Our bus arriving in San
Pedro for the last day of clinic work -- typically, several hundred people
awaited our arrival
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Day 7 -- San Pedro, The End of the Line |
| Hard to believe we had arrived at our last day of clinic work. Today's operation was originally supposed to be setup in the clinic in the main town of San Pedro, sponsored by the government Ministry of Health. We instead worked out of the local school, same as we had the preceding 4 days. Ironically enough, the school was located directly across the street from the Sam Pedro Clinic, which actually referred some patients to our doctors during the day today. And all this occurred on a day when PazSalud was written up in the national newspaper. |
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I made a point to take several photos of the Citizens Roundtable assistants who helped with crowd control, lines, and doors all week -- they were an invaluable help to our brigade. The lines were long and people were often in desperate need of getting in to see a doctor, so the crowding at the doors was quite challenging. I also made myself somewhat useful today by facilitating a few trips to the local Pharmacy for medications we were running out of, which may not sound like much, but this included a local health promoter and our bus driver, neither of which knew any English (and I didn't know much Spanish). One medication in particular was for Scabies, which we saw several cases of today -- one was a 10 year old boy that had suffered with it for 2 years. Our medications should clear it up. Imagine. |
| Ken treated another 10 year old boy who had an eye infection -- probably the same infection that caused blindness in Horacio who was seen the day before. With drops and a prescription, he should be completely healed. What a difference a 1-week brigade can make. These are the cases that occasionally make you stop and ponder: yes, on the surface, what a difference something as simple as eye-drops can have on a human life. But reflecting a bit deeper, how sad it is that this type of simple medication and procedure is so unevenly distributed across the world. Something we wouldn't even think twice about in the U.S. is a god-send to those in El Salvador. |
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David
and Sister Eleanor treated a 94 year old woman who had been waiting in
line since 5:30 a.m. -- she got in at 3:30 p.m. Had a spot of skin
cancer on her nose, hopefully to be treated by David's referral, although
once again we may never know the outcome.
David also consulted with a man who had been working the fields since the age of 10, and had come complaining of pain in his hands (a machete was his tool of choice). I asked permission to photograph his hands, which to us were beautiful in their strength and pain. |
Lauren saw 81 patients today. Her busiest day ever in the U.S.: 30 patients. The picture to the right gives another example of the "just do it" approach you have to adopt in El Salvador at times. Respiratory problems were fairly common, among all ages -- the pollution and dust are awful. As a result, we had brought quite a few inhalers with us, to treat asthma and related symptoms. For young children, we also brought a few devices that help get the puff-inhalers into the lungs -- a larger bag to blow the inhaler into, and then you slowly squeeze the large bag into the child's mouth as they inhale. Well, we ran out of those, so Kathy, Lauren and I constructed a home-made equivalent: the cardboard interior of a toilet paper roll, a donated hair-scrunchie, and a plastic sandwich bag! |
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As
we ended this day of clinic work, we played hacky-sack with a group of
kids (the activity was new to them, but they seemed to get the hang of it
pretty well).
As we finished and walked toward the bus, a woman and her daughter in a turquoise dress stopped and gave me a hug, and thanked us for coming. Sister Grace had taught me the Spanish word for "you're welcome", which I tried to spit out. |
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We drove straight from our clinic work to a farewell dinner with the local leaders and Citizens Roundtable volunteers. Each of us was presented with a diploma to mark our efforts (even me!), and the graciousness and thanks flowed like wine. I tried frantically to record the spoken and translated words, and present this sampling: |
| "Thank
you for your efforts and your labor. We can't begin to repay you,
but God will repay you, because he doesn't leave anyone in debt.
This diploma marks your great humanitarian efforts. We are filled with satisfaction for you being in our country. We pray to God that you will be safe in his hands as you travel, so that you can come back and visit again someday. We hope this is not your last visit. I want to give a humble thanks. It fills my heart with satisfaction to see the help you provided to our people. But I'm also very sad that you are leaving. Our arms are open for a future visit. Thanks to all who participated -- words escape me to thank everyone. It is beautiful to see people put themselves in service to others. You helped many people in need. In the name of all the Cantones (villages), I want to thank you. The citizens of our population are great, and I know you won't forget us. And we will always remember all of you. Muchos gracias to all".
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Wow. I wasn't prepared to be on the receiving end of that. As I reflected on my personal deliberations on whether to join this brigade or not, the days events, the efforts of Sister Eleanor and Sister Grace at this stage in their lives, the fact that our week of work had come to an end, as well as the comments from dinner, I couldn’t help shake this song from my head: |
| Well
it's all right, riding around in the breeze Well it's all right, if you live the life you please Well it's all right, doing the best you can Well it's all right, as long as you lend a hand You
can sit around and wait for the phone to ring Well
it's all right, even if they say you're wrong Maybe
somewhere down the road aways Well
it's all right, even when push comes to shove Don't
have to be ashamed of the car I drive Well
it's all right, even if you're old and gray Well
it's all right, riding around in the breeze -- Traveling Wilburys |
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Even with the intensity of the past 5 days of clinic work, it was hard to believe that aspect of the trip had come to an end. A day of rest and reflection awaited. . . . . |
