Our visit to Guanacaste began as it has every year—with the community waiting for us, embracing us, welcoming us, as friends who have returned. The children, dressed in school uniforms (made possible through the generosity of our donors), the mothers with babies in their arms, the fathers with the fireworks, all lined up, clapping and singing our welcome.
The men and women helped us unload our trucks, filled with medicines, food, toys, and school supplies. And then we get to business. This year our In-Country Director, Miguel Manueles, helped us, once again. Also, this year, our patient registration was improved by the addition of our community representatives—one in each of the communities of Guanacaste and Aguacate. Because they know their “neighbors”, they were efficient in keeping families together and finding their medical charts.
In 2021, between the two villages, we saw over 1000 people. This year, it was over 1200.
On the first day of clinic, in each community, we confine our care to the members of those communities. We know our patients; we call them friends. We weigh the children and compare to previous years. We check patient’s blood pressures and review the medicines that we left the prior year. We make sure that our patients with seizures get their epilepsy medicine and that our diabetics get their metformin; that the sore muscles and allergies get addressed.
On the subsequent days of clinic, in each village, we see all of the people who come for our care. They come down from the mountains—from villages near and far—asking for our help. Many have seen us for years; others are finding us for the first time. Every year, we bring more and more provisions and, we wish we had more to give.
But also, every year we see the impact we have made. Food insecurity is still a very real issue, but none of our patients are starving. The women are taking vitamins with folic acid and there have been no new babies with spina bifida in all of these years.
Every year, we put fluoride varnish on the children’s teeth and we teach about nutrition and good health. We offer the chiropractic services of our extraordinary Chiropractic doctor, Alex Gafford. We take 11-year-old Seily to La Esperanza for thyroid lab test; we take Beatriz, who has rheumatoid arthritis and is on medication, for her blood count and kidney tests. And every year we have new, identified needs that will be managed from a distance. We will help Juan, who is in his 40s, get one of his cataracts removed so that he can work better for his family. We will help two children, who have loud heart murmurs and poor weight gain, get ultrasounds of their hearts. Every year we come away with happy stories about the impact that we have made—stories of joyous success. Reynaldo, identified last year with cleft lip and palate, has had three visits to San Pedro Sula, and has had his surgery—through the generous support of Smile Train.
And every year, we leave feeling gratitude for our Honduran partners, who are critical members of our Team. The five men who drive our trucks, who help us load all of our equipment and 100-pound bags of rice and beans, who help with registration and support our dentist by cleaning her equipment, are lovely and loving.
Our dentist this year was Claudia Berrios, who has a private dental practice hours from Guanacaste and Aguacate. This is the second year Claudia was with us and she, all by herself, extracted diseased and painful teeth from 250 people—many with multiple extractions.
And we are grateful for our four young, bilingual Honduran translators—two of who are now in medical school and two of who are Nutritionists. Not only do they provide translation for our health workers who don’t speak Spanish, but they also provide education to our patients to help improve their nutrition choices. This year Jelssy Alverez, one of the Honduran medical students, took her Nike shoes off her feet and put them on Beatriz’s deformed, painful rheumatic feet, for her to keep.
Upon our return home, the work starts again. The patients needing follow up cannot be forgotten. The charts need to be organized for next year. And the funds, to continue our work, need to be raised.
