Inspired

Operation Theater tomorrow!


Can you tell this boy had a cleft palate once?


This is the reason we work. This is the reason that of the three pictures hanging on my door, the three last impressions in my mind before I face the day, one is a photo from Santiago Un Buen Comienzo of an impossibly cute little asthmatic boy in a cuello. He does get kudos for being adorable, but I put that photo on my door because I want to be reminded, every day, of the reason we in humanitarian work trudge through all the frustrations, the let-downs. It's for kids like this. It's to help people who sometimes have no other way out. It's because the poverty and inequality that lies right outside the door is something we cannot ignore.

But when you're struggling with middle-aged men who are defensive and sometimes just rude, when you're messing with organizational structure and accountability and hierarchy, it's easy to lose sight of all that.

Tonight, I walked into the post-op recovery room and saw a boy just out of cleft lip surgery. He was drowsy, his mother was sitting on the bed, patting his back--he had a bandage over a smooth lip that a few hours ago, was split in two. And suddenly, all those reasons why I chose global health rushed back to me. This boy's life was changed forever. The frustrations of trying to get DCH to deliver the drugs they promised, listening to people's lies, four hours spent at the airport trying to get medical supplies through a very corrupt customs... all that melted away and all I could think about was this little boy, and 49 others like him, who will have their worlds changed.

MERCY Malaysia--an incredible team with big hearts--is here for about ten days doing cleft palate/lip surgeries for 50 Bangladeshi children. The kids and their families, often with two or three other siblings in tow, travel here from all of Bangladesh. Some are selected for surgery; some, because of health conditions, are not. It's a gamble for these families who I can only imagine bump here in non-air conditioned buses, for three or seven or twelve hours on roads that often cause women to puke out the window.

The week leading up to today, the first day of surgery, was chaos. I was not directly involved, but spent a lot of time with David and the MERCY team-- it was only too easy to imagine running from this person to that person, being promised medicines and anesthetics that never come, a wild goose chase at customs. The MERCY team asked the Australians and me over and over, "How do you work here??"

With a project like this, though, the results are so tangible and so rewarding. Sure, the MERCY director had to threaten to cancel the whole mission if the promised supplies didn't arrive, but once they did, and once the surgeons were in the OR, the magic happened. With my project, though, it's different. The most reward I will get is if Dick receives an excel sheet via email every month. Those excel sheets, then, will be data that can be used to apply for grants, that can then build more wells and help more villagers. It's all very indirect, but it's completely necessary, because without money money money and grants grants grants, nothing can happen. That said, I do look forward to going to Pabna again and teaching the villagers about the new INDARA well we will install, and interacting with them directly. I guess that's the "fun" part.

Another fun part is:
I WILL BE IN THE OPERATION THEATER TOMORROW!!!!!

...watching a cleft palate operation, taking photos, and getting to pump the oxygen maybe. There are no oxygen machines here and the medical laws are frighteningly lax.

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I don’t know what I will do for the rest of my life—it may be global health, it may not be. Moments like tonight, though, are formative. I will always have a tremendous admiration for people who do this kind of work, and I will always have a heart to help.