Happy Birthday, Ella! Happy Cast Day, Beth!

Today was our first day at the worksite, and it was wonderful!  We drove out into an area that was completely uncivilized a year ago and that is now growing up into a neighborhood of homes.  Our team is building a home for Maricruz and Jesus and their two children.  Several other teams are working in the same neighborhood building houses, so it was fun to have lots of interaction with many families.  When we pulled up, Alex jumped out of the van and yelled, "I see friends!" and took off up the hillside to a home where a couple little boys were playing.  I managed to help him step around the stream of sewage before he plowed right through it, and he was off making friends.  It was such a delight to watch him.  It was interesting to watch how each of the kids approached this new setting with the language difference.  Some jumped in, some were reluctant but with a little encouragement, were out in the street playing soccer or interacting with others.  Maria, Ella and Alex sat down with a pile of scrap wood and nails and hammered away to their hearts content for quite a long time!  Max played soccer, Kyler helped out with some building (as did all the kids at some time), and Beth collected water bottles from the students and staff to take them to be refilled, making sure everyone stayed well hydrated.
It was on one of these errands that she tripped stepping down the hillside (this neighborhood is on the side of a hill with a beautiful view out over the valley and hills), and caught her fall with her hand, hurting her wrist.  She came and told me that she fell and I could see that she was dirty, so I said some encouraging word and told her to brush off.  A minute later I turned around to see her and saw that she was on the verge of tears.   She was so stoic that I hadn't realized how badly she was hurt!  We looked at her wrist, which behaved suspiciously like it was broken, but took her to an air conditioned van to rest for a few minutes and see if that helped.  It didn't help, she still wasn't able to move it without extreme pain, so we took her to the clinic to have it checked out (the same one Jeremy worked at).  She was such a trooper!  We were sent from the clinic on a drive to another tiny little building where we had x-rays taken.  Beth, sitting quietly with tears springing to her eyes when they repositioned her wrist, but not saying a word.
We took the x-rays back to the clinic, where we met with the doctor (maybe?) All this in Spanish, of course, which I have a very limited command of.  Actually, I shouldn't even use the word "command," because I can't command anything in Spanish! He pronounced to us that it was not broken, but that he wanted to cast her all the way up past her elbow.   Hmm.. I had to ask for a bit more clarification on that one, which seemed to confuse him.  Why is this crazy American lady asking all these questions of him?
It sounds like he thinks she has a bad sprain and wants her to immobilize it and rest it "because of all the trauma."  I'm not entirely sure it's not broken, so a cast didn't seem like such a bad idea.  Either way, it will be the easiest was to take care of it this next week with our limited accommodations and being out on the worksites each day.  She now has a good old fashioned heavy plaster cast to haul around, and also to hit anyone with who bothers her. :-)  She's going to have one great Tijuana souvenir!

Ella's 6th birthday is today, and we hope to make it special for her with  a little party tonight.  The cooks are serving a cake tonight for all the people who have birthdays this week.

We hope to have a less medically eventful day tomorrow, but today was not too bad.  Beth and I had a fun adventure and experienced new things in Tijuana together!