DAY 14 . Curtain call
Posted on 12 November 2011 | No responses
Posted by Angela Lau
The last night we were here, the town held a celebration for STIMMA, rewarding each member a basket filled with a Salvadoran dessert and a certificate.
Above: Someone thought it was funny to stuff as many people into a mosquito tent.
We had stowed some last items into a bag to give to the family on the outskirts of town. This family had heard of us and seeked us out for help. We had given them 10 sheets of aluminum and hired workers to help them rebuild their roof. They used the old roof to replace the walls of their home which had previously been made of garbage bags. The family had 3 boys last time we were there but as it turns out, the couple actually had 5 children but could not afford to have them all living there, so the other 2 children lived with their grandmother.
Above: Photo of their bedroom and living room.
Back at the school.
Above: Our beloved groundskeeper and friend.
Above: Image of the freshly painted school.
And our finished mural in town square of San Esteban Catarina.
We saw a grand total of 1862 patients in our 10 days of clinic. I am proud to say that 26 homes in the community, thanks to STIMMA and local workers, all have families that will now be sheltered from the rain.
Thanks for all of your donations and continued support, the team has now dispersed, most back to Canada and some still trotting the Central American grounds, we will surely be back in the little town of San Esteban Catarina.
DAY 13 . A brand new morning
Posted on 11 November 2011 | No responses
Posted by Angela Lau
A few of us have been eyeing the Delicious hill for the last few days now to do a morning hike to see the sunrise. We set the alarm to 4:45am and started our walk. It was dark and a bit cool and none of us remembered to bring a flashlight. Luckily, we had the flashlight apps on our cell phones.
Worth it! Closing in on being awake for 20 hours with a lot of people still chatting away outside.
Above: On our walk back, we bumped into a boy riding his bike and selling bread. You can get a large bag full for just $1.
Clinic started today and we saw about 150 patients. Most of today’s patients knew it was our last day here in San Esteban Catarina and the line up was as long as ever. Large families came in today and the poverty was very apparent. Some of their clothes would reek and almost everyone drank from the local river. We treated everyone with worm medication.
Above: This cute little brother and sister definitely knew how to pose.
Above: Little girl clutches onto her new toothpaste and toothbrush.
Back on the construction site.
Above: If you remember from the last post, the family of this house wanted to convert the pig pen into a room. In just one day’s work, this is what was built. They are still working on a concrete floor, but its amazing what can happen in so little time.
Above: This kid lives in the house and is playing with the pig that has now been moved to the living room.
The Garbage Project.
Lindsay had a great idea to help build the community effort. We got 3 large garbage bags and taught the people about picking up litter as it cluttered the streets and caused disease. All the little kids were happily putting the gloves we provided and ran to pick up garbage.
Above: This bedroom was rebuilt. The walls were previously made of garbage bags with a leaky tin roof.
Above: The old aluminum sheets from the bedroom was used to reinforce the structure on the left hand side of the bedroom which is the bathroom.
Above: Adele grabs 2 kids from the street and buys them ice cream. Both were extremely happy at the surprise treat.
Back at the town centre, the team poses for a picture for their final piece. Another artist will take over the mural and paint 3 famous persons portraits on top of this beautiful scenery STIMMA has created.
Above: An artist and historian invites us over to his house. We tour his gallery room and are in awe of all the historical paintings and drawings.
Above: Behind the artist is a custom made grill for the window. It showcases a melody which can be read by any of the music students he teaches. It is a symbol of a music friendly household and his wish is for the melody window to travel on, inspiring others to read and play its tune as you pass by, always knowing where it came from.
Above: Kids showoff their new donated hats and sunglasses.
Above: Back at the clinic, as the afternoon wraps up, we see a lot of patients with depression. A lot of children as i said before are being raised without their parents, for reasons that they’ve passed on or if they work in the city and don’t come home a lot.
Above: The structure being laid out for a new aluminum home being built.
Above: With the reconstruction, you can really see the work we’ve done by the shiny new aluminum metal glowing in the sun.
Above: The team tours the households.
Above: The woman of the household admires her new roof. “It rained and we did not get wet.” This phrase rang deeply amongst our team, many people were coming forward saying this over and over again.
Above: 3 little girls sitting on the lawn in front of their home.
Above: This household’s walls were so poorly broken that thieves had come in through the cracks and stole all their valuables, they were extremely pleased with the new reconstruction and they even built a latrine to guide the rain away from their dwelling.
All the “people from the hill” as we called this community came out to celebrate our last night here in El Salvador, many of them completely emotional at this “miracle” that had come to their neighbourhood.
This mother-to-be has told us that she will be naming her new baby after Lindsay.
DAY 12 . Dress to Impress
Posted on 10 November 2011 | 3 responses
Posted by Angela Lau
The day started again with our construction crew separating with our medical crew. I joined the mobile clinic on a ride on the back of a pickup truck to the little town of Calderitas.
Above: There was a crowd of people waiting for us as we arrived at the school to set up for clinic.
Above: Dagoberto, age 12 and Zoila, age 11.
Above: A lot of the kids’ teeth are rotted.
Above: Many children and babies were present in clinic today.
Above: Movember in El Salvador at its best.
Above: Francisco Javier Martiner, age 77. Francisco came in unlike most other of our patients. His clothes were very dirty and battered, almost always, our patients will dress in their finest clothing to come into the clinic and little do you know, that they’ll go back home to a mud hut and have absolutely nothing to eat. Looks can be very deceiving. Photos do not always tell the whole truth.
Above: Another story about Francisco is that he is still working out in the fields. There is no retirement here, most of these people will be working until they cannot work anymore.
Above: A little girl poses with the new toothbrush and sunglasses we gave her.
The line up did not let up until late afternoon.
Above: This little girl and her sister came to our clinic today. She was extremely upset because she missed her mother. They both lived with their grandmother but their mom would go out for work. They would see her every 15 days for only 3 days at a time because she worked in the city.
Above: Packaging the soup base for distribution.
Above: A grandmother brought two little girls to our clinic just as we had packed everything up. We had to unfortunately turn a few people down at the end of the day but we did tell them our clinic opens again tomorrow in San Esteban Catarina. We took one look at the girl’s sandals and noticed they were too small. We zipped open our flip flop bags and searched hard for sandals that would fit the two girls. There was nothing in their size, they were either too large or too small. It was not our intention to send them away with nothing. Becky took two pairs of larger flip flops, measured their feet and cut them to size. Both girls and grandma walked off extremely happy.
Today we saw a total of 270 patients.
DAY 11 . Stand by me
Posted on 8 November 2011 | 3 responses
Posted by Angela Lau
We’ll call it the never ending line. Today’s patient count added up to 230.
Most of today (and everyday) were patients that needed worm treatment. We did however notice a lot of repeat patients who came into the clinic and having suspiciously changed their stories. We assumed they had wanted to come back to get more donated items, having heard from their friends of what treats they received with what type of story they told. Although it felt slightly uneasy to feel that the people were “scamming” us for more items, I heard more than one person say, “If I were in their position, I would be doing that too.” There is such a dire need for medications, money and food that people will try to do whatever it takes to get more. On a previous mission, I was talking to a little girl who told me that her mother and father had both passed away, I was heartbroken for her story as any one else would be, the next day, the same little girl was in clinic with her mother. I then realized that these kids in need will very quickly learn to say whatever it takes to get through life the best way they know how. We cannot judge people and choose what they need or don’t need but we can show them that there are people that care about them, whoever they are.
Above: The portrait of the most gorgeous woman. She had a polite elegance about her and treated each of our volunteers with a lot of respect.
Above: Pedro and Mary hand out toothbrushes to every patient who came into our clinic. They are very expensive to purchase in El Salvador.
Above: Brenda, age 3 from San Estaban Catarina.
Above: This family consisted of 2 children with cholera and the littlest one in the front is 4 years old and has not presented with any speech capabilities yet. We sent her for psychological testing.
Above: The little one was very scared and nervous at the clinic, hiding her face into her sibling’s laps, but once she saw her picture on the camera, she opened up and started playing peek-a-boo.
Above: I love this skinny little dog that hangs out at the clinic everyday trying to get a free handout. In fact, there are many stray dogs roaming around the town, all cowl in fear of being hit or kicked when you try to reach out to them. There are no vets here so there are many starving dogs walking around with injuries.
Above: Many people will only own one pair of shoes if they are lucky. We only have so many donated shoes of certain sizes, so when we don’t have the right fit for someone, we have to improvise, here Rae is duct-taping an insole into the sandal for a patient who needed more padding on her soles.
Above: Adele packages soup stock (Gleaners) for handouts to patients.
Above: When we hand out reading glasses, we test the patients with eye charts but we also try the “needle and thread” test.
Above: Guillermo and the rest of the interpreters are learning to improve their English from us. Ken has gone the distance and started teaching them about idioms.
Above: Many of the children presented with dental problems. A lot of blackened cavities covered their mouths. This made it all the more important for the education classes we were providing to teach them about the negative effects of drinking cola at such a young age.
Above: This man presented with ring worm.
Above: This woman came into the clinic with the most unique wheelchair. It was created by an Australian group called “Free Wheelchair Mission”
Above: We fitted this little girl with new flip flops which she was extremely proud to receive.
Above: These flip flops belonged to a man back in Kitchener who had recently lost his wife. His wife had a great collection of flip flops which she adored. STIMMA found new homes for each pair.
Above: Our nurse poses with the youngest child of the woman above (with the flip flops). This patient came in right after we had closed the clinic. She told us that she had come from San Lorenzo, a town that was 2 hours away from our clinic. She had heard from a friend about us and hitchhiked all the way to San Estaban Catarina. She told us that she had had 17 children in her lifetime but 7 had passed away for various reasons. The daughter she was with ate hungrily at a granola bar, one of our volunteers gave her. We packed them both home with bags of food and donations.
Above: The little girl has a huge belly due to worms.
Above: Back at homebase, the art school, we are working on another project to revamp the paint on the building.
Tomorrow we are taking the clinic mobile and visiting the town Calderitas. It is a rural town that has gotten no medical attention for quite some time.
DAY 10 . STIMMA blue
Posted on 7 November 2011 | 3 responses
Posted by Angela Lau
Above: After a week of delay, the mural in the town square of San Estaban Catarina is finally touched up with a nice sky blue which we have dubbed STIMMA blue.
Above: René Barahona holding the design for the mural.
Above: Line up waiting for us this morning at the clinic.
Clinic started again today for the second week. We saw a total of 190 patients today. There are 2 new nurses triaging, with Max leading them and showing them the ropes.
Mary, Pedro and Leah, started the education class today.
They used baby powder to demonstrate how germs get passed on from one person to another.
Above: Lois and James pose with a patient and her twins.
Above: Veneta with one of the twins and his new donated sunglasses.
Above: Little girl with clubbed feet, a congenital deformity involving one foot or both. The affected foot appears rotated internally at the ankle. Without treatment, this little girl will appear to walk on her ankles, or on the sides of her feet. It is a common birth defect, occurring in about one in every 1,000 live births.
Above: This woman came in a few days ago to our clinic and was invited back to get new dressing on her wound. An ant had bit her 20 years ago, got infected and had been left untreated for 3 years before she got a skin graft that is now 17 years old. Without the proper treatment for infection and no follow-up in this community, the wound progressively got worse. Rae treated her, while picking away at the infected areas and placed a silver dressing. The silver acts as an antibacterial. The patient also had arterial flow problems which showed in her gnarled toenails and would attribute to a chronic wound if we had left her uneducated. Rae said there’s a saying in the industry that fits very well with this case, “You can see the hole in the person or see the person as a whole.”
Above: Also added to our team this week is Reflexologist, Leah.
Leah did not have a translator available for her while she was with her patients, but she also did not need one. She was able to do her work and read the patients faces, if they winced in pain from the pressure she placed on their feet, she was able to diagnose where the problem areas were occuring.
Above: Adela Antonia Rodriguez, age 86.
One woman had come in complaining about pain in her head and neck. After her visit with Leah, she had also suspected that she had problems with her right ear. The patient was sent back to get it checked and sure enough, there was bleeding inside, an ear infection was the cause.
Above: Thank you to Platinum Drugs for providing prenatal vitamins to our expectant moms.
Above: This man came into our clinic complaining of hemorrhoids. It seemed like an easy case but the man seemed a bit hesistant. He told our nurse Katy, that he had been raped at the age of 15 by several men from his community. He had never told anyone of the doctors before because he was ashamed, but when the hemorrhoids came about, he had been worried that it had been caused by the rape. Katy rest assured him that it had nothing to do with it and they were both very grateful for having to deliver and hear the news.
This family came to our clinic today and told us that they were hungry. A couple was living in the house with their grandson, his mother had gone to the city in search for a job. We toured their home and gave them donated rice, beans, cereal and milk powder.
Above: Lindsay and I went out to the community to access a few more houses today for reconstruction. We have worked and finished a total of 20 houses with 5 more to be completed this week. This man has been helping out with the construction going on in the community. He offered to donate his time and help to reconstruct these houses without pay. We were in awe of his generosity.
Above: This is a photo of a bedroom of a man in the community. It is literally a mattress shielded by an aluminum roof and garbage bags for walls.
Above: This family wants to rebuild this pig pen into a liveable space for their family. We will be working on this reconstruction in the next few days.
Above: The woman of the household is very grateful for what STIMMA has done for them. When we had first arrived to access their homes, a lot of the community members were skeptical that we would come back and actually do what we had promised. Now, they welcome us all lovingly into their homes, ever so grateful for the simple fact that strangers care about them.
Above: The couple from this household seeked us out once they had heard from the community that we were rebuilding houses. We came to access their home. We saw garbage bags for walls, rotten corn for dinner and the couple was also living with 3 young boys. They were extremely grateful when we told them we would be coming early tomorrow with supplies to help them rebuild.
Above: Roberto 9, Asias 7, Mario 3
Back to the clinic.
Above: This patient was getting her assessment when she told the nurse that her husband had passed away just one month ago and she was left at home with 4 children. We sent her home with medications and food.
Above: This man had cancer a while back and had surgery to remove the tumour. He believes it has now come back, his eyes and nose look deformed and he also has another growth on his chest.
Above: Bags filled with various donations, this one is of the sunglasses.
DAY 9 . Indigo Blue
Posted on 7 November 2011 | 1 response
Posted by Angela Lau
Above: Sunrise over Suchitlán lake
The team set off at a leisurely pace today, taking in the many sights and sounds of Suchitoto. A few of us started our morning at 530am to watch the sunrise off the Suchitlán lake, which is an artificial lake formed in the Lempa river and the Cerrón Grande dam.
Most locals were up and about, getting ready for the day’s work. We ran into a mill that makes tortillas, a flatbread made of corn. Corn is a very prominent ingredient used in foods here. Beans are also a staple in the Salvadoran’s diets, which will be used in almost every meal.
Above: Suchitoto is widely known throughout El Salvador for its church and for its cobblestone roads. Suchitoto is one of the few areas in El Salvador where there are still cobblestone roads.
Above: Worker poses for a photo. He was very proud of his machines and when I asked him if i could take his photo, he smiled and made sure he took off his hat.
Above: This woman threw her head back laughing after i showed her her photo.
Back at the Centre for Arts and Peace, some of us met a woman named Sister Peggy for the first time, others embraced and greeted her with a good to see you again but everyone, could feel the charismatic, loving warmth about her.
Sister Peggy came from New Jersey to Suchitoto just before the war. She is the head of the Centre of Arts and Peace.
If you walk about town, you will see a stencil of a bird perched on a branch. There is a message below. This is to identify that this household is a safe place for women that have been involved in domestic violence to come to and seek refuge. Sister Peggy was the one to create this symbol of hope and you can see the symbol everywhere.
Indigo Blue
The town is one of the main manufacturers for the natural dye colour, Indigo. Harvested through a plant and put through numerous labours of processing, this beautiful deep blue can be seen on clothing, bags, and drapery. Levi jeans is one of the biggest purchasers for this dye and more recently, asian countries such as Japan have rediscovered natural dyes. There is now a huge demand for indigo blue, used to dye kimonos.
Above: The leaves of the indigo plant is what produces the indigo dye. The plant flowers twice a year and the leaves need to be harvested before flowering begins else, the flowers will take in the dye, so they need to be extracted beforehand.
Above: The string is made from the heart of various trees. Almond and Indigo amongst others. They are all naturally created colours. Making this string, because it forces the whole tree to be cut down, is now making them scarce so now they will only make this string out of old wood from old houses.
More images around town.
Above: Confession
Above: Tam with a local kid selling peanuts and cashews.
Above: The Farabundo Martà National Liberation Front (in Spanish: Frente Farabundo Martà para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) is, since 1992, a left-wing political party in El Salvador and formerly a coalition of five revolutionary guerrilla organizations.
Above: The whole crew just before the 6 left back for Toronto.
Clinic starts up again, early this morning.
DAY 8 . The Harp Program
Posted on 6 November 2011 | 3 responses
On Saturday, the complete team headed up to a town called Suchitoto which is located just an hour north of where we are. The team, after a week’s worth of hard work travelled to this city to tour a different part of El Salvador for the weekend.
Above: Little girl helps her mother with the christmas decorations on their store front
Above: Man with developmental problems in a store, accompanying his grandmother and sister
Above: His grandmother shows me his finger nails which has a fungal infection on them
Suchitoto is a very popular weekend destination for Salvadorans. It has broad cultural activities such as art galleries, cultural centers, and handcrafts. Here we met up with Wendy, who is a STIMMA member. Wendy goes down to Suchitoto every 3 months and stays 1 – 2 weeks each visit. She is an accomplished harpist amongst other talents and has worked with STIMMA for 2.5 years now, running the program over Skype when she’s not in town. All the harps are hand-made. Her students performed for us at our arrival, most of the STIMMA members, hearing them play for the very first time. We were all very proud of what they had accomplished. She works with students at the Centre of Art and Peace.
The town was bustling throughout the day and night in celebration of the town’s 100th anniversary. Many vendors traveled in to set up stands of various candies and trinkets. All locals and tourists alike gathered at the town square near the main church.
Above: man takes a break
Óscar Romero was a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador.
Romero was shot on 24 March 1980, while celebrating Mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called “La Divina Providencia”, one day after a sermon where he had called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God’s higher order and to stop carrying out the government’s repression and violations of basic human rights.
The people consider him a hero and there are many images painted in murals on walls all around El Salvador in his honour.
DAY 7 . The Polaroid Project
Posted on 4 November 2011 | 3 responses
Posted by Angela Lau
First off, the new team members for week 2 have arrived. All 6 arrived safely to camp, however their bags of supplies did not. We did extra paperwork to get the 6 hockey bags of supplies in to avoid the troubles we encountered the first time we arrived but to no avail. They were taken away for inspection and with another promise of their return in a few days. Our group from Canada has grown from 21 to our full 27 today.
Today, the construction team started running out of supplies again. They are imported from San Salvador which is a few hours away, so there is usually a slight delay whenever we need to things done. So we put in the order and they should be arriving over this weekend and we’ll be able to start building again on monday.
Rae, Ken and Vicky went into town again to make some home visits. She came across many emotional cases, one included a man who had cerebral palsy and had a wheel chair that was literally made of sticks and branches amongst other things. Another woman was bed ridden 24 hours a day, having paralyzed her legs. She would help the household out by preparing vegetables or folding laundry, all at the side of her bed, never leaving it. Rae hopes to be able to raise money when she gets back home to purchase a wheel chair to send back to El Salvador.
We once again set up a mobile clinic and did an outreach to the town of Burrera San Estaban Catarina which is roughly a 45 minute drive from where we were. We set up our clinic in a local school, ” Centro Escolar” and saw a total of 240 patients today. We saw many patients with UTIs (urinary tract infection) and genital lesions over the course of this week, so education started teaching and catering towards these types of specific problems.
Another problem is that a lot of times, people over here will choose to drink coca cola and or coffee because of its availability. We are seeing a lot of dental problems and dehydration. The dehydration gets immensely worse because most people work in the fields all day in hot weather. Our clinic is stocked with many donations of flip flops, hydration kits, hats and sunglasses, all to combat the weather and field labour. Someone told me that some babies, as soon as they are off breast milk, will start drinking coffee simply because that’s the only thing available to the locals. Coffee beans are very abundant here and are consumed for hunger and energy.
Many patients came in complaining about injuries they incurred while falling off something that had happened years ago.Their injuries had never been treated properly. Gave topical cream and pain killers for them and wrote suggestions down on their papers for their local doctors, if that treatment didn’t work.
Above: Doctor setting up his office
Above: Alka and Pedro teaching hygiene and dental education
Above: Just outside the clinic, our driver Rutilio pulled over and showed me this war relic. It was a bomb that is now harmless but was found in the field nearby in 1985. He is very proud of it but he says it holds no value and is just sitting on the front lawn of a community house.
Above: Lois mixing scabes medicine
It has only been one week, but in this short period of time, it has been amazing watching the Anand brother and sister duo work. Veneta, the director of STIMMA and head pharmacist together with her little brother, a doctor specializing in Pediatric ICU joke and laugh but work flawlessly together. Both have made a huge impact to the team as well as the community. I know I am not alone when I say how impressed i am of this family. (Veneta, as you read this, no i am not trying to ensure that i’m accepted on the future trips – i really mean it).
Above: Veneta handing out cloth diapers to a very happy mom. “Bare bottoms” donated approximately 2000 of these diapers for our trip
Above: A doctor is only as good as his translator
Above: A photo of Veneta telling me not to take her picture (inside a moving pick-up truck)
The Polaroid Project: Everyone deserves a portrait
The simplest thing of having a photo of yourself and your family, is largely taken for granted. At home, we have digital cameras and tons of memory space to hold them. On my last trip with STIMMA to Haiti, a lot of the locals were extremely happy to pose for their photo and smiled as they saw themselves on the screen but when they asked me if they could have the photo, I was at a loss. So you live and learn, I brought over a polaroid camera this time around and thanks to my friends Tommy, Tracy and Vince, was loaded with packs of polaroids costing $1 per photo. You would not believe how happy kids and adults alike smiled at their photos. They were very grateful to be able to take it home with them and every single one of them was proud of their photo.
Above: Armando Avarca, age 72. He couldn’t make it into the clinic today so our team went and made a house call. He complained about pain in his eye. Turns out a bee had stung him 5 years ago, in his right eye and therefore was completely blind in that one eye and his pupil was completely gone. He told us that he lived by himself. His wife had passed away earlier this year. She use to work for the city had received $100 every 2 months. Now he no longer gets that income and relies on family to give him money.
Armando took a look at his photo, and it had been very apparent that he never had his photo taken (at least in years), we asked him what he thought and he responded simply with,
“Well, I’m very handsome.”
Above: Andrea Alvaredo, age 85, lives in San Jainto La Burrera San Estaban Catarina, San Vicente
Above: Maria Adela Castro, age 82
Above: this cute little girl loved posing for pictures and loved the mickey mouse sunglasses we gave her
Above: Cecia, age 4
Above: Denis Emanuel, age 4
Above: Martha Yeseniachicas, age 22 & Astoidi Mayely Osegue, age 4
Above: Kenny Yaneth Orant, age 21 & Dilan Leandro Orant, age 1
DAY 6 . A place to call home
Posted on 3 November 2011 | 2 responses
Posted by Angela Lau
Today we ran construction and the clinic as usual. The supplies for the construction came later than anticipated so we were only able to complete renovations on 3 houses instead of the planned 10, we will be finishing them tomorrow, making it a total of 20 houses restructured. We purchased aluminum siding, wooden beams, and all the tools and gave each family 10 sheets to work with. They got the choice of whatever they wanted fixed, most had chosen to fix the roof. They used the old sheets from the roof to butch up the sides of their houses. Each aluminum siding costs $12 each. The daily rate for a Salvadorian construction worker is $5 per day. STIMMA has to respect their wages but decided to double it to $10 per day which they were very grateful for. I will never get over how friendly the neighbourhood is. Everyone knows who we are and as we walk through, there are a lot of smiling faces, waves and people shouting hello, “Buenas!” One little girl ran up to me and offered me traditional sugar candies, Melcolchas.
Photo above is a man’s home that we’re accessing for renovations.
People from the community have told everyone else what we’ve done to renovate people’s homes in need, the word is spreading, A few people have come to the clinic where we were and asked for help with their own homes. We hope to be working on more homes this next coming week.
Above: Family portrait of one household we are helping in construction of their home.
Above: The iron smith of the town.
We want to thank everyone who has generously donated for this trip, as all this could not have been possible without the monetary donations from individuals and organizations back at home. And as you can see, all the money has gone directly to the people.
Yesterday and tonight, there were torrential rains that washed the town. Thanks to the build, the families we aided had a newly finished roof over their heads.
Above: The roof that we’ll be replacing.
In the clinic, we saw 264 patients of which 43 needed worm treatment.
Above: school children line up for their worm medication
The team had spent the night before packing hygiene kits which consisted of shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, soap, body lotion, baby oil, diaper rash cream and bandaids to donate to patients that were victims of the flood.
We saw a family yesterday that consisted of:
- a 9 year old girl who had epilepsy who did not have any medication and had not been treated for her entire lifetime and showed developmental delays
- 2 year old girl who didn’t know how to walk, was dismorphic, couldn’t talk or communicate
- a new baby
- 4 year old boy who was developmentally delayed.
- 10 year old girl who was taking care of everyone
These kids along with their parents were extremely poor and could not afford anything. Today the father walked all the way from that little town to where our clinic was located (it had been one hour’s drive) to see us. We gave him 2 bags of rice, 2 bags of bean, 4 ensures, dolls, hygienic kits, hats and sunglasses to bring home.
There was a 70 year old man who started serenading the clinic with his voice. He just stood at the doorway and belted out this song, a surprise to our whole team. They were all taken away with his voice. STIMMA invited him over for dinner tomorrow and he will be performing a private concert.
Little girl above and below sporting the sunglasses we gave them.
Our translators have been amazing. We hired 20 something year olds from University of El Salvador, they’ve spent one week with them and we’re learning so much from each other.
We also purchased gallons of paint, as we get ready to repaint the art school. It will be painted a cream white with STIMMA blue trim.
And here are a few more movember shots.
We came home to the art school to watch some students practicing outside.
DAY 5 . The Day of the Dead
Posted on 2 November 2011 | 2 responses
Posted by Angela Lau
Below are a few photos of our accommodations. Mary hooked us up with these pop-up mosquito tents and they are amazing. Nothing gets in and you feel as if you’re camping.
We split the teams into 3 groups today with one team going into the town and making home visits to some locals, the second team cleaning up the community and the third team setting up clinic in another countryside town.
TEAM 1 . Home visits
Rae, Ken and Vicky got a list from the administrator to see people from the community but no one could tell them where to get to these homes. The first taxi they asked said he’d drive them to the address for $30 so they went to another taxi who said they would do it for $7. The first taxi driver ran over and asked the second driver what he was charging. He said that he was crazy for charging so little so he changed his mind to $20. A Patient from the clinic saw the team and came over and knew the home they were looking for, so she walked them over and along the way she asked the police officers if they could actually drive the team around. A new team was formed at that point with the 3 STIMMA members, 2 police officers and the patient who started touring homes in the community to see more patients.
TEAM 2 . Garbage clean-up
The other team that stayed in town started their day by going into the houses where the construction was happening and started picking up garbage for the families. We armed ourselves with gloves and garbage bags and swept through their houses. At one point, the team had trouble figuring out what was garbage and what the families had wanted to keep. There was tons of juice boxes and bottles that families had scavenged and kept to be brought to a type of recycling plant for a refund. We also realized that many things were not wasted. A lot of them grew corn and used the husks and cobs for various reasons.
Today is the Day of the Dead, a religious holiday for Latin Americans.
People go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favourite foods and beverages as well as photos and memorabilia of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so that the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them. Celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed.
I totally just wikipedia-ed that. But really, it was great to see the whole town come out to celebrate. We bumped into a lot of our patients, they greeted us with huge smiles, it was as if we’d all been friends for years and years.
Many street vendors selling traditional foods and snacks donned the entrance of the cemetery. We were very very sad that we were not allowed to eat any of it. We were warned that unless food was prepared with bottled or filtered water, our stomaches would not be able to take it. And as you can see, our quarters are very close to one another so we did not want to risk any stomach upset.
Vendors were also selling beautiful homemade flowers to decorate the graves.
There were many painters floating around, offering services to paint and write on the headstones to refresh their paint. This was to help themselves make a little bit of money.
This man above is refreshing the paint on his parents grave, they passed away 3 years ago.
TEAM 3 . Clinic in Amatitan Abajo
Because this is a huge holiday for Salvadoreans, the clinic in this town was closed today and we would not be able to use their facilities, so our medical team packed their bags and supplies and moved to a town called, Amatitan Abajo . This region of El Salvador had been hit by the flooding that happened a few weeks ago and is located in a the countryside. The roads were cracked and broken, they told us when the flooding had begun, the streets became rivers. I shudder at the fact that we knew that most of these homes had been built of mud and tin roofs. We could easily imagine how horrific it must have been. They had had 12 days straight of torrential rain.
Many 90 year old women came in to clinic today. And the doctor asked them, “What’s bothering you?” and they would respond with “Well i can’t do work anymore.” We were just stunned at how hard working everyone is around here.
We saw a total of 230 patients.
Above is the last photo i took for the day, because after this, we definitely did not look as happy haha.
On the ride back from the clinic, we only had at our disposal, a pick up truck to herd us back to home base. I never took any photos during the ride, but I can say that a one hour ride in a pick up truck is something else. We packed 3 people in the front seat that included the driver, then 9 of us sitting in the back. The torrential rain started again early on in the trip, and we were soaking wet, meanwhile being blown by a cool breeze from the ride. We got stuck in traffic a couple of times, from cows crossing! During this rainy ride, a scorpion fell out of a tree and into the back of the truck where we were. You can’t make this stuff up. Luckily Pedro stopped the truck, grabbed the scorpion with a towel and then we were well on our way again.
Becky handing out the flip flops. As you can see, she is a very popular girl.
Our doctor shows off his office.
