2007 Day Five: Making a Difference

Something amazing happened today, Dr. Allen Methven told anyone who would listen.

“We’re making a difference.”

After wrapping up the clinics in Vuelta Grande the Rotary team moved its attention to the nearby village of El Hato. This is the fourth year for the dental clinic in El Hato – the second year for the medical – and this time the dentists really saw the impact of their service.

Two years ago there was only one little boy who came through the dental clinic with perfect teeth; everyone else needed work. This year there were over two dozen kids, on the first day alone, with great teeth and who asked simply for a cleaning – in hopes of getting a regalo, or gift.

“This is the first time that I’ve seen that many children with that little tooth decay,” said Dr. Allen with a smile.

The clinics took place in the town’s school, which is essentially a square of buildings with a cement courtyard in the middle. While the dental clinic occupied the whole of one building – which the Rotary had wired for electricity two years ago – the medical clinic set up in the classrooms across the courtyard. Chairs lined the wall in front of the clinic and were almost perpetually full of waiting patients.

John Paquette spent some time outside where he performed the heart screenings for the dental clinic, ensuring that anyone suspected of having a heart problem was treated with antibiotics before visiting the dentist. Because individuals with heart problems may have irregularities in the surfaces or texture of their heart or valves, they face a greater risk of developing a potentially fatal infection if bacteria is introduced to their system during procedures that may expose their blood vessels to bacteria – such as dental procedures that cause them to bleed.

The medical clinic had found an unusually high occurrence of heart murmurs – abnormal sounding heart beats that may indicate problems – in Vuelta Grande. In El Hato, John noted, there seemed to be fewer. But he did have one interesting patient:

“I found a boy who had dextrocardia,” John said. Dextrocardia is when the heart is on the right side of the chest instead of the left. “There’re no bad effects,” John added, but it was noteworthy.

Out on the courtyard the children played throughout the day with the new toys they’d received from the Rotary team, and with team members. While the children in Vuelta Grande seemed wary of the Americans milling about, the children in El Hato seem to have come to accept them, almost like some rich extended family members that come once a year and bring presents.

Over lunch a group of four to five El Hato kids took on Brad Richards, Gavin VanHouten and Casey Winder in a game of futbol. When Brad, Gavin and Casey were worn out, Matt Welsh stepped in, to then be relieved by Dr. Jim and Kyle Hoffer. On both sides of the courtyard the Americans, breaking for lunch, cheered the game while heckling their fellow Americans for getting “schooled” by the Guatemalan boys half their age, who danced around the soccer ball as well as their opponents without breaking into a sweat.

The soccer game gradually dwindled to a stop, though the Guatemalan boys played on for a while. Later in the afternoon, some of the Americans would again break from their work to play with the kids, this time teaching the art of jump-roping. The little girls were particularly taken with the sport, and were especially thrilled when Alia Paquette, Maggie Manly, Gavin and Casey twirled the rope for them. The sound of their feet pounding the cement mingled with the sound of their laughter, and everyone looking on wore a bemused smile.

Behind the walls surrounding the courtyard the clinics kept up a steady pace. The medical team had fairly stream-lined their operation with medicines supplies organized in a fashion that would rival many established clinics. Everything is separated into labeled Ziplock bags, creating the effect of a table lined with pharmaceutical grab-bags.

The dental clinic functioned in greater disarray, but functioned nonetheless. Among the sets of healthy teeth were some that needed extractions, and among the patients were some returning for a second visit.

“Do you know who this is?” Amy Caruso called out to Dr. Allen after he’d finished working on a quiet little boy.

This boy was Gustavo, who visited the clinic last year (see “2006 Day Two”). Amy, who worked as a translator for the dental clinic, repeated the story his mother told:

Last year Gustavo was 5 years old when he came to the dental clinic set up by the Rotary in El Hato. His tooth hurt, but after the dentist numbed his mouth, he became terrified and started to cry. His mother brought him back in the afternoon, but the same thing happened, and Gustavo never did get his tooth fixed.

In the year since then, whenever Gustavo complained about his tooth hurting, his mother would admonish him that he should have let the dentist work on him.

So this year, Gustavo marched into the dental clinic, up to the dental chair and got his tooth fixed without so much as a peep.