Today, we experienced what we had been anticipating since October: volunteering with the medical campaign and seeing first-hand the health concerns of various communities within Guatemala. I felt a range of emotions today during our time with the doctor and all the children in the community Segunda Cruz – the juxtaposition of enthusiastic faces on children with the obvious lack of resources we often take for granted was shocking and eye-opening.
We started our day bright and early, getting picked up at our homestay by the medical correspondent at Maximo Nivel, Jorge. It wasn’t too long after meeting Jorge that we started experiencing new things – I can now say that I’ve been in a car that went down a rocky hill in reverse in order to quickly accelerate upwards to overcome the ascent. The journey to Segunda Cruz may have been fraught with steep hills and roads that made us feel like we were on a slow-moving roller coaster, but once we saw the shining faces of children, that event was completely forgotten.
My partner Trish and I first gave a small presentation about proper habits of washing your hands. It went surprisingly well with children happily paying attention and answering our questions every now and then; we were feeling great yet nervous about the remainder of our day. Our first rotation was to shadow the doctor and assist him in any way we could while he attended to the various children and mothers that were sick.
As a member of the Needs Assessment Committee, I knew I had the task of asking the doctor pertinent questions about his history with patients and trends he had perceived, but as an inexperienced Spanish speaker, I was just hoping to garner as much as information as possible. At first I was highly overwhelmed trying to understand the medical terminology the doctor used while describing the symptoms and recent history of the patients. He was extremely patient and often used diagrams to compound his teaching, but I still felt lost. Jorge would often accompany us and could translate for the doctor, and that was when we could take our most detailed notes and ask follow-up questions.
In the moment, I felt really confused and uncertain about how to proceed. I could take temperatures and listen to the patients’ stories and help the doctor find medicines to prescribe, but I couldn’t understand the entire process. All I could think of was our prior day’s orientation that asked us to take initiative while volunteering and my committee’s months of planning our tasks in order to have the best chance of forming a project team based on needs we observed. By the end of the day, I was feeling a little discouraged and concerned about the rest of the week.
However, after dinner at our homestay, we had a chance to talk about our observations, and I found myself contributing to the conversation more than I thought I could. At the time, I didn’t know what I knew and what I didn’t know, but once we got the conversation started, it became easier to point out my personal observations. My partner and I were able to feed off of each other and discuss what we saw in an informed manner. I found that while there were portions of our conversations with the doctor that I didn’t understand, these were simply things to be elaborated upon in our next day. That and knowing that I could rely on the 15 other members in my group had me feeling a lot more enthusiastic about the rest of this week.
Hasta luego!
-Sanjana Murali