The Xela Clinics
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The commute to and from San Cristobal Totonicapan entailed a circle around the monument to los emigrantes in Salcajá - erected in honor of the incredibly large percentage of Salcajá sons and daughters who have gone off to work in the United States. It's not clear to me if the emigrant pictured here is waving goodbye or hello -
Hugo, CCD's Quetzaltenango-based facilitator, makes the obligatory toast to the officials of San Cristobal Totonicapan at a ceremony early the first morning of the first clinic there -
Kelsie and Jessica on the way to work the first day of the Xela clinics. Nothing like a cold morning 12 kilometer ride on a bumpy road in an old pickup to start the day. -
Jessica and Meredith admire the late afternoon commute home from Olintepeque -
I don't remember who the woman on my right is, but the man in the lab coat to my left is Dr. Jose, the director of the Centro de Salud in San Cristobal. The Mayor, who was newly elected in January, offers me - as representative of our group - a very eloquently expressed statement of appreciation for the services we will render over the course of the next two weeks -
Among the minor regrets of my life is that I didn't think to be respectful enough to take off my ball cap when I was directed to the front of the room to be very formally thanked and to make a speech about how happy we were to be offering free medical services in San Cristobal. I think what I said was OK, but next time I'll go better dressed. . -
Jessica, Meredith, and Kelsie pose while in line at the central Xela grocery store - which of course is owned by Walmart, as are virtually all supermarkets in Guatemala. -
The Official Welcoming Committee of Olintepeque briefly interrupted the clinic the first day, requesting that we go with them to the nearby "municipal palace" or city hall. Once there, we were greeted and thanked by a small group of elected officials, then led to the general assembly room for a larger and more show of gratitude by other dignitaries. Pictured is me in front, Michael behind me, and Meredith and Jessica in scrubs behind
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- Jessica, Meredith, and Kelsie pose while in line at the central Xela grocery store – which of course is owned by Walmart, as are virtually all supermarkets in Guatemala.
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- Kelsie and Jessica on the way to work the first day of the Xela clinics. Nothing like a cold morning 12 kilometer ride on a bumpy road in an old pickup to start the day.
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- Hugo, CCD’s Quetzaltenango-based facilitator, makes the obligatory toast to the officials of San Cristobal Totonicapan at a ceremony early the first morning of the first clinic there
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- The Official Welcoming Committee of Olintepeque briefly interrupted the clinic the first day, requesting that we go with them to the nearby “municipal palace” or city hall. Once there, we were greeted and thanked by a small group of elected officials, then led to the general assembly room for a larger and more show of gratitude by other dignitaries. Pictured is me in front, Michael behind me, and Meredith and Jessica in scrubs behind
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- I don’t remember who the woman on my right is, but the man in the lab coat to my left is Dr. Jose, the director of the Centro de Salud in San Cristobal. The Mayor, who was newly elected in January, offers me – as representative of our group – a very eloquently expressed statement of appreciation for the services we will render over the course of the next two weeks
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- The commute to and from San Cristobal Totonicapan entailed a circle around the monument to los emigrantes in Salcajá – erected in honor of the incredibly large percentage of Salcajá sons and daughters who have gone off to work in the United States. It’s not clear to me if the emigrant pictured here is waving goodbye or hello
Jessica and Meredith on the commute home from Olintepeque, after a hard day’s work. Volcan Santa Maria is in the background, and the ring of mountains that ring Quetzaltenango and its surrounding pueblos make the ride a dynamic one … even as the pickup passes through the poverty that characterizes the rural outskirts of Xela
What I refer to in the title as the “Xela” clinics didn’t take place in Quetzaltenango – which is the actual name of Guatemala’s second largest city that most Guatemalans call Xela (Shay-lah). Rather, the UTMB PA students and their two mentors worked in the nearby K’iche’ Maya pueblos of Olintepeque and San Cristobal Totonicapan. We (I was there the first 3 nights before flying home to my day job) commuted to work each morning in the back of co-facilitator Hugo Rosales’ pickup – first to one pueblo, then the other.
The commute, particularly the morning commute, was cold. This was Quetzaltenango, after all, which at about 8,000 feet above sea level is quite cool year around. And in January when we were there, it can be downright cold. I’ve even see an accumulation of sleet (locals called it snow, but it wasn’t) an inch thick there. Blessedly, it wasn’t quite that bad in January of 2016, but still it was huddle up cold on cloudy morning and evenings.
As with all other barriers and hardships we faced during the rotation, however, the heroic students and their mentors soldiered on in pursuit of providing medical care to the poor indigenous folks in the highland pueblos – to the acclaim of local residents and proclamations of gratitude from the pueblos’ own medical professionals and elected officials.
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