On Sunday night, sometime after dinner, the earth shakes. Earthquakes here are a common occurrence, Guatemala being part of the Ring of Fire that encompasses the lands that touch the Pacific Ocean. Antigua, situated between active volcanoes, often experience tremors.
Faith In Practice Surgery Program Coordinator Maria Jose Tager immediately messages team leader Dr. Ross Martini to make sure everyone was okay. The 4.8 earthquake’s epicenter was near the Pacific Coast of the country, 14 kilometers from Tiquisate. The movement in Antigua is mild, and most of us just mistake it for fireworks from Lent festivities nearby. For those of you following along at home: we’re safe, and thank you for your love and concern.
Monday morning our team gathers together in the dining area with a view of Volcán de Fuego, watching it vent ash in silent plumes that often climbs hundreds of feet in the air. This is another very common, very normal occurrence here that’s both awesome in the true sense of the word and mesmerizing. Hotel Quintas de Las Flores provides us a tremendous breakfast each day with fresh coffee, an assortment of breads, yogurts, granola, eggs, salsas, and perhaps our favorite dish: a warm, tender loaf of refried beans.
Emily Guimaraes leads us each day in a talk after breakfast. Guimaraes weaves Guatemala history and interfaith prayer for our group of volunteers who come from different backgrounds and hold different belief systems. Monday’s talk centers on solidarity, working as a team with a common goal. “We are in this together,” Guimaraes reminds us, “sometimes we are providing care; sometimes we are the people in need, we are all one people.”
Today, Guimaraes closes with a prayer from the Episcopal faith:
O God, in whose image we are made and through whose eyes we must learn to see the world: Look with compassion on this, your human family; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our uncertainties to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all people may dwell in health, wholeness, and peace. Amen.
Bellies and hearts full, everyone gathers their lanyards and heads out for the first full day of surgeries at Las Obras Sociales del Hermano Pedro. It’s about a half mile walk from our hotel to the hospital, walking on roads and by buildings built centuries ago. It’s a busy morning in Antigua, with school buses and motorcycles whizzing by, children toddling off to school, and shops opening for the day.
The group walks past Tanque de La Unión, a historic site that offers public washbasins connected to a reflecting pool that catches the palms that line Parque Union, a public park packed with people, food vendors, and a couple of stray dogs deftly navigating foot traffic. Follow the path along the park and it takes you directly to the front doors of Las Obras, where we greet a line of patients and their families.
Our volunteers have their marching orders and begin to dress in their hospital clothes. Las Obras provides an extensive collection of scrubs for us, an archive from decades of teams just like ours bringing their best surgical and nursing attire stamped with the hospitals and names of the medical staff who brought them. Wearing these scrubs honors the service of those before us—and to be quite honest, the cloth surgical hats collection? With their vibrant colors and buffet of patterns? Think: teddy bears, stripes, polka dots, you name it. Surgical hats are typically the only flair a medical professional wears, and at Las Obras? An exceptional selection.
The team gets to work scheduling patients for the day. Many of Monday’s cases are the most comprehensive, or require extended after care. This is by design, so that patients can rest comfortably here, monitored by the exceptional staff at Las Obras in tandem with our specialized team of medical professionals.
With eight surgery rooms this year and our friends and colleagues at Las Obras, along with Dr. Jorge Mendez and his team of medical professionals from Guatemala City, we are able to provide top-level care to forty-two patients.
In the evening, Lauren McKiddey, co-founder of the yoga studio Shakti Shala, leads our team through a restorative Vinyasa session. This is the second year McKiddey graciously takes our team through a gentle flow. This effort is coordinated by our interpreter Liz Giannone, who herself has a daily practice of gentle movements to revitalize, relax, and find peace. At the end of the yoga class, the group lays together in shavassanah under the stars, sharing stillness with the earth that too finds calm tonight.
We gather once more for dinner and share our experiences of the day with one another. It’s incredible how a group of medical professionals can come together from different hospitals, backgrounds, and levels of experience and, in solidarity, hit the ground running while complementing each other so well.
Our group is guided by warmth, kindness, patience, and compassion that will carry us through the long days ahead. With the first day of surgeries behind us and a better understanding of the days to come, restlessness evaporates.
Tonight, in solidarity, the earth offers stillness.
