I'm back home from Gautemala at the moment and have been for about a week. Before the trip, work had been totally overwhelming, so I really hadn’t had any time to think about coming back or to make any plans. Needless to say, it’s been relaxing and great. I went to a friend’s wedding in Ohio for a few days and have spent some quality time down at our farm cabin.

I had a similar set of realizations when I came home for Christmas from Guatemala. First off, it’s just a huge shock to me how well everything works in the States. It’s all so easy. My first day back, I set out do run some errands and budgeted myself 2 hours based on my Guatemala expectations. I finished it all in 30.

When I went to Ohio, I spent most of the time with a buddy in the suburbs. To some extent, I felt like a foreign anthropologist coming into a new culture. In Guatemala, I got so used to the noise, crammed living and basically being on top of everyone else. In the States, we have our own space that’s clean and quiet. To some extent it’s like everything is compartmentalized. It works well, but has such a different feeling to it. In comparison, the U.S. makes Guatemala look like a total mess.

When I first came to Guatemala, there was a woman in Coban who opened up a hostel and was far more business savvy than normal. She was affectionate and always made a good impression on my friends who stayed with her. After the hostel was running, she decided she wanted something new. She sold the hostel and moved to Chicago with one of her kids to start importing Guatemalan antiques. Anyways, I thought she was gone for good until I saw her back in Coban 6 months later. Surprised, I asked her what she was doing back. She said that honestly she couldn’t handle her new life in the States. From her perspective, she couldn’t get over how everyone stayed inside and only left in their cars to go shopping. It was too quiet and sterile she said. She missed Guatemala for its constant problems, the bad smells and the general struggle that it is to work in Guatemala.

Coming back to the States, I keep finding myself returning to Doña Magda’s anecdote. It’s a simple contrast between the two worlds where I find myself. Her experience can certainly help me appreciate mayhem that is Guatemala. However, I still love the States and I’m fully planning on coming back after my time with Partner for Surgery.

Besides my culture shock, I had a pretty amazing experience the week before I came home. First, a buddy of mine who was a Peace Corps volunteer in my site before me married a girl from Chirrepec. The wedding was huge and fully Q’eqchi’. Dan’s family came from Georgia as did some former volunteers. It was really cool to see the two worlds under one roof.

Secondly, I spent my week prior to coming home in Antigua for a big plastic surgery medical mission. A group of surgeons we have worked with for years comes down every July and operates almost all of our cleft lip and palate patients. We had been planning for the mission for months. We started by calling in all our patients into Coban before getting a bus for Antigua. Some people had to make trips of up to 15 hours. Imagine walking three or more hours from your village, another two in a bus just to get to Coban. From there it was another 5 hours to the hospital.

We got 43 patients into the hospital 35 of them received operations. Almost all of them were children. A few were sick and couldn’t take anesthesia. Some babies were underweight and will have to stay in the hospital’s nutrition clinic to get them up to weight before they can be operated. Something we come across with cleft palate babies is that they can’t nurse. The deformity makes it so they can’t swallow and they lose weight. If these babies don’t get help, there’s a good change they won’t make it. A week before the mission, I was out in a village and came across an underweight cleft palate child that had lost weight since birth. He looked awful and his parents were afraid to make the trip into the hospital. However, I think they realize how serious it is for the baby and they are going to bring him in this week.

Coming back to the mission, seeing the patients that did get surgery was amazing. Cleft lips are so easy to fix, however the total lack of medical care in Guatemala makes it impossible for lots of people. By the end of the week, most people were looking much better. Here is a picture of one of my favorite patients, Magdelena. She lives in a one room thatch house far into the mountains outside Coban. She was completely embarrased about being in public when we brought her in. Her dad said she barely left the house and didn't go to school. This picture is of her in the Coban plaza right before we left for the hospital in Antigua. I saw her the day before I came home and she's now looking great.