Phil’s surgery today was not a success. Mauricio left with his leg and foot in his hands.

I believe in 6 degrees of separation, that all of us know someone, who knows someone who can help. That is why I write this blog. Without your help, I am just one woman telling a story. Sometimes it is a nice, warm, fuzzy story and sometimes it is not. This is a country of extremes and everyday I am more enlightened than the day before. We do what we can on this end; sometimes we can solve immediate problems with ingenuity and tools. I depend on you for outside resources to help these folks because there are so few resources here nor are they accessible to rural people.

Mauricio does not have electricity, they have a little hydro electric generator that his father built, but it is the dry season and there is no water to run it. When it is the rainy season, they only have power part of the time because there is too much water and the equipment washes down stream. They are always repairing the system.

I remember the first time I met Mauricio he was trying to repair the generator using a candle to heat an electric soldering gun. I said to Phil, this is going to end badly. It simply made a mess and ended up in the repair shop for a week with the shop owner cursing the damage. They try, with little knowledge and even less skills, they try.