We left San Marcos at 8:00 this morning for the five hour drive to Guatemala City with a planned stop for breakfast outside of Xena. I dressed in my “meeting with the important guy from USAID clothes” just in case we got delayed. We ended up going about five miles an hour for miles and miles because of road construction. Once traffic got moving, we were waved over behind a long line of cars for a security check. These are always tricky in Guatemala. Sometimes they are legitimate as this one turned out to be. The police look at the driver’s papers and license, and if all is in order, they send him on his way. However, there are many fake police stopping cars on the highway. They ask for your papers and then won’t give them back unless you pay some exorbitant fee. Luis knows how to recognize them once he’s stopped, and he tells them he’s a lawyer, asks for their name and says they are committing illegal detainment and search of a private vehicle. They always back off and wave him on. Luis’ wife, Bellama and 14 yr old son, Rodrigo traveled with us to the city, Rodrigo in the middle of the back seat between Bellama and me. He’s tall and skinny and as soon as we left Xela, he put on his earphones and fell asleep with his head on Bellama’s shoulder and his legs sprawled over both of us. Bellama tried to reign him in a few times but I told her I was fine as it was clearly impossible to move him. We got to the hotel at 3:00, an hour before our scheduled meeting – plenty of time for a late lunch.
Jeff Leher is the USAID director for the Western Highlands of Guatemala. The region contains five districts including San Marcos. We met for and hour and a half, describing the projects using photographs and some of my power points. Luis related his own background including the work he has done with various NGO’s and Bette explained Shuarhands and its involvement. Jeff talked about his areas of responsibility and some of the projects in San Marcos that USAID is involved in. Although he couldn’t make concrete commitments at this introductory meeting, he seemed very impressed with what we’ve done, with the people in the villages, with Luis as a person and as an integral part of the success of the program. He was also very impressed with the impact of the program in relation to the cost. His advice was to stay closely involved with Rachael as she can guide Luis to a number of people who are involved in groups that are working in areas that can offer assistance. Our sense is that these groups receive some USAID funding and this is the ‘nose under the tent’ entryway to direct funding. He also said he will await Rachael’s report and then ‘go from there.’ All in all it was a very encouraging meeting, and most importantly, Luis felt good about Jeff.
I learned a couple more interesting details about the Cuban doctors. They make the equivalent of about $20.00 US dollars a month in Cuba, and about $1000.00 a month in Guatemala. (all these are US equivalents.) Cuban doctors come out of medical school trained as generalists and don’t do surgery. Further training is required to do any surgery. Guatemalan doctors come out of school as doctor/surgeons, able to do appendectomies, hernias and other relatively minor surgeries. In the public hospitals and clinics, they make $450/month so most go into private practice where they can charge much more and there is therefore a big doctor shortage for the poor in Guatemala. No wonder the Cuban doctors are willing to sacrifice and leave their families to come to Guatemala.
Tomorrow I fly home with a few jobs left to do:
1. Contact Shriners to see if they do international work or if they take charity cases from other countries for Juan, the boy with the terrible, unhealed burn scars.
2. Find out if anyone in the US has learned the cataract surgery technique pioneered by Dr. Sanduk Ruit who does $25 surgery in 5 minute in Nepal and India, removing cataracts and inserting a new lenses. Many of our adult patients in Tacaná and Sibinal are blind due to cataracts, and the only local eye surgeons moved to Guatemala City after their building fell down in earth quake. We need a group of good-hearted ophthalmologists to come and fix some eyes.
3. Find out the name of the NGO that reconstructs underdeveloped ears and see if they come to Guatemala so the child with microtia can have surgery.
THAT’S IT FOR NOW!!
Thank you all.
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