July 12, 2005

Tuesday evening:  A Las Tejas clinic.           This is a 3-part update / Commentary.

     Our second clinic day was amazing.

     We again left our hotel in Matagalpa at 0800, but the trip was only about 15 minutes to the town of Las Tejas.  As we pulled up to the house we would be using for our clinic, nobody was there; the man who was to arrange the clinic thought it was to be on a different date.

     However, just like yesterday, when the word was put out into the community, the people began rolling in….and they never stopped coming.  By the end of the day, we saw 53 adults and 41 children, for a total of 94 registered patients.  Another large group of people “only wanted ibuprofen and vitamins,” and these were just passed out to that line of patients.  There simply wasn’t time to see everyone, even though Arlen used Braulio as the translator and Clay set up his own exam area in the hallway.

     We saw a couple children with pneumonia, and an elderly lady with a skin cancer on her leg.  We saw several headache patients, including one that had suffered recent weight loss, seizures, and a worsening headache for a few months.  He needed a CT scan, but, without the $400 to have that done, it seemed pretty hopeless.  If he really did get a CT and was found to have a brain tumor, nobody in the country would treat him since he had no money.

     Today we also introduced the glasses clinic to the operation, and there were several “Wow!” moments when a patient realized that they could now suddenly see many things that were only a blur for a long time before this.  It was a real joy to see a child fit a pair of sunglasses onto their face and look, smiling, into a mirror.  They walked out the door in a proud fashion.

     We blew up a couple of the large balls that the team brought along, and Martin and Lance engaged about 30 kids in games of ball bouncing.  Some elderly women dodged a couple of the flying objects as they waited in the long line.

     As the hot, humid afternoon wore on, it became obvious that we were not going to be able to see everyone who had gathered outside or was sitting under the hastily framed up canopy sunshade.  We tried to go faster, we split Arlen and Clay into 2 exam areas, and we offered quick bags of medicine for those who simply wanted that.  We still could not see everyone.

     This is a frustrating event that seems to happen every single clinic day in every country we’ve been to.  The work is never done.

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     We’ve seen many animals in Nicaragua.  A gecko lives in the ceiling boards of our dining area at the hotel, and he chirps every few minutes.  A huge moth with beautiful wing patterns has lived in the men’s bedroom the entire time we’ve been here.  Horses and cows are everywhere; they sometimes are walking, unattended, along the road, and sometimes one may be tied along the roadside, presumably to “mow the grass.” 

     Yesterday, we followed a flatbed truck with several head of cattle in the back, and then passed them as several of the cows slipped and fell in the rainstorm as their truck bounced and lurched along the rough road. 

     The dogs seem to all be those scrawny, mid-sized mutts that populate Latin America.  We haven’t seen a cat.  There are green parrots for sale along the Pan American Highway, and we’ve seen hummingbirds enjoying the flowers beside our dining area every meal we’ve had at our hotel.

     Tomorrow, we are traveling 28 miles to our Wednesday clinic destination up in the mountains.  The trip is supposed to take about 2 hours on the winding, rough roads, and they say the trees are full of monkeys up there.

     We’re ready to see what tomorrow offers, and to try to do whatever is needed.

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     People are the same everywhere.

     Sometimes, as Americans, we get the feeling that we have it better than everyone else on earth, that we have some unique happiness in our lifestyles in our country, that we love our children more than parents could love their children if they are not American, or that heat and humidity are not as intolerable if one lives in a poor country.

     When time is spent in a poor country – Central America, Africa, Asia, wherever – it becomes apparent quite quickly that this way of thinking is just not true.  We are reminded of this again this week.

     We’ve again seen babies secure on their mother’s breast, and we’ve watched schoolchildren laughing and playing in the streets.  We saw the love and concern on a mother’s face when her child was ill.  We watched the pride in the words of an elderly woman when she spoke of her family, which probably includes several generations, each growing up much as she did 70 or 80 years ago.

     It’s obvious that the pain a father would feel with the loss of a child here in Nicaragua would be the same pain that one would feel in America.  Life is precious here, just as it is in Africa, or in Florida.

     People want safety, and they want to feel secure in their home, whether it’s a dirt-floor, plastic-draped “room” along the Pan American Highway in Nicaragua, or a million-dollar house along the river in New Smyrna Beach.  Everyone needs to be loved, whether they live in New York City or in Matagalpa.  Everyone needs to know they have a future, whether it’s a secure job to earn the money for food, or knowing that there is life after death on this sometimes-lonely earth.

     Why were we born in America?  What fluke led us to end up in New Smyrna Beach – out of all the millions of villages and mountaintops in the world where we could have been born?  Why weren’t we born in Las Tejas, Nicaragua, or somewhere in Indonesia?

    We’re each put on this earth for some purpose, to accomplish certain things in life, and – if we’re lucky enough to enjoy the benefits of living in a rich country – then we have a responsibility to use some of those resources to help those who are less fortunate.

     So, why do we come to faraway places?  Why do we bump through jungle roads toward tiny church buildings and set up medical clinics?  Why do we share love with a dirt-poor subsistence farmer in Central America?  Why do we bring hundreds of donated T-shirts to Nicaraguans who only own 2 or 3 tattered shirts?

    “Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you?  Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality?  Or naked and give you clothing?  When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?”  And the King will tell them, “I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.”

Mackenzie and Martin with some of their new friends at the clinic.	Renea speaks with a young man about the Bible	Lance entertains the local children who are waiting at the clinic.
Anna and Susan enjoy breakfast at the hotel before the work day.	One happy patient who received one of the donated pair of sunglasses.	Arlen and Brenda (accidentally) wore the same shirts this day.

The hillside surrounding our work clinic is populated with squatter huts.