What I'm Doing

Blog Entry: What I’m Doing

So I finally feel, for the most part, that I know where I will be spending a majority of my time in the months to come. Some things could still change, but for now I feel really good about the different opportunities I have to serve. I’ll break them down one at a time. 

First Stop: El Salvador “San Javier”

View from the outside of the school

El Salvador is a fe y alegria school (faith and happiness). I have been helping out at the school twice a week. I am currently co-teaching with the physical education teacher, which is the sister in law of my host mom. I help out with the younger kids ages (6-12) from two till six in the afternoon. In Bolivia, and much of South America, students only get the opportunity of going to school for an extended half day. There aren’t enough resources (schools, teachers, etc) for each student to be able to attend for a full day. So the schedule looks something like this (generally). In the morning, 8-12 is either the younger students (elementary and middle roughly) or older students (high school). Whichever group is in the morning the other group has the afternoon slot 2-6. In the physical education classes we do some typical exercises for strength, endurance, and flexibility. Afterwards, we play games which usually means soccer. Some students, predominantly girls, play basketball and volleyball as well although we have no nets and the ball situation is quite bad (anything round and somewhat inflated works). This last week, I brought in a couple of new games from my elementary days. The kids really enjoyed the game tiburons y pescado (sharks and fish) I adjusted the name from the original sharks and minnows. After we got done playing the game the kids started chanting “otra vez, otra vez” which means again or another time. I look forward to getting to know the students and the families who live in the community and starting to become more a part of it. 

A view from the inside of the school. One of the "canchas" that we play games and soccer for PE class.

 Another view from the inside of the school. It's pretty big and educates well over 1000 students.

 Rhegan-I thought of you when I saw this. The saying on the wall translates more or less, "Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground."

Another piece of art from the inside of the school.

Second Stop: Hospital Movil-Mobile Hospital

 Here is a shot of the mobile hospital in one of the communities that we serve in.

Some kids I met and played with while working with the mobile hospital. We played hide and go seek, I flung them around like airplanes, and flips of course. (made me think of my great nieces and nephews back home) love you Trent, Rylan, Brandt, and Trey.

I got in contact with the mobile hospital through one of the other Franciscan missioners, Catherine, and her connections. I have been going 2-3 times per week with the mobile hospital out into the campo (country or rural areas). I am lucky that where I live is right on the mobile hospitals route, and I get picked up right outside my house. The mobile hospital serves in five different rural communities in Zona Sur-South Zone of the city. They go to each community one time per week. We usually have about a half hour drive to reach our communities. It’s not all that far (I live pretty far out to begin with) but the roads are really bad. It’s absolutely beautiful to get up into the hills and be able to look down over all of Cochabamba on a clear sunny day. 


Each day we ride out with a minimum of one doctor, one dentist, our driver who is a promotor of health (social worker), and myself. There have been two doctors so far, Ernesto and Wilfredo. They see patients, diagnose them, and treat them as best as they can with the given resources. They also teach classes/powerpoint presentations on health for both children and women. The dentist we have, Roxana, sees patients with mouth and teeth problems and believe me she is always busy. Teeth problems are quite bad here. She also teaches classes/powerpoint presentations as well. Our driver, Luciano, has many jobs. He helps to advocate the opportunities offered by the mobile hospital to the people in the community by walking the streets and talking to anyone he can. He gets people together and helps organize different groups to try and maximize what we do while we are there and also to maximize the amount of people we can reach. He has many other random things he does as well. 


And then there’s me...gringo/foreigner...What do I do? Good question and I don’t have a real clear answer on that yet. Every day I have the great opportunity of learning spanish because no one speaks english. Quechua is also spoken quite a bit and when that happens I just scratch my head...Not much I can do with that. I think I know one word in Quechua right now sapa=every. Quechua is the predominant language in the campo but many people still can speak spanish. I help with setting things up (getting the mobile hospital ready for patients). I help clean up at the end of the day. I observe the doctor, because it is an interest of mine, and help out with little things where I can. He is really good about teaching me what he is doing and is open to my questions. There are always little random things that can come up like making little packets out of pieces of paper for the pills of patients. (maybe I can do origami now). Anyway, that about sums up what I do for now. It’s a continual process of learning so many things. I do want to share a story about one of the patients we saw this last week. 

The conversation went from the patient, who is a 61 year old woman who only spoke Quechua, to a translator (the woman’s daughter) then to us in spanish, so the details might not be one hundred percent accurate. This is how I understood what happened...

There was a lady who came in with wooden crutches because she had been having a very hard time with her leg recently from an automobile accident she was in a year and a half ago. She had a wrap on her leg and when she took it off you could tell she had some pretty serious problems going on. She had an open wound that had gotten infected. The infection or bacteria had gotten within her bone and was spreading. She needed to have a specialist operate on it or the situation would continue to get worst and she could/would most likely lose her leg. Well even the cheapest option for surgery is way above what she can afford. (I’m not sure but I thought the doctor was saying something like 400 dollars). The woman was obviously distraught over the situation and on top of that while the doctor was examining her he says that her heart (esta faltando) is not doing well or failing. Well the combination of the information she had just received was too much and she started to lose it. She broke down and started to sob. Her daughter also had tears rolling down her face although she was trying to console and calm her mother. I felt helpless to the situation, but felt an urge to offer what I could, compassion, love, and faith. I asked her daughter if I could pray for her mom and she said yes and that she is a Christian. As I knelt down, I put my hand gently on her leg and began to ask God to work within this woman. We soon were both in prayer. The sobs that I had once heard were no more. While we both were offering up prayers, my emotions were deeply moved for this woman and her situation and tears began to run down my face. Our joined silent prayers had a very powerful affect within me. Afterwards, I got the name of the woman, Maria, and told her I will be continuing to pray for her. They both thanked me for the moment we spent together in prayer. I don’t know what will happen to this woman, but I pray for something miraculous to work out or to happen to her. There was a powerful sense of oneness/connectedness with her and it was such a powerful example of how we are called to feel, love, and act with compassion towards all our human family. 

This situation also made me think of my mom. Here is this woman who is 61 years old and needs to have a surgery to keep her leg and to restore or improve her health, and as of now, unless something miraculous happens, she is destined to live out her remaining shortened life in lots of physical pain. I thought of my mom and what if she was the one in this situation. The thought was unthinkable, but yet its the reality for so many throughout the poor marginalized world that we live in. 

Some other angles of the mobile hospital. It is pretty well equipped.

Third Stop: International Orphanage Union

http://ioubolivia.org/

During my first 6 weeks that I was here in Cochabamba taking language classes at the Maryknoll Institute, I was invited by one of the teachers to attend CIC (Cochabamba International Church). A quick flashback to before I left for Bolivia: I had some friends tell me there is a family from Holland, Michigan (Timmers) who have been doing mission work in Bolivia for a number of years and that I should look them up. Yeah ok, like thats going to happen. I didn’t know what city they were in and didn’t know anything about them besides the fact I knew they worked with orphans. Now back to my first experience at Cochabamba International Church. I found my way there a couple weeks after the initial invite. CIC attracts lots of foreigners and missionaries but also has lots of local Bolivians. The service has parts that are in english and other parts in spanish. Well during the announcements I heard something about the Timmer family and my eyebrows went up like, did I really just hear that? Could it be the Timmers from Holland? After the service, I talked to the man who preached the message. He was also a foreigner and I asked him about the Timmer family. He said he would introduce me to Mike Timmer and sure enough it was the Timmer family from Holland, Michigan. I talked with Mike for a bit and told him what I was up to and that I was looking for different service opportunities. 


Long story short he told me of some different opportunities in helping with construction of their orphanages as well as getting involved with some of their side businesses that help support and keep the orphanages self-sustaining financially. Well besides the construction need, he said they are in the process of trying to use the land they have in Beni (another department in Bolivia to the north-jungle) to start a Tilapia fish farm and also growing some different products (fruits, vegetables, etc) to help financially with their orphanages. Well, I was extremely excited to hear of these different options because both construction and agriculture are two areas I have been interested in gaining some experience. And who wouldn’t want to fly into the jungle on a bush plane and work the land for a while? 

I have only recently made this connection and have only helped out one time so far this last week. About a week ago we had a pretty strong wind storm and some trees fell down causing some serious damage to one of their orphanages. A group of four of us went out to help clean up the situation so work can get started again on finishing these two orphanages.

One of the trees that caused a lot of damage. The picture does not do it justice. The root system for this tree which you can see in the back of the picture was almost 10 feet tall. 

Here is another look at the orphanages and some of the damage and work that needs to be done.

Here is a picture from the inside of one of the orphanages. It has a new sun roof for the time being thanks to some huge eucalyptus trees.

I am not sure how this is all going to play out, but I like how flexible my schedule is right now. I am hoping to be able to work two days a week with the mobile hospital, two days a week at the school (El Salvador) and two days a week with International Orphanage Union. I also will have the opportunity of taking some short trips with (IOU) to Beni and Chapare both places in the jungle. I also have become aware that the mobile hospital goes out into the jungle once the rainy season dies down for about a week at a time, so I will have a few different opportunities to see drastically different parts of Bolivia. I am extremely excited about the opportunities that have made there way to me and look forward to trying to piece these things all together. God is good.