Ecuador Brigade 2012 – Day 1

Day 1
Traveling to Ecuador is no easy feat, especially when you have 27 duffle bags of supplies with more arriving tomorrow. There are new faces this year who did not come last year. We are on day 2 and arrived in Coca today to see familiar faces. There were 70 patients waiting to be screened but this year the operations will be moved to Quito. The military allowed the screening at their hospital and the government will bus out the patients. Alexandria, the angel who coordinated the brigade last year, suffered from a stroke a few weeks ago but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She’s gregarious, energetic and so happy to see the doctors helping her people.

We have a new team member on the film crew, Roy Prendas and already, on day one, he has crossed the line to the medical team. Roy is a young film maker from Costa Rica and my daughter’s AFS brother from years ago. I’ve always wanted to involve him in one of my projects and thought that this would be a wonderful experience. He’s fitting right in even though he is suffering from an intestinal bug. The need for translators in Coca for the medical screening is critical and Roy discovered this while a boy with Poland syndrome was being interviewed by the team. This boy went from one station (hand) to the next station (clef) because there were numerous ailments. These people have gone so long without proper care that it’s frustrating to think that when the doctors leave they will not have the therapy that is normally provided in more affluent countries. We saw an older man who was loading a gun and it went off in his hand over 15 years ago yet he had never seen a doctor. HIs fingers were mutated, the bones were shattered but it was too late to do anything as the brain had already learned how to compensate for his disfigurement.

We interviewed some of the familiar faces from last year and I thought I would be happy to learn what the doctors would be doing next but it doesn’t always turn out that way.
Alexandra is turning 15 and in this culture that is a big deal. Unfortunately she caught on fire before she was the age of 2 and the doctors saw her for the first time last year. There is nothing more the doctors can do. Her mother was hoping that they could make her baby beautiful again and knows there is a surgery available for Alexandra but does not have insurance nor can she afford to take her out of the Amazon to find a doctor who can give her better results. Alexandra now has to live this way and study hard so that she will have a chance at life.
We saw this same thing in a 18 year old boy today who came back for another ear surgery. He had a burn on his face and was born without an ear. The doctors were able to make the burn look better and began to form an ear which requires a few surgeries. Why he was born without an ear is a mystery, however, his father believes it was because of malnutrition or medicine while in the womb. Normally you do not have speech problems with this malformation but he does not talk. They placed him in a school for the deaf but because he still has one ear that functions, he was removed with no other options for learning any other modality to speak. He now wants to quit school and hopefully he will find an occupation with this disability.
The stories continue but there is an early departure tomorrow to see Matilda in the jungles of the Amazon. With any luck, I’ll be alive to tell about it!