Today’s activities were and were not what I was expecting. Christine and I were sent to do eye screenings with two trained health promoters in a rural area about 45 minutes outside of San Benito. I really didn’t know what to expect, but imagined a large gathering of people in some of kind school gym or open space forming lines for us to quickly check their vision (near and far), aid with glasses, and maybe hand out some minor medications or make a referral. The latter part of this idea was correct as far as the medical service, but the pace of the day was almost the opposite.
After taking public transport to the area with both tuk-tuks and a van-bus, we reached the building used for health prevention. It was locked upon arrival so a lady helped us to open it and set up our things outside of the building. I didn’t ask why we weren’t setting up inside of the facilities. Maybe it was for publicity? Anyway, there was absolutely nothing to the healthcare room; in fact, it may have scored negative points on the healthcare scale considering it was dirty. The location and set-up didn’t seem too unusual, but I was caught by surprise that after we set up, we sat down and waited. There was continually one or two people at our station at a time, but never a noteworthy line or rush. We moved very slowly too. The eye exam was a well-working assembly line with Michel and myself screening and filling out the patients' eye cards and Christine and Luis helping with the correction lenses, fundoscopic exams, and referrals. As functional as our assembly line was, we took things so slowly. I wondered if we went faster, maybe the continual stream would continue, but stream faster; I don’t actually think that this would have been case. At the end of the morning and afternoon, we had seen around a total of 35 patients. All in all, I was happy to have screened the persons that presented, worked with the health promoters and learn more about their jobs, see a new area, and experience my first jornada with Christine.
More on the pace: The slow paced nature of the event was interesting. I suppose I was expecting something busier because I was considering what it would be like if an area in the U.S. didn’t have health care available. If we only had eye screenings on-hand two or three times a year in a U.S. city, wouldn’t there be a mass number of people going to the event? I feel like it would even be a bit competitive if they recognized that there were only a certain number of glasses and some were more expensive or more trendy than others. But in this little area in Guatemala, there was no rush for such care… even though it was free! I don’t truly know why this was. I am sure it was for many reasons. For instance, the weather was mild so most of the men were out practicing agricultural since it is the main profession of the community, the kids were in school at another nearby community (perhaps?), and maybe the women were disinterested or there was medical gender inequality preventing sought care (even more of an uneducated guess). It may also be that most of the people in the village had excellent eye sight, but I hesitate with this since the women cook over open fires and there was a large proportion of elderly people in the area. Maybe the screening did not reach the public well? Maybe eye care isn’t a priority of the people in that particular area of the Peten? Perhaps the pace was culturally consistent with what I had seen in the other areas and city? People didn’t seem to rush anywhere in particular while in these areas. Sure, residents had tasks to do and people to see, but their approach to time was distinctly different than the stereotypical American approach. For example, an American family would go to the grocery store on a weekend day to purchase food for the week. They would preconceive what events were taking place later in the week for scheduling purposes, if they would be having guests, if they had a lot of time to cook or a full week with other events. Of course, money allows one to purchase the food, cook the food efficiently, keep the food as leftovers, and so on, but I don’t think that a tradational Guatemalan family would do this. From what I had experienced, when it is lunch time, the woman of the house would walk to the store when people were getting hungry. She would then purchase lunch and bring it back. Perhaps she would pay heed to collecting things for dinner as well, but maybe not. It seems like the Guatemalan culture is more oriented toward the present and what is going on at this time with less regard for future plans and commitments. When you think about the American family planning for a week’s worth of food and compare it to a culture that is set in the present, the American clan seems almost neurotic.
At the end of this stream-of-conscious and inconclusive reflection, I don’t know why there weren’t more people present to be seen at the jornada. Besides confounding factors, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that my expectations were grounded in American culture and I think that Guatemalan culture is distinctly different. All the same, I consider my experience to be great and I am happy to have helped.
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