Our team wakes up every morning around 7 am. I lie in my bed, half-awake, wondering what the day will bring. We throw on our dirty scrubs and walk downstairs for breakfast. We greet our lovely hosts, Carmen and Richard with a kiss on the cheek and a "buenos dias," and their two young children run and jump into our arms for a warm good morning hug.
After breakfast we load our plastic drawers of medications and vitamins into the bus waiting outside the gate. We stack the boxes of supplies then hop aboard. While we are watching the world whirling by through the window, our coordinator, Kristy, is giving us a run-down for the day. She's telling us about the place we are going to visit and the story about how it started.
Eventually we arrive outside the doors of our destination and take a deep breath. The preacher or director of the ministry greets us with a warm and grateful smile as we walk around to shake the hands of those who have already started to gather; girls with popsicles, bashful little boys and elderly women with pleaded skirts and wide-brimmed hats.
As we begin our daily task of setting up the clinic, curious eyes watch our actions and we pause every once in a while to take a picture of the cheerful families. We have developed a system by now and are busy setting up our farmacy and organizing our consultation rooms.
Eventually we are ready to begin and the first patient comes to sit between Melissa and I. We say hello, introduce ourselves, and begin the sequence of questions. I watch Melissa listen to their heart and lungs then she smiles and tells them how good everything sounds. We write down their "diagnistico" on a piece of paper and I explain to them in Spanish the medications we are going to give them and how to take them. They smile and say thank you and walk out the door to the farmacy, where Kristy is waiting to give out the medications in a little bag with handwritten directions. She is our team leader and runs the show alongside the Bolivian doctors, Claudia and Maria.
Some patients come in crying after Kim, our team member who pokes the finger of every child, strategically takes a drop of their blood. We can hear her re-assuring the sobbing kids in the other room. Repeatedly saying "Los siento," a touch of her southern accent and motherly tone subtly seeps into her Spanish.
Throughout the day we will see a variety of medical ailments but several are very common and reoccurring. We see severe cavities and tooth decay in many of the children. I politely ask if they brush their teeth and they take their lollipop out of their mouth as a smile stretches across their faces, "cinco veces cada día" they say.
Some of the things we see sadden our hearts. Mel and I talk with one young child who has gone five days without eating. We give her a banana and watch her slowly eat it- little by little. It's hard for us to wrap our brains around the idea of this and once she walks away our emotions take over and we look at each other with the same face; a mutual feeling of devastation and helplessness.
We continue our day, helping treat the lice, scabies, parasites, ear infections and everything else that walks through the door. I watch Mel do the physical exams and smile as she tickles the children after feeling their stomach for pains.
Most of the children we see are incredibly kind and polite. The majority of them walked themselves to our clinic and are there all alone. Some have never seen a doctor before in their lives.
Sometimes my job as a translator includes talking to worried parents about their children. One day we had a child come in with a broken arm in a cloth sling and most of our consult consisted of coaxing the mother into letting us see his arm. Other times, there are no parents and we watch the older siblings gently taking care of their younger brothers or sisters. In many cases, these older kids have raised their younger siblings more than their parents have.
We make a good team and by the end of our first day we have already figured out our system. By now we're tired and sit down for lunch. We load our boxes of medicines and vitamins back into the bus and shake hands and give hugs. As we are pulling away, they wave to us from the gate with a big smile on their faces and a baggie of medicine in their hands.
Undeniably most of their vitamin supply will eventually run out and their parasites will return. Although we will not be coming back soon and the children may go for weeks, months or even years before seeing the next doctor, we are giving them hope, hope that someone somewhere out there cares about their well being.
In the bus ride home, we listen to Kristy's fascinating stories from the places she has travelled. We are inspired by what she has accomplished and grateful to be working on her team. I talk with her about how to truly make a difference and she explains to me the idea of positive deviance.
We eat a delicious home cooked Bolivian dinner and play cards before bed. Our hearts are happy and we are tired so we drift into a peaceful night of rest, all the while preparing ourselves for another day.
Throughout our week in Cochabamba we will help roughly 200 children. We will visit the ministry for disabled children, for children living in the red light district, for children living in poverty in the city and for children in the outskirts of town. We will work in a variety of different places and meet a wonderful group of people who have dedicated their lives to helping these kids. We will be inspired by the stories we hear and will fall in love with the kind-hearted people we meet.
