31. January 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I have been home for 8 days now.  It has been a whirlwind of fast-moving activity; and I’m only half-way started.  One mostly concrete date, however, has been set in motion.  At a meeting with the alcalde this past Saturday our benefactor from Virginia Hospital Center brought the final design plans for the new orphanage and construction is due to begin in March.  We are at the stage of lining up work contractors and using the alcaldia’s administrative infrastructure for the purchase of materials, thereby reducing cost.  It appears I made it just in time for ground breaking.  I have so busy I keep forgetting to carry my camera to take pictures.  This last day of January is a dynamic jump-start for the rest of the year.  Stay tuned.

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15. January 2012 by Fortunato Velasquez.

A week from today my flight leaves for Honduras.  Some of you are probably aware that the Peace Corps mission has been temporarily closed because of narco-traficante related violence in the country.  I nonetheless will be returning to La Paz, a region which is one of the safest in the country.  That’s not to say that there isn’t crime there, there is, but it is not something that is so overt that folks feel in danger.  One must use common sense anywhere one travels.  There are, after all, areas of Seattle or any other large and small city in the US where one does not go, especially after dark.  So far, knock on wood, I have always felt safe in La Paz.  But even La Paz has had it’s dark moments, as has anywhere in the world.  My opinion is that the temporary suspension is Peace Corps’ determination to implement modifications in order to make the Peace Corps experience a safer one in Honduras.  Therefore I shall be on site once the proper adjustments have been made.  Meanwhile I will continue my work at the orphanage, at the hospital, and with the various projects with which I am involved in league with Honduran friends and colleagues.  My next posting will be from my home in La Paz, La Paz, Honduras.  The URL link below is a video of the historical chronology of the orphanage where I work in La Paz. Please feel free to offer comments and suggestions.  Gracias.

http://www.andreavelasquez.com/foggypark/hogar2012/ 

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23. December 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

We don’t do big Christmases in our family anymore, as the family has grown there’s now a bunch of smaller celebrations.  It’s still a holiday time of year with gifts under a mighty fine tree and gingerbread houses on which to gaze and graze.  At this time back in La Paz the children are eagerly waiting to open the gift box I mailed for Navidad, inside a gift for each child and adult living at the Hogar.  I will be returning to Honduras in about four weeks, forced to put the pursuit of the donated ambulance on hold for now.  I’m confident it will happen.  In the weeks ahead we will be initiating construction on the new orphanage and organizing a governing body required by law, after the granting of the Personeria Juridica by the federal government, for the management of the Fundacion Senor San Jose.  I’m looking forward to also resuming the HIV+ case management and self-support group with my colleague Dra Lily as well as tackling a whole new at-risk population at a home for 30 resident alcoholics.  In short, I’ll be back at work in a month.

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27. November 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Last week my orthopedist made my final appointment for 9 January 2012.  If everything continues as well as it has, he says he’ll clear me to return to work: Eleven months to the day since my accident.  This has been a time of forced reflection for me.  And a healing process; both physical and mental.  In a fraction of a second one’s life can be changed forever.  It could have been worse, of course.  I am lucky.  I will be returning to much work in Honduras.  Friends and colleagues are waiting.  I am waiting.  But not for long.

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21. November 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Well, it appears I won’t have access to my outdoor study for a long while.  It’s too damn cold and when the snow starts flying in earnest it will be inaccessible.  That whole scene above will be under 2-3 feet of snow.  I communicate with Sor Edith every week or two back at the Hogar.  She and Glenn, my new site mate, keep me posted on what’s happening at the Hogar, and also the hospital and the community in general.  Each missive and phone conversation is a tableau of meaning filled with the actions of folks I know, the place where I want to be.  Thursday will be Thanksgiving Day; the Third Annual at the Hogar San Jose.  Glenn writes me that there will be 80 persons as guests this year.  Including the 17 kids who live there that’s still a lotta people.  Bigger than the previous two T-Days.  I’ll be there in spirit only.  But I will be in good hands, my daughter has a heart of gold and her family and home offer me a warmth and coseyness that takes me back to my youth sitting down to feast on turkey and all kinds of good stuff surrounded by relatives and laughter.  Everyone toasty and warm and happy inside.  Looking outside at the cold day, it enhances the feeling of comfort and family. 

Feliz Dia de Gracias, Everyone! 

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1. November 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

In spite of having an infected wisdom tooth pulled out Friday by my local oral surgeon I joined the festivities.  Rather appropriate, I think.  The bloody, painful swollen crater of a  now nonexistent molar hidden from view by my forced smile fit the Dia de Muerto mood to a T.  Add the pain of my 19 day-old arm surgery and I was a regular Don Rickles.  Around me the house bustled.  My granddaughter and her boyfriend cutting pumpkins in the kitchen.  My daughter, son-in-law and niece changing into their evening clothes getting ready for the Halloween Ball.  My grandson and his friends downstairs getting ready for their own ball.  I’m enjoying every moment of my last three months in the States with my family.  When I leave again I won’t be back for a long time.

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19. October 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

So there we were in the speeding ambulance, me sitting in a wheelchair; I refused to lie on a stretcher.  An ambulance nurse at my side, the paramedic at the wheel, we raced along at top speed the whole three blocks from Harborview Med Center to Virginia Mason Hospital up on Seattle’s Pill Hill.  We laughed all the way.  A nurse was necessary for this transfer for radiation treatment to my elbow the day after surgery because I had a continuous narcotic IV infusion going.  Focusing on the moment, spaced out on legal pain meds, I asked Jana: “What do you do with the old ambulances when you guys buy new ones?”  After I explained that our hospital in La Paz, La Paz, Honduras could use a donated ambulance, she said that I should talk to management but that it was certainly doable.  The company had previously driven a donated ambulance to a Central American country.  The ensuing conversation led to even bigger possibilities so that by the first of next year when I return to La Paz we are now tentatively planning to drive a  donated ambulance to Honduras filled with expired medical supplies otherwise headed to the scrap heap in the States.  On the return trip from Virginia Mason Hospital to Harborview Med Center, the driver turned on the red flashing lights and siren and gunned it.   That, my friends, is called networking with styyle.

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4. October 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Yup, it happened again.  Surgery rescheduled until next Wednesday the 12th of October.  I suspect stupidity or incompetence on the part of the orthopedic surgery schedulers.  Probably both.  The exact thing happened the last time I had surgery as well, back in May.  I won’t excuse my feelings of bitterness.  I’m entitled.  The view above is a 180 degree pan of my daughter’s backyard where I exercise and read.  Each delay means additional weeks of physical therapy before I can be cleared for a return to duty.  Sure, a nice place to linger.  But it sounds too much like malinger, and I’m not built that way.  I want to get this over so I can return to work.

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22. September 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

The Monday after I returned from Honduras I jumped in my Honda Civic Hydrid and drove down to California to visit family and friends before I’m grounded for 4 months.  The drive through the Siskiyou Mountains, a spiritual experience, punched deep into the forest, a vast kaleidoscope in multi-hued shades of green.  Miles and miles of towering evergreen trees on each side as I climbed up a twisting four-lane Interstate-5 that reached its highest point on I-5 between the Mexican and Canadian borders: a 4,340-foot-high pass in Oregon, its steep, curving downgrades swooping steadily downward until we crossed into California and then continuing the curvaceous mountainous plunge reaching Lake Shasta at the foot of the dormant snow-covered volcano; Mt. Shasta.  The enormous Sacramento Valley stretched out toward the delta, and with a turn to the right onward toward San Francisco and the Bay Area along the mighty Sacramento River.  Straight south, however, sprawled the even more enormous San Joaquin Valley.  I had not seen many of my people for almost 3 years.  Some longer than that.  It’s been said that one can’t ever go home again.  I believe it’s mostly true.  I saw very few of my family and friends; they were busy living their own lives.  I did enjoy the long drive and the many changes.  On my return trip, in a nostalgic, wistful frame of mind, I recognized that the past was irrecoverable, however a future filled with many wonderful things beckoned ahead.  I arrived in Seattle to learn that my surgery had been postponed once again until October 5th.  C’est la vie.

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11. September 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

My last Sunday in La Paz I accompanied Sor Edith and the children to Mass.  Wednesday, my last day in town, our support group that is spearheading the construction of the new building for the Fundacion Senor San Jose had a meeting at the Hogar to tighten up last minute bureaucratic legalese and to have a mini-despedida for me.  We made first-class hamburgers for the children with mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and potato chips.  Ground-breaking for our new home for the children is scheduled to begin in October.  The building will be completely furnished with all new equipment and with a new well sunk for 24-hour water availability.  We hope to make the facility a model for the country.  I flew into Seattle last night for the last surgery to my elbow scheduled for 21 September.  Unfortunately I will miss the ground-breaking, but I will return to La Paz in January 2012 to continue the work Sor Edith and I began so long ago.

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