One glorious week

We're close to the end of a glorious week of eye surgeries at the Hospital Nacional de Santiago de Maria.  For the first time ever, in my experience, we've had more than 50 potential patients show up (50 being the maximum our surgeons and our materials will stretch to).  Several patients were not qualified for surgery - because the risk would be too high or because there were serious complications - so our ophthalmologists completed 50 surgeries, right on the number possible.

Usually our problem has been patients who don't show up because they're afraid or uncertain about the surgery.  This time, thanks to the amazing work of Marvin Hernandez, our coordinator in Estanzuelas - where our patients live - just about everybody came.  And the problem we had to solve was lack of some of the materials needed to complete our 50 surgeries - in midweek, we had to find more Viscoelastic, a fill used during surgery, and sutures.  But with a lot of cooperation and even more driving - both Darren and Hernan, our motorist, had to travel an hour to San Miguel on Thursday - we purchased just enough to get through.

What's been most beautiful, as always, is our patients, and the delight and gratitude they express when the bandage comes off the morning after surgery and they can see more clearly.  Lots of hugging and thanking and blessing happens then - it's the very best reward for us.  Here are a few of them ready to go home with new vision:

Tomorrow we'll check the patients from Friday, pack up and take off for San Salvador.  And there are two very special patients, our very last patients, whom everyone will be waiting to see.  One, Marta Elena, wasn't on our original list, but came in for three days with the group from Estanzuelas, hoping that we might find a space for her.  And on the last day, we did.  One of her eyes was blind, the other had a cataract so dense she could see nothing: the doctors expect that tomorrow she'll see for the first time in years.  The second, Calixto, heard about our mission because he sells papers in the hospital.  No one can quite figure out how he saw to sell papers or get around, but he did.  And he came to us and asked if we could look at his eyes.  He, too, is blind in one eye and the other had the largest, blackest cataract Dr. Tony Pisacano has ever seen.  We had just enough materials left for Calixto's surgery and we will all be waiting tomorrow as he wakes up to a very new and brighter day.

Mission in progress

Our eye surgery mission is off to a great start.  First of all, everyone arrived (though the plane was an hour late) and our franquicia (customs permission) also arrived in good time, so we moved through the immigration and customs process reasonably quickly.

And then we were off to Alegría, a very, very long 2.5 hours from the airport - in the dark, so we couldn't see anything, and with a group who'd mostly been up and travelling since the early hours of the day.  We tumbled into the Casa de Retiros (retreat center) about 12:30 AM, and most people were up and moving again when the sun came up at 6:00 AM (not me, I turned over and went back to sleep until 8:00).

Still, it was easy to see what a great team we have - no one grumping, no one complaining about the cold water or the lack of sleep, everyone eager to get on with the mission.  It's a big group this time.  We have father and daughter ophthalmologists, Tony and Kristin Pisacano; our optometrist, Terry Clark; two scrub techs, Rosy Melara and Jennifer Woodland; two circulators, Silvia Pleitez and Sarita Angulo; interpreter Gloria Campuzano; nurse Dawn Fisher; patient coordinator Rosa Aguiar; photo-journalist and keeper of the autoclave, Mitch Costin; our beloved driver, Hernan Merino; and Darren Streff, Kathy Garcia and me.

Sunday we enjoyed lunch at an Alegría restaurant, looking out over a valley full of mist, and went to Santiago de Maria - the next town to the east, about 15 minutes away - to set up our surgery at the small National Hospital there.  As always, our first surgery was practiced on some of the machinery - here's a photo of Darren, Terry and Mitch Costin working on our slit lamp, used to calculate the power of the interocular lens:

Unfortunately, the frozen knob resisted all efforts to free it, but Terry figured out a work-around that involves raising and lowering the patients, rather than turning the knob in the machine.  A nice Salvadoran solution, that!

Today, in our first day of surgeries, we saw 11 surgery patients, which is just about unprecedented - the fruit of Marvin Hernandez' hard work in the Estanzuelas community.  Often before we've had days with four to six patients, so this felt wonderful to all of us, and our surgical team kept fully occupied.  And in the afternoon Terry, Dawn, Darren and Gloria gave eye exams and reading glasses when needed to about 75 hospital employees. 

A fine first day all round!

Ready to go

Hard to believe, but this is the last time I'm going to be responsible for one of our PazSalud missions.  I hope to be part of many more, but I'm passing the responsibility, very joyfully, to Darren Streff.  Today's the day our team arrives at the airport (at 7:45 pm) and I'm feeling like everything really is ready:

• We have our franquicia, the most important piece of paper, that allows us to bring in the medications and supplies without paying customs.  We also had an extra bit of drama - which almost seems inevitable - when we discovered at the end of our first time through the process that the group we were working with didn't have the right kind of license to support a franquicia.  Thankfully, our friends at the Archdiocese came to the rescue, and our amazing customs manager, José Manuel Gonzalez, got the papers through their second round in record time.
• We have piles of tubs, a tower of water bottles, boxes of heavy instruments, snack food, fans, wood tables made by Mitch Costin for our optometric equipment, plastic shelving, etcetera ready to be loaded on the truck in a few minutes.
• And I have washed and ironed the necessary shirts and pants, showered, packed my bag.  As soon as this is posted, I'll put the computer in its travelling bag.
• But more important than any of this, we have a great group of patients waiting for their surgeries, and a great team coming to offer them.  

May it be a week of good work, good health, new friendships and great joy!

Along the road

Usually when I drive to San Martin and beyond I’m going as fast as I can and not paying much attention to what’s around me.  Often I’m listening to podcasts and thinking about, oh any great number of things.  Today I was moved to go much more slowly and to pay attention, and because of that attention it was an amazing drive both ways.  

Driving by in my air-conditioned bubble, and there were all the people getting about their ordinary daily lives, living along the street – making bricks, taking corn to the mill, working on the drainage ditches, waiting for the bus, getting breakfast at one of the little ramshackle pupuserias, herding cattle,  carrying children and running after children, going to the fields.  

It was like driving along beside one of the Books of Hours that shows people at work in their daily lives, like driving along a Brueghel painting.  All those ordinary, holy lives being lived in plain view, all involved with the sweat of their hands and the weight of the earth.  I see them every time I drive this road, which is lots, but today, today I saw them and am humbled by them, and I know how much I am going to miss them.  And how beautiful and solid are these lives lived in deep connection with earth and water and families.  Looking from here, our lives feel transient, transparent, shadowy and concerned with shadows.

I know this is only a part of the story.  I know that people live under great stress here, the stress of not having enough money to pay for education or needed medications, the stress of having some of the little they do have extorted from them, the sheer stress of physical labor in this heat.  And yet how beautiful they are, how full of the goodness of God.

(thanks to Mitch Costin for the photos)

April miseries, April beauties

For me, "April is the cruelest month" here in El Salvador - not because of the lilacs that T.S. Eliot wrote about, but because the combination of heat, dust and the smoke from burning cane fields makes moving and breathing heavy, hard. 

April is the month before the rains start.  Everything is dry: the big trees still keep their green, but the fields and sides of the road are dust-colored.  It's the sixth month without rain.  Besides the burning cane fields (they are burned to clear away the tough out leaves and leave the juicy interior stalk to be cut and carried off for processing into cane sugar), trash is burned and spontaneous fires start on hillsides and volcano slopes.  They never seem to turn into wild fires: I suppose there must still be  deep moisture under the dry surfaces that keep them from exploding.

One of the pleasures, then, in this cruelest heat, is getting into the air-conditioned car and driving down the road to San Martin and San Salvador, encased in a bubble of cool.  And one of the great pleasures along that drive is the new face of San Bartolomé Perulapía, the town just before San Martin.  When I first moved to Suchitoto, Perulapía was no fun to drive through.  Lots of gang graffiti, signs that suggested deep quarrels between political and religious sectors.  But since a new mayor was elected in 2012, a beautiful change has come upon Perulapía.  All along the main street, house fronts have been turned into vivid, lively murals, like this one honoring San Romero of the Americas:

Or this one, where I caught the painter in the act:

And Perulapía, which once seemed dangerous and drab now invites visitors and makes a high point for my escapes from the heat of April.

Good Friday Walking

Tonight I rest tired feet after walking in both Good Friday processions.  First comes the Via Crucis, Stations of the Cross.  It's a fairly short procession in mileage, perhaps half a mile, but slow and in its Good Friday version very elaborate.  We all walk, men in the middle, women on the sides, following the statue of Jesus carrying the cross that, in turn, is carried by eight men.  The stations, beautifully decorated, come about one per block - but because I was in the middle of the procession we often stopped for one station when I was looking at the altar for the previous one.

There was a long pause at the 4th station, where Jesus meets his mother - a long pause so that the statue of Maria Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows, could come up and bow before Jesus (women carry the statue of Mary).  She's followed by St. John, carried by men.  Then at the 6th station Veronica (women again) comes out to wipe the face of Jesus and, in a little magic trick, reveals his image.  They all fall in line - Mary, John, Veronica - as we complete the stations, stopping at each station for a reading, a short interpretation, and prayer.

Finally we all came into the church where Jesus, Mary, John and Veronica took their places in front of a purple curtain that hides the altar (it will be dramatically pulled away during the Easter Vigil tomorrow night):

This procession took about two hours, from 10 to noon, in very hot sun.  Water sellers were doing a brisk business - I was glad I'd remembered my water bottle.

Then after a moving Celebration of the Passion and Veneration of the Cross - and a quick supper - I returned for the Santo Entierro.  I've never gone on this procession before, but this was the year for walking.  This time the men - I hope it was a new group, but I'm not sure - were carrying a heavy wooden coffin topped by a glass case holding Jesus, dead.   For quite a while, hearing a motor noise, I assumed there was a truck of some kind doing the carrying, but when I drew closer I discovered that this was a rolling generator following along behind so the coffin - and Mary following behind - could be brilliantly lit.  We walked from the church, over several alfombras (carpets) of bark and colored salts that had been created in the afternoon to be walked over by the procession:

It turned out to be a long walk - from the church, over several alfombras, then down along the road that leads to the hospital and the graveyard (we paused and prayed at both places) and back up the hill into Suchi's El Centro, and back into the church, where Jesus came to rest.  As we were getting close to the church, I began to worry about the men carrying Jesus, who looked almost spent - but they made it.  Then the coffin was placed on a rolling base and slowly steered down the aisle.  It was almost too big to fit, and at one point there was an ominous crunch, some quick consultations, and a bit of redirection accompanied, of course, by "dé le!" - the ubiquitous Salvadoran male language for directing cars, trucks, or stuck floats. 

The procession was probably about 3 miles in total, a good walk and a slow walk, which is good for me!  As I walked, I thought how much I will miss these processions next year when I'm back in the U.S.  Politely sitting in church - much as I love creative liturgies in the U.S. - doesn't have the same body power as walking in noonday heat and evening darkness with your friends and neighbors, following Jesus.

Processing with palms and donkey

I have finally, by accident, figured out how to do Palm Sunday right here in Suchitoto.  In previous years, I've skipped the procession of palms in favor of getting an actual seat in the church, which you can only do if you're there before the palm-bearers arrive. 

This year I went to Mass Saturday night, not realizing that it would be the Sunday readings - but it was, a Palm Sunday Mass minus the palms - and plus songs and ¡Que Viva! for Monseñor Romero.  That left me free to walk down the street this morning to the Capilla la Cruz where we all gathered on the cancha (basketball court) and where I bought a puny bunch of palm leaves for a quarter.

Most everyone there had glorious palms, interwoven with flowers and a seedhead that looks like baby corn.  My puny bunch would have looked impressive in Seattle, but here ... not so great.  It felt as if everyone in Suchitoto was there, whole families and children, like this charmer:

You might notice that she has woven and beaded bracelets on both wrists.  These must stretch back to the days of the Lenca and the Pipiles: each red bracelet is threaded through a small, smooth stone, and their purpose is to keep the baby safe and whole. 

After a few songs, the padres came down through the crowd and sprinkled us and the palms and anything else sprinklable with gallons of holy water.  No tame drops here.  The acolyte holds a huge tub of water, the padres have thickly-leaved branches, and they scoop the water up and fling it out into the crowd with a will:

In truth, in the hot sun of March, it's a joy to be drenched with holy water!  My camera was also blessed, and survived the blessing.

We were all ready to go after that, and Padre Jesus had to remind us that we were supposed to hear the Gospel for the procession first.  And then we formed into lines - as always here, and it makes my gringa heart a little crazy, the men marched in the middle after the donkey carrying the statue of Jesus, and the women marched in two lines on either side.  I'd just once like to see the lines reversed, women in the center, men on the outside.   But perhaps that's not yet an image our church can stretch to, at least not in Latino America.