A New Chapter
Well, my dear readers, it’s time for an announcement. I have officially quit my position at the mission, and will be starting a new job on March 1st.
Although this may seem a bit abrupt to the casual follower of the “Jenna in Guatemala” saga, it’s actually far from a sudden move. The truth is that I’ve never enjoyed my teaching position, and working within the rather archaic and disorganized structure of the mission has been a continually frustrating reality for me. Those who talk to me regularly (that’s really only Ricky and my parents, so don’t feel left out…) have heard me complain on a weekly basis about my dissatisfaction with both the school and the overall program here. It’s not worth going into a million details, as that would turn out an entire blog post of whining and complaining, which is something I’d much rather avoid. Instead, you’ll have to trust my judgment on this one, and if you really want the full story, which does exist, I’d be happy to tell it to you personally.
When the eye doctors were here one of the nurses, Connie, mentioned that she’d worked as a free-lance medical team “helper” here in Guatemala during the mid-90’s. She’d originally come down with a commitment to a mission hospital, but was very unsatisfied and unhappy with her work and living circumstances. As she explained the reasons for her discontent it all sounded incredibly familiar. Apparently a medical team had come to their hospital a few months into her stay, and she enjoyed herself for the first time since she’d arrived. Sounded parallel to my life here. The visit by this team inspired her to leave behind her official position at the hospital and begin contacting American medical teams who’d appreciate in-country assistance from a Spanish-speaking American nurse. Once she heard how similar my experience has been to her own, she encouraged me to try and do the same thing.
At first I was hesitant; nervous about the idea of striking out on my own and being totally responsible for keeping myself both busy and happy. Although it sounded like a fantastic alternative to what I’m doing, I didn’t envision myself actually going through with it. Too complicated, too scary, to unsure. I might not love what I’m doing here, but at least it’s stable.
I went with the eye team to Antigua for the day the weekend before they flew out of Guatemala City. While there, I continued to ask Connie about the work she’d done, disappointed in myself that I wasn’t going to just take a great big scary leap of faith and give it a try. My life had become rather comfortable here, in some ways (dare I say?) easy, or at least predictable. (All of those adjectives were subsequently erased the following Tuesday, but that’s another story which I’m not going to tell.) We sat together at breakfast on Sunday morning, eating before they jumped into a taxi for Guatemala. Connie encouraged me once more to try something new, if I was really unhappy, and I brooded in feelings of self-disappointment (perhaps the worst kind) as I realized I probably was going to nod my head enthusiastically, write down a whole list of contact people and organizations, and then do absolutely nothing with it.
That’s probably exactly how things would have gone, too, if God didn’t already have plans in the works. As we made the short walk from our breakfast café to the hotel, Connie and I actually ran right into the director of Faith in Practice, one of the main organizations she’d worked with. She introduced me, explained that I speak decent Spanish, had been working with their medical jornada for the past week, and was interested in working with them. Just like that, I had an in. The director, Joe, and I spoke for several minutes, and he encouraged me to give him a call to discuss possibilities. I called him that very night, and he suggested that I return to Antigua for a face-to-face meeting.
Saturday the 14th I went to Antigua, where I met with Joe, his wife Vera, and one of their program directors, Christine. They offered me a full-time volunteer position, and I decided to accept it.
Faith in Practice has a myriad of projects here in Guatemala, all of which are related to health programs. They primarily work with American medical brigades, which come down for week-long tours of duty. Their teams set up mobile clinics in remote villages, triage patients and arrange for people to have surgeries done. They also have surgical brigades, which operate out of the Hermano Pedro Hospital in Antigua, and a variety of regional surgical centers throughout the country. Services offered include orthopedic, gynecological, urological, ophthalmological, ear/nose/throat, and general surgical procedures. They also bring down dental teams, have a cervical cancer training and prevention program and do public health education. It’s an incredibly huge, highly organized and coordinated organization which has grown to serve tens of thousands of people yearly since they started out in 1992. The surgical center which they’ve built at Hermano Pedro Hosptial is far and away the finest medical facility I have seen in all of Guatemala. They bring down nearly 1,000 American volunteers (mostly for week-long jornadas) every year, and in a given week see around 2,000 patients in their clinics. Despite all of that, they still have a very small administrative team, and are pretty much run entirely by Joe and Vera, the Texas couple which started the whole thing. What makes it all even sweeter is that they’ve ecstatic to have me working with them! When I met with Christine in Antigua on Saturday, one of the first things she told me was “Joe is so excited to have you working with us! You’re all he can talk about!” Apparently they’d already decided I was in, and here I thought it was just a preliminary “let’s see if you’ll fit in with us” sort of meeting!
Ok, so, enough excited gushing – what am I going to be doing? Good question. I made it very clear to them from the beginning that I absolutely require that they keep me busy, a statement which they laughed at before replying “don’t say that, you’ll be begging us for time to sleep!” Perfect. My main job will probably be working with American teams as a translator and coordinator, help them set up and run clinics, communicate with local Guatemalan team members and their patients, and overall operate successfully. This will entail a good deal of traveling – the second week I’ll be with them, starting March 7th, I’ll be in the Peten. That’s the wild wild west north of Guatemala: tropical jungles full of jaguars, monkeys and Mayan ruins. The jornada schedule is most busy from now until early fall, so I’ll have plenty to do until I have to leave for school mid-summer.
I’m not entirely sure what my living situation will be like yet, although I’ve got promising leads a few places. More to follow here.
So…I’m sure there are plenty of details I’m leaving out, but that’s all I can think to share right now. I’m fantastically excited about the new position, and am confident that I will be much happier. In addition to having a job much better suited to me, Antigua’s the Guatemalan Disneyland. It’s full of nightlife, cultural activities, safety (!) and people my age. Also, it’s a very short bus ride to Guatemala City, which means I’ll be able to see my friends there much more frequently. More importantly, I’ll get to travel all over, seeing more of this country which I’ve become rather smitten with.
I’m bummed to be leaving the hospital in Mazate, but I’m sure I’ll be back to visit when possible, and we even have a Faith in Practice team in the area in April. I have no intention whatsoever of leaving them for good; I’ve already decided that my connections there are going to be life-long ones. I can’t wait to come back with a bit more skill and expertise, and show them I wasn’t kidding when I said I was studying medicine (I’m talking years down the road, of course, not months or weeks).
I’ve had some great experiences here at the mission, better ones yet at the hospital, but I’m ready to move on. So! Here’s to new beginnings!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
La Segunda Jornada de Ojos
The week of February 1st through 7th brought the return of the Jornada de Ojos, an event which seemed eons away when they all packed up and left last September. I wouldn’t exactly say that time has always passed quickly here, but I was surprised to realize that five months had passed since the last time I’d been happily translating away in the clinic.
The week before I returned to the Mazate for a few quick days of morning work. Unfortunately and relatively inexplicably, Sheila has insisted that my time spent in the hospital is limited to a maximum of three mornings a week, and the other two mornings I need to be up at the school. It’s kind of a bummer, since there’s not really anything for me to do all morning in tiny little Xejuyup, but it’s important to her and it gets me down in Mazate at least a little bit. It was very nice to return to the hospital, where I felt like I had been truly missed and was enthusiastically welcomed back. The hospital director had changed since I very first started spending time there, and I was a bit nervous about asking for official permission again. I’d kind of made a big deal about insisting that I be allowed to spend at least a few mornings a day there, and the thought occurred to me briefly the evening before I went to ask that I could be denied access. Quite the contrary, I ran into the director, Dr. Olivar, just as I entered the front doors and was earnestly welcomed back, quizzed with regards to why I’d been absent so long and encouraged to return to work ASAP. Needless to say, it made me feel quite good about the work I’d been doing before I left.
The most interesting case I saw during that last week of January was a young boy who’d fallen 30 feet out of a tree, head-first. Miraculously, he didn’t hit his head and was in perfect condition neurologically. That fortunate condition didn’t come without a cost, however, and the radius and ulna on both arms protruded from his skin, with wrists and hands jutting at bizarre angles towards his body. The poor boy was miserable, and his story was heartbreaking. As we quizzed him about who he was and what had happened, in order to test how well his brain was working, he explained that he’d climbed the tree in order to catch a squirrel. “My father’s left us, and my mom’s working in Guatemala,” he sobbed, “and my siblings are hungry. We were going to eat it.” Wow. Just about made a person want to cry, and activity usually discouraged in ER staff. Luckily, our Mazate traumatólogo (that’s orthopedic surgeon in Spanish, I think it’s a great name. Kind of like otorrinolaringólogo, which means Ear Nose and Throat Doctor) has connections with the docs at the National Hospital in Xela, where they have more resources available for poor patients. We cleaned him up very well, cast his arms in their peculiar angles and packaged him for transport.
Another crazy case was a man who came in with a disgusting, rotten cellulitis in his left leg. He claims that it’s been there for 10 years, although the concept of a person living with half of their lower body literally rotting away for 10 years is entirely otherworldly to me. His leg was hugely swollen, ulcerated and grey, bringing to mind an elephant who’d been hit by a car. The worst part was when I started placing a temporary bandage on his leg, just until he was transported to the surgery ward. He’d placed a tourniquet below his knee, and the doc asked me to take it off. Being the good little order-obeying soldier that I am, I did just as I was told. A literal fountain of blood spurted from an ulcer on the man’s shin, threatening to flood the ER with several liters of blood. Apparently this was the reason he’d chosen today as the day to report to the hospital: the ulcer had eaten through an artery, and un-tourniquetted produced massive hemorrhaging. Bummer I had to be the person to figure that out. Luckily I was observant enough to be wary of both the tourniquet and the leg in general and was careful to be very far off to the side before loosening the knot; I don’t think a speck of blood from the bright red flood touched me.
Both of those cases I was rather disappointed in myself for not having camera handy, and I think I’ll have to start bringing it.
The following week was dedicated to the eye docs, who were a very fun bunch. We saw a mountain of interesting ophthalmological pathologies, and impressed upon me how fortunate I was to be working with them. I don’t think a single one of the four eye docs here failed to tell me that I’d already seen more ophthalmology in this one week than they saw before starting residency. This time around they brought down a Yag laser, which I can best describe as a large apparatus which shoots laser beams into eyes, making blind people see again. If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is. It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t moderately considering ophthalmology as a specialty, although I know I’ll change my mind a minimum of six trillion times between now and picking my residency programs in four years.
On a different note, I had a very humorous experience with one of my students recently. One of my biggest challenges in any subject is teaching the kids how to pronounce words correctly, so I always try to find creative ways to explain pronunciation. Mostly this means relating parts of the English word to words they already know in Spanish – like explaining the month of March as “mar” (which means “sea”) + ch (the sound which people make to get your attention here. ) That way, it’s not just some goofy combination of sounds, but two parts which make a whole.
In my Segundo Basico classes we’re building vocabulary which relates to school – pencil, pen, desk, teacher, student, etc. I felt really lucky when I taught them the word “essay,” since I know they love watching Mexican telenovelas. Mexicans often refer to one another as “ese” (pronounced “essay”) so I explained the connection to them in class. “You already know how to pronounce this word perfectly,” I told them, “because you hear it on TV. “Essay” can be “ensayo,” or it can be a Mexican.” Made perfect sense to me.
On Friday, I assigned each student in the class one of our new school words, and had them make a big, illustrated flash card which I’ll use to drill the whole class on Monday. Little Otto Armando was assigned “essay,” and this is what he turned in at the end of the period:
A guy with a good sound system robbing two people at knifepoint. A Mexican.
I thought he was joking at first, until I saw the confusion at my laughter. Then I felt horrible, because I’d apparently done a poor job of explaining, and now I was embarrassing him. I explained myself again, this time choosing my words much more carefully, and sighed with relief as the bell rang.
The week before I returned to the Mazate for a few quick days of morning work. Unfortunately and relatively inexplicably, Sheila has insisted that my time spent in the hospital is limited to a maximum of three mornings a week, and the other two mornings I need to be up at the school. It’s kind of a bummer, since there’s not really anything for me to do all morning in tiny little Xejuyup, but it’s important to her and it gets me down in Mazate at least a little bit. It was very nice to return to the hospital, where I felt like I had been truly missed and was enthusiastically welcomed back. The hospital director had changed since I very first started spending time there, and I was a bit nervous about asking for official permission again. I’d kind of made a big deal about insisting that I be allowed to spend at least a few mornings a day there, and the thought occurred to me briefly the evening before I went to ask that I could be denied access. Quite the contrary, I ran into the director, Dr. Olivar, just as I entered the front doors and was earnestly welcomed back, quizzed with regards to why I’d been absent so long and encouraged to return to work ASAP. Needless to say, it made me feel quite good about the work I’d been doing before I left.
The most interesting case I saw during that last week of January was a young boy who’d fallen 30 feet out of a tree, head-first. Miraculously, he didn’t hit his head and was in perfect condition neurologically. That fortunate condition didn’t come without a cost, however, and the radius and ulna on both arms protruded from his skin, with wrists and hands jutting at bizarre angles towards his body. The poor boy was miserable, and his story was heartbreaking. As we quizzed him about who he was and what had happened, in order to test how well his brain was working, he explained that he’d climbed the tree in order to catch a squirrel. “My father’s left us, and my mom’s working in Guatemala,” he sobbed, “and my siblings are hungry. We were going to eat it.” Wow. Just about made a person want to cry, and activity usually discouraged in ER staff. Luckily, our Mazate traumatólogo (that’s orthopedic surgeon in Spanish, I think it’s a great name. Kind of like otorrinolaringólogo, which means Ear Nose and Throat Doctor) has connections with the docs at the National Hospital in Xela, where they have more resources available for poor patients. We cleaned him up very well, cast his arms in their peculiar angles and packaged him for transport.
Another crazy case was a man who came in with a disgusting, rotten cellulitis in his left leg. He claims that it’s been there for 10 years, although the concept of a person living with half of their lower body literally rotting away for 10 years is entirely otherworldly to me. His leg was hugely swollen, ulcerated and grey, bringing to mind an elephant who’d been hit by a car. The worst part was when I started placing a temporary bandage on his leg, just until he was transported to the surgery ward. He’d placed a tourniquet below his knee, and the doc asked me to take it off. Being the good little order-obeying soldier that I am, I did just as I was told. A literal fountain of blood spurted from an ulcer on the man’s shin, threatening to flood the ER with several liters of blood. Apparently this was the reason he’d chosen today as the day to report to the hospital: the ulcer had eaten through an artery, and un-tourniquetted produced massive hemorrhaging. Bummer I had to be the person to figure that out. Luckily I was observant enough to be wary of both the tourniquet and the leg in general and was careful to be very far off to the side before loosening the knot; I don’t think a speck of blood from the bright red flood touched me.
Both of those cases I was rather disappointed in myself for not having camera handy, and I think I’ll have to start bringing it.
The following week was dedicated to the eye docs, who were a very fun bunch. We saw a mountain of interesting ophthalmological pathologies, and impressed upon me how fortunate I was to be working with them. I don’t think a single one of the four eye docs here failed to tell me that I’d already seen more ophthalmology in this one week than they saw before starting residency. This time around they brought down a Yag laser, which I can best describe as a large apparatus which shoots laser beams into eyes, making blind people see again. If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is. It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t moderately considering ophthalmology as a specialty, although I know I’ll change my mind a minimum of six trillion times between now and picking my residency programs in four years.
On a different note, I had a very humorous experience with one of my students recently. One of my biggest challenges in any subject is teaching the kids how to pronounce words correctly, so I always try to find creative ways to explain pronunciation. Mostly this means relating parts of the English word to words they already know in Spanish – like explaining the month of March as “mar” (which means “sea”) + ch (the sound which people make to get your attention here. ) That way, it’s not just some goofy combination of sounds, but two parts which make a whole.
In my Segundo Basico classes we’re building vocabulary which relates to school – pencil, pen, desk, teacher, student, etc. I felt really lucky when I taught them the word “essay,” since I know they love watching Mexican telenovelas. Mexicans often refer to one another as “ese” (pronounced “essay”) so I explained the connection to them in class. “You already know how to pronounce this word perfectly,” I told them, “because you hear it on TV. “Essay” can be “ensayo,” or it can be a Mexican.” Made perfect sense to me.
On Friday, I assigned each student in the class one of our new school words, and had them make a big, illustrated flash card which I’ll use to drill the whole class on Monday. Little Otto Armando was assigned “essay,” and this is what he turned in at the end of the period:
A guy with a good sound system robbing two people at knifepoint. A Mexican.
I thought he was joking at first, until I saw the confusion at my laughter. Then I felt horrible, because I’d apparently done a poor job of explaining, and now I was embarrassing him. I explained myself again, this time choosing my words much more carefully, and sighed with relief as the bell rang.
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