the aids man
wednesday, august 9
yesterday we had clinic in chiminisijuan, a remote aldea (village) about a 30 minute drive and 30 minute walk from where we live. (sidenote: I have recently discovered that on these roads, our average speed is about 15 mph, so when we drive somewhere that takes us 30 minutes, it could actually be only about 10 miles in distance.) we run a clinic in this village every tuesday (in addition to the two that we run on the weekends), and it is at this clinic that we usually see the worst cases. these people live in little adobe and stick houses in the mountains in an area that is primarily cold and wet. this climate mixed with a general ignorance among the people about worsening symptoms makes for a wonderful reservoir for disease.
we saw our usual run of cases – sore throat, fever, ear infections, cough, pneumonia, exacerbated asthma, etc. but then we saw a man who was unusually tall for a Guatemalan (a few inches taller than me) and weighed about 90 lbs. many times the men will go to the coast in the dry season because there is no work here and on the coast they can get paid to harvest sugar cane. while there, they often entertain themselves with the world of prostitution, many times contracting aids. they will then come back here to their families where it will be spread to family members. because it is “the unspoken disease,” it is difficult to get anyone to discuss it or even hint at the possibility that they might have it. leslie has seen and examined this man before and suspects that he has aids, although he may have another kind of chronic or blood disorder. so, leslie sat and talked with him for ten minutes about how important it was that he get blood work done at the hospital to help determine what condition he might have. she then arranged for thomas (one of the men who works with leslie and duane), who speaks this mans native language (quiche) to bring him out to the hospital in quiche by bus. (there are 12 departments in guatemala, and we live in the department of quiche. the city of quiche is this department’s “county seat,” holds the largest of three hospitals in the department of quiche, and is about 2 ½ hours from here.) later that night we realized that there were no buses running today, so leslie arranged for aaron (their oldest son) to drive thomas and this man out to quiche. they also have an american team of surgeons and nurses working in the hospital this week, and hannah is already out there working with them, so i got to ride out to quiche with them and i will stay for a few days and work with this american team before coming back with hannah on friday. i could then bring a note explaining everything to the doctor there who would do this man’s blood work, and thomas would stay with this man during his hospital stay and help translate and such, and then he would bring him back home by bus.
so, this morning aaron, thomas, and i set off for quiche, planning on picking up this man at the designated spot along the way, about 30 minutes into the trip, at 7:00 am. at 7:30, we hoped he was simply running on “guatemalan time,” so we went ahead on the road a little bit to a house where a widowed lady and her son were in need of food. we dropped off some food to her and came back to the point in the road to wait for the man. at about 8:30, we called leslie to see if she knew where the man lived. she didn’t. finally around 9:00, we were left with little choice but to continue on without him. aaron was not surprised by the fact that he didn’t show up, and later when i questioned leslie, she told me she wasn’t either; she was surprised he even agreed to go to the hospital in the first place.
i am left with many questions, little answers, and prayers that seem to be stopped by the ceiling. how do you help people who will not help themselves? how do you keep yourself from caring about someone more than he cares about himself? how do you respect the culture in which you are working, yet still help to affect change? and how do you determine what those changes are even supposed to be?
yesterday we had clinic in chiminisijuan, a remote aldea (village) about a 30 minute drive and 30 minute walk from where we live. (sidenote: I have recently discovered that on these roads, our average speed is about 15 mph, so when we drive somewhere that takes us 30 minutes, it could actually be only about 10 miles in distance.) we run a clinic in this village every tuesday (in addition to the two that we run on the weekends), and it is at this clinic that we usually see the worst cases. these people live in little adobe and stick houses in the mountains in an area that is primarily cold and wet. this climate mixed with a general ignorance among the people about worsening symptoms makes for a wonderful reservoir for disease.
we saw our usual run of cases – sore throat, fever, ear infections, cough, pneumonia, exacerbated asthma, etc. but then we saw a man who was unusually tall for a Guatemalan (a few inches taller than me) and weighed about 90 lbs. many times the men will go to the coast in the dry season because there is no work here and on the coast they can get paid to harvest sugar cane. while there, they often entertain themselves with the world of prostitution, many times contracting aids. they will then come back here to their families where it will be spread to family members. because it is “the unspoken disease,” it is difficult to get anyone to discuss it or even hint at the possibility that they might have it. leslie has seen and examined this man before and suspects that he has aids, although he may have another kind of chronic or blood disorder. so, leslie sat and talked with him for ten minutes about how important it was that he get blood work done at the hospital to help determine what condition he might have. she then arranged for thomas (one of the men who works with leslie and duane), who speaks this mans native language (quiche) to bring him out to the hospital in quiche by bus. (there are 12 departments in guatemala, and we live in the department of quiche. the city of quiche is this department’s “county seat,” holds the largest of three hospitals in the department of quiche, and is about 2 ½ hours from here.) later that night we realized that there were no buses running today, so leslie arranged for aaron (their oldest son) to drive thomas and this man out to quiche. they also have an american team of surgeons and nurses working in the hospital this week, and hannah is already out there working with them, so i got to ride out to quiche with them and i will stay for a few days and work with this american team before coming back with hannah on friday. i could then bring a note explaining everything to the doctor there who would do this man’s blood work, and thomas would stay with this man during his hospital stay and help translate and such, and then he would bring him back home by bus.
so, this morning aaron, thomas, and i set off for quiche, planning on picking up this man at the designated spot along the way, about 30 minutes into the trip, at 7:00 am. at 7:30, we hoped he was simply running on “guatemalan time,” so we went ahead on the road a little bit to a house where a widowed lady and her son were in need of food. we dropped off some food to her and came back to the point in the road to wait for the man. at about 8:30, we called leslie to see if she knew where the man lived. she didn’t. finally around 9:00, we were left with little choice but to continue on without him. aaron was not surprised by the fact that he didn’t show up, and later when i questioned leslie, she told me she wasn’t either; she was surprised he even agreed to go to the hospital in the first place.
i am left with many questions, little answers, and prayers that seem to be stopped by the ceiling. how do you help people who will not help themselves? how do you keep yourself from caring about someone more than he cares about himself? how do you respect the culture in which you are working, yet still help to affect change? and how do you determine what those changes are even supposed to be?
posted by katie at 6:38 PM
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