Finding the Paradox

Last week, Tom and I went with two staff members from Mayan Families, a local NGO here in Pana, to visit some needy families in the San Andres area.  As Mission Guatemala gains momentum and support, and as we look toward utilizing the eight teams that we currently have coming over the next few months, we are starting to locate potential housing construction projects that we can invest in.  Though all three of the sites we visited were each powerful and touching in their stark poverty, there was one that stood out to me in particular.

We exited the pickup truck that we came in and followed a small dirt path to the right.  As we quickly crested a short incline, we found ourselves in the narrow courtyard of an old, crumbling house made of adobe bricks.  In the front yard stood a small, dazed child who watched us silently as we approached the house.  His eyes followed us with a blank expression, and it was not apparent if he was able to totally register the events that were transpiring around him.  His mother appeared in the doorway of the house, and came toward us.  On her back was slung a small infant, held by the traditional Guatemalan sling used for carrying babies, and in her arms was another small child.  As she approached, it was obvious that the the child in her arms had a very severe double cleft lip.  His nose seemed perched above his mouth on a small island of skin, and the deep furrows running down from each side were marked with the residue of dried blood.

This family, the Mayan Family staffers informed us, had a total of five children.  The father of the family was still present in the picture, but he was able to find very little work and could not generate any appreciable income.  Because of this, the family had very little to eat.  As we looked around at the crumbling walls of the house, at the bare kitchen and the small and makeshift beds in the largest room, as well as the vacant eyes of the little boy, the family's poverty and malnutrition was evident.  Sometimes, we were told, neighbors who passed by on the road would give them small gifts of food.  Once, a month previous, Mayan Families had also been able to bring them a bag of food.  "For a little while," the staff member told us, "the children ate well.  But now, they're back to eating only tortillas and salt."

Feeling like some sort of paparazzi, we edged our way into the tight confines of the house, snapping pictures as we went.  We took record of the bedroom, the kitchen, and lastly the concrete toilet of their latrine, wedged seemingly in the far corner of the kitchen, separated from it by only a sheet.  The whole setting, from the cleft lip baby, to the uncommunicative child, to the mother trying to keep her family alive in this stark landscape, was heart wrenching.  It was yet another moment in which I realized that no matter how much I am able to do, how much aid and relief that I can be a part of bringing to these people, that there is always more to be done.  There is no time for self-congratulation, there is no point at which success can be considered achieved, no moment when victory can be celebrated.  There is never a time at which we can declare, "Mission Accomplished."

But, for as difficult as the time there with the family was, seeing them brought back memories of  a distant past, when I had first arrived here in Guatemala, a seeming lifetime ago.  On that day, I accompanied Lloyd and a couple other volunteers up to the home of a family in the village of Santa Catarina.  It was during my first few days in the country, and though I had noted the poverty that I saw in the people begging for money on the street and some of the ragged dwellings here in Pana, I was not ready for what I encountered on that day.

After winding our way through the small callejones of the village, we finally veered to the right off the main paved walkway, walking on a small dirt trail to the home of Concepcion and her family.  What I saw there shook me deeply.  I was overwhelmed by the dinginess and filth that was present everywhere, from the grimy pots that sat beside the charred sticks of her cooking fire, to the soot and dirt that seemed embedded in every part of the one room in which they lived.  One of the family's three children came out to greet us, and I had to fight recoiling at his grimy clothes and at the mucus that streaked down from his nose to his upper lip.  It was obvious that it had been running unchecked for some time, as the dirt that coated his face was also built up deep within the edges of the slick trails.

In that moment, I realized that I was going to have to make a decision.  I had been talking for months about coming down to Guatemala, about experiencing what it meant to lead a simple life, about learning what it really meant to love my neighbor, to sacrifice and suffer to help those in need.  But now, I was facing one of those neighbors, I was facing someone in need, and I was having to fight a horde of impulses that told me that this was more than I had signed on for, that this was horrid and unsanitary, and that it was more than I was capable of enduring.  But I did stay.  I took strength from the other volunteers that I was there with who seemed unfazed, and I said a prayer for strength, and I endeavored to open myself up to what I was seeing and to let it change me.

I still have a long way to go.  I am still more attached to my comfort than I should be, and I still, at times, find myself averting my eyes from poverty and need, and trying to find excuses of why I am not my brother's keeper.  But, standing there last week with that family in San Andres, I realized that, though I still have a long way to go, I've come a long way, too.  There was no urge to run that I had to fight; instead, there were only thoughts of the logistics of building this family another house.  There were no feelings of squeamishness or nausea to overcome, instead, there were only calculations of how to arrange to bring this family food, of finding a surgeon to repair the child's cleft lip.

Mother Theresa said, "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."  Though I know I'm still a long way from learning the entirety of what this means, as I look back, I see that the past two and a half years have been an amazing glimpse of how true this can be.

Opening Day, Clinica "La Misión"

Dr. Edgar and Deborah

It wasn't the opening day we had planned, but, in retrospect, I think it was as truly "Guatemalan" an inauguración as we could have hoped for.  

As of 9:00 this morning when we opened, we had only talked with the doctor on 3 or 4 previous occasions, for just a few minutes each time.  We had also had only limited interaction with the secretary previously at her job with the women's co-op from whom we rent the clinic property.   The meetings in which we had hired both of them had occurred more than a month earlier and, until a few days ago, had been the last contact we had had.

Tom, my boss and the founder of Mission Guatemala, contacted Dr. Edgar on Sunday via text message to check on the possibility of him coming to San Andres yesterday (Monday) to check out the clinic and pharmacy prior to opening day, since the only time he had seen it had been before the pharmacy shelves had been built and stocked and before the whole building had received a new coat of paint.  We also thought it might be a good opportunity for him to meet the secretary.  Dr. Edgar's reply?  "I will see you at the clinic Tuesday morning at 9 a.m."  So much for that.

Since we didn't have to worry about getting Deborah, the secretary, out to the clinic to meet the doctor, we figured we should at least swing by her other job and make sure that she was still planning to work with us and that she remembered tomorrow was opening day.  "Tomorrow?," she replied to our query, a confused look on her face.  For a moment we all looked at each other in uncomfortable silence, and then she laughed.  "Por supuesto," she said.  Of course.  "Mañana, 8:30.  Está bien." 

So we still had our staff.  That left the part for which we had no idea--the patients, the clients, la gente.  We had tasked our guardián (the Guatemalan equivalent of a live-in gardener, handyman, and security guard) with posting fliers all over town, and in response to the numerous questions that Tom and I had received in the stores and tiendas of San Andres as to what we were doing in town, we had consistently replied that we were opening a clinic, that we had medicine (a consistent deficiency in most public hospitals and clinics of Guatemala), and that we had a Guatemalan doctor who spoke Kaqchikel, the local dialect.  But we had no idea how much coverage the news had truly gotten, or how much faith those who did get the news had in two gringos who had suddenly appeared in town 2 months ago.

And so, as we headed to the clinic this morning, I didn't know what to expect.  Would there be a crowd of people milling around in the front yard, clutching sickly babies and jostling for a spot close to the door?  And if there were, would we be able to handle this rush?  Were we prepared?  And what if there were only one person, or no people?  What if we spent the first hours of the morning sitting, waiting in the silence of the empty clinic?  What would this say about us, about our project?  What omen would this hold for the future?

We pulled up to an empty front yard.  The only person in sight was the guardián's father, welding security bars for the clinic windows.  We went inside, and began last minute arranging of medicines in the pharmacy, of equipment in the exam room.

The doctor arrived at 9:00, and we began giving him a tour of the facility.  9:10 came, and there was still no sign of the secretary.  Then, a minute later she came in, out of breath.  Despite her high-heeled shoes and her long, tipica skirt, it was obvious she had been running.  Overwhelmingly apologetic, she explained to me that she lived a ways away in a small aldea of San Andres, and that she had come by pickup, which is the common mode of transportation between villages and towns in Guatemala.  "If you're two minutes late to catch one," she said, "you might have to wait 20 minutes for the next one." 

And so, gathered in the echoing emptiness of the clinic, we waited for someone to come, for a shadow to darken the window along the sidewalk, indicating that we were in business.  Tom kept his camera within arm's reach, having stated his intention to get a picture of the first patient.  But none came.

The hours passed.  The doctor walked back into the village to get a bowl of atol, a cornmeal soup of sorts that is a popular mid-morning snack.  Deborah showed me pictures in the Prensa Libre, a Guatemalan newspaper, of the national hospital in the city, where budget shortages have left the hospital operating on a shoestring budget, with practically no medicine or staff.  In the photos, the waiting rooms are crammed with patients, and in the hallways, people sleep on the dingy tile floors.  A photo from one of the hospital rooms shows a plastic milk jug, filled with liquid, hanging from the end of a bed, suspended by a ragged piece of twine.  Whether it was being used as some sort of weight, or if it was the receptacle for a drainage device, I couldn't tell. "The times are bad in Guatemala," Deborah tells me. 

Around 11:00, with nothing else to do, Tom walked into town to buy a few pizzas, a special opening-day treat for the staff.   And hour later, when the pizzas were ready (most everything is cooked fresh from scratch when it's ordered) there were still no patients.  As we were all eating, Tom and I asked the others what they thought we should do.  Were more fliers in order?  Should we pay a local person to go around and spread the word in the villages?

"Have patience," the doctor told us.  "Fliers are ok, but they aren't as effective as word of mouth.  All it will take is for one or two people to come, to see for themselves that there is a doctor here, that the pharmacy is stocked with medicine and that the medicine is good quality, and then the word will spread."  He laughed, "You want patients now, but in the future when there's a crowd of people here all waiting to be seen, you might wish you had done a little less publicity."  The others nodded agreement.  "It takes time," they said, repeating Dr. Edgar's admonition.  "Just have patience."

Sitting there, I realized that this is one more thing that I love about Guatemala.  In spite of the fact that our opening day would, by all U.S. standards, be termed a failure, here no one was concerned.  All were confident that things would work out, that we had done our part, and that now we should be content to wait.  And, in the meantime, we should relax and enjoy the day and the company of our coworkers and friends.

And so, we open the clinic again tomorrow, not knowing what the day will hold.  If people come to see the doctor, great.  If not, we'll practice patience.  Either way, it'll be a good day.

Core Values: Louis Vuitton

I recently ran across this YouTube gem, having seen the link posted by a friend of mine who encouraged all to watch it, calling it "inspiring."  After watching it, I would have difficulty agreeing less.  It's not that I have a problem with the idea that a "journey" is a process of self-discovery, rather than a trip or a vacation, nor with the idea that the aforementioned "journey" brings us face to face with ourselves and shows us how we fit in the world.

My problem with the commercial lies in the way that these somewhat vague and Oprah-tic ideals appear over dreamy and artistic scenes of travel in exotic lands (lands that are apparently only populated with exotically beautiful citizens), and the way that glimpses of fleur de leis-ed Louis Vuitton bags and accessories are interspersed between these travel scenes and impassioned ideals.  It seems to me that this is a melding of two diametrically opposed ideas, the idea of replacing a hope for some grandiose future with a simple appreciation of the everyday moments that make up our time on earth, merged with the materialistic pursuit of elite belongings and expensive labels.

This ad makes no attempt to appeal head-on to those who are openly and singly focused on the materialistic pursuit of wealth and comfort; it seems to target instead those who maybe recognize that there is more to this life than the simple accumulation of wealth but who don't want to face the fact, who instead want to find a way to assuage their guilt for their materialism while still pursuing their personal comfort.  And so, by Louis Vee opening up with us about his "core values", by showing us models pensively discovering how they fit in the world while still hanging on to their $1,000 purses, it attempts to convince us of the misguided--though lucrative--idea that the journey of life can lead us somewhere where these two ideas can live in harmony.

The sad thing...apparently it works.  As TheCtBoy comments below the video,

This commercial makes me tear up, it's crazy. :')
I'm gonna buy a Louis Vuitton bag the first chance i get like really, i don't care if i have to save up for half a year.

Like really, Ct, don't waste your money.  I'm pretty sure LV won't make you happier, or your life a smoother journey.  But it will make you poorer.  

You're better off to just spend your half-a-year watching his stupid commercial and crying.