Pollo Campero

No trip to Guatemala would be complete without a meal at Pollo Campero, Guatemala's gift to the world. Pollo Campero, translate: Country Chicken, opened in 1971 in Guatemala. This year there will be one opening in Shanghai and in Downtown Disney.

So on Tuesday, with the help of Dick Rutgers, a longtime local volunteer, we loaded up 5 young ladies from the Teenager Ward at the hospital and made the bumpy ride along the cobblestone streets across Central Park to the Chicken Camp. I had fallen quickly for Mercedes so I was pushing her wheelchair. According to Dick, she had been left on the steps of a local church as a baby with a broken leg. She has cerebral palsy and the folks at the hospital believe she's around 19 years old although they don't know for sure. She in nonverbal but she can totally communicate by looking at her face. She is always smiling but she lets you know with her eyes if another girl is not having a good day or if there is a nurse not being nice. She is my favorite of all the people at the hospital. She had the heaviest chair of the group and I got a full fledge workout just going those few blocks. Mercedes loved every minute of it though and her smile was much more rewarding than any weight I must have lost sweating away.

When we arrived we all ordered quickly and waited just a short time for our food. Apparently a few years back when Dick first started bringing the kids out to lunch he would wait upwards of forty minutes before anyone would wait on him. Guatemalans view the disabled as second class citizens and the workers didn't want to wait on them or be see talking to them. Dick said people would refuse to move out of the way of the wheelchairs and some drivers would even speed up if they were crossing the street. Thank God the mindset has began to change. One family at the restaurant that Tuesday even came over to our table showing much concern for the girls and asking about them.Several of the girls have restrictions on what they can eat so we fed them soft food, like stuff you'd feed a baby. Mercedes, Guadelupe (I'll tell you about her in a bit) and Curly we fed flan, mashed potatoes , and strawberry milkshakes out of baby bottles. Not the healthiest meal ever but considering these girls had not been out taken out of the hospital since December we figured they deserved it.

Guadelupe is a smiley girl but her smiles turned to full fledge laughter when she somehow showered me with her strawberry milkshake. Her laughter was a wonderful sound to us and for the rest of the lunch every time she looked at me she would begin to laugh hysterically again. And like the workout pushing Mercedes, Guadalupe's extreme pleasure of covering my with milkshake was worth all the stickiness I had to endure.

I felt as though I had bonded a bit with Guadalupe so when the time came to go back to the hospital I claimed her wheelchair (it was the lightest of the groups).

We had a nice time strolling back through Central Park and stopping for a few pictures in front of the fountain that is dated back to the 1500s.

The food at Pollo Campero is awful, my extra crispy 2 piece chicken and mashed potatoes were the worst I've ever had, but the company that day I'll never forget. I'll keep Mercedes and Lupe in my heart forever.