With our second day of clinic and another 525 patients behind us, we have but one thing on our minds, exhaustion (of the mental and physical variety). Don't get us wrong, today was incredible. Today's clinic was at an elementary school in Empalme, which essentially meant a lot less room and a lot more kids. The place was packed when the bus pulled up, which for us in dispensing meant we were on our feet from the moment we got off the bus until the moment we got back on the bus (about 8 hours later). Despite the increase in confidence from yesterday we still felt like we were ten steps behind. Sometimes feeling like we were flying through patients and other times like we were tripping over our own feet and stumbling into tables just trying to get through a single patient. Despite the insanity, we still had some unforgettable moments, mostly of the inspirational variety but a few of the comedic as well. One such instance was when Stiletto (not because she wears stilettos but because she wears heels everywhere) came back to the dispensing station covered in bird shit (hair and all). Stiletto was in shock for a moment until Marco found the wet-wipes in her bag (Thanks Mom!) and Stiletto could clean the bird shit off her hair and shirt. I guess you could say we learned our lesson about feeling safe under the roof... damn pigeons. As far the inspirational moments, we feel like we're cheating the student docs and the rest of the volunteers on the trip. Even though we have just a small role we get some of the best displays of gratitude when we find glasses that will work for the patient, giving them the tools to see the world more clearly. After only two days, we've lost count of the number of people who have hugged or kissed our cheek because they are just so grateful to be able to see in a way they have never been able to before. The lesson? Service and gratitude transcend even the most ramshackle language barriers.
Building off of yesterday's questionable success with the Spanish language, we'd like to think that we made progress today. Polo has officially graduated to three word sentences in Spanish (with the occasional charade thrown in). Marco can now communicate in Spanish to the point where the patients think she's fluent but really she has no idea what they're saying back. We've managed to add a few more important phrases to our repertoire like: ¿Es claro? (Is it clear?) and ¿Es borroso? (Is it blurry?). Day 3 of clinic can only mean more improvements in our Spanish right? We sure hope so.
We're sure tomorrow's clinic will be no different and we're sure to have many more stories to share.
¡Quédate un empollón!
Marco y Polo
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