its doors last week. These photos show us with the Zollingers in a city park in the colonial part of the city, including the cathedral. The other two photos show us meeting with city and Department (State) people. We took long tours of three hospitals (every hospital director wants to show you all of his facilities). All the health people in Bucaramanga are very excited about the NRT project. In the photo on the right of the top row, the young man standing next to Royal is a Department of Health executive and one of those overly-busy administrators who walk around with a blackberry in one hand and a cell phone in the other, both of which are ringing at all times.

Life in Bogota

These are a few fotos that give a little insight into how we live our life in Bogota. I think we have said before that either we take a taxi or we walk. We always take a taxi to work. The first foto is of the office building where we work. It's taken from a fancy new mall across the street. We go there to eat lunch at a nice food court there. The other fotos are taken near our apartment. Within a block of the apartment, we have a grocery store, a drug store (called drogeria here although most Latino countries call it a farmacia), a beauty shop (peluqueria) a bakery (panaderia) a cleaner (lavanderia), a hardware store (fereteria), plus restaurants. A little farther (about a five to 10 minute walk) is a really nice book store where Royal could spend a lot of time, although he hasn't yet. In fact, there are two book stores and next to them a larger grocery store. The other fotos show Carolyn in front of the larger grocery store with her little bags for carrying groceries, one with wheels, and Royal standing in front of the drogeria and in front of the book store (libreria).

Trip to Venezuela

We returned from our five day trip to Venezuela Friday afternoon. We visited six hospitals in the two cities of Caracas and Valencia. We traveled with Jose (the young man in the picture with Royal) and the Ducettes, a doctor and his wife from the states. We had meetings in each hospital with the administration discussing the neo-natal training the church does. This will take place probably in October. We have posted several pictures. The picture to the right was taken while drivcing in Caracas. It is hard to see but the houses are all on a mountain. It worries me that should there be a mud slide they all would be destroyed. The one just below the writing is dad with Jose our driver for the 5 days we were there. Jose is over security for the church throughout Venezuela. He is bright, articulate and he and dad had some great visits. There is also posted a picture of the small temple there in Caracas. It is next to the church office building and is utilized as we were told to its maximum potential. The other picture was from the top of a long windy road that looks down on the city of Caracas. We felt it was a very successful trip. We learned a lot and by in large had very nice hotels and always good company on our travels.