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| 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.
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.