Translating...and translating...and translating

So, I headed out to Santa Rosa de Lima on Sunday (the 4th) to translate for the eye campaign happening out there. That was the reason I left the western conference early. Santa Rosa is on the other side of the country and I didn’t want to do the entire trip on one day.

So, I got out there Sunday afternoon. I got to meet up with a lot of the volunteers/doctors that evening. The campaign was held at the church…since it was the only spot that could hold that many people. We had about 4,000 come through that week. It was organized by a church in the United States, but had people from a variety of faiths. Sunday night was the opening ceremonies. People sang, danced and thanked the doctors for coming. I did enjoy the dances, cause they were actually dancing. Many times down here, it’s just girls jumping in a line and swishing their skirts. There was also a dinner that I snuck into. I pretty much stole food all week long….but more on that later.

The hotel…I’m gonna bitch about the hotel even though I didn’t have to pay for it. It wasn’t really a nice one. In fact, it was bad. They were doing construction when I was there, sometimes at night, so if I wanted water…lets say to wash my hands or flush the toilet…I had to ask them to turn it on. And when I looked at the toilet bowl water there was an oil slick on top from the machinery they were using…so, chances are there was oil in the water I used for showers. I never really did feel clean. There were ants and the bed was nothing I wish to sleep on again….but I survived and managed only to become a little bit cranky. (maybe more then a little bit). Alright, I was just in a bad mood by the end of the week…but I’m an introvert and I never got any alone time. It was driving me nuts. But anyway…on to the campaign!

I spent the majority of the time translating for the same section, near vision. It consisted of five people: Ann, Annie, Carrie, Jason and Roger. They were all nice people and I enjoyed working with them. People would come from having their distance vision checked and then to us. They would check their near vision with a small number chart. For those who couldn’t read, there was a chart with symbols…like stars or hearts. After us, we would either send them to the doctor, send them to have their eyes refracted, get glasses or just release them. For those who didn’t need glasses, we would give them a small knit towel to use to wash and comfort their eyes and sometimes sunglasses or a hat. I think I said the same thing at least 2-300 times a day. It was tiring by the end of the week.

Other sections included: doctors to examine older and diseased eyes, refraction, glasses, fake eyes, consultation and surgery. Surgery was only done on pteregiums or cataracts. In either case, it had to be serious case to receive an operation because there was only a limited number of spots available.

It was interesting and heartbreaking at the same time to see peoples eyes. Some had nubes (pteregiums) and we couldn’t do anything for them unless they were threatening their vision. Your eyes are skin and have stem cells. Nubes form when the sun damages the stem cells on your eyes so that they can no longer prevent the skin from growing over your eyes. From what I can tell…its painful. But only those that had serious cases could receive surgery to remove them.

Other cases included young people who were blinded by accidents, such as a soccer ball to the face, and nothing could be done for them. I also got to see scars from previous eye surgeries. That included the stitch marks on an eye that had received a corneal transplant. Lets just say that if you received an eye surgery within El Salvador in previous years…chances were you were not going to see with that eye again. Many got infected afterward and now are just cloudy.

Many of the people were vary gracias and patient…but not all. Some of the other volunteers were saying that with other eye campaigns, the crowd had be more pleasant. They seemed to think that since this campaign was so large, that the people thought that they could act as they please without there really being a consequence or being embarrassed. I had Salvos fight with me when the testers stated they didn’t need glasses. It went something like this:

‘I need glasses’
‘no you don’t’
‘but my eyes burn’
‘glasses can’t help with that’
‘but I need glasses’
‘no, you don’t’

There were also a lot trying to cut lines, or ask for free medicine. It got tiring at times. Mostly cause they always got mad at me, not the person that told them they didn’t need glasses, but the person who was translating. It’s not my fault!

Another interesting thing to watch was the cultural conflict between the American group and the Salvos. One of the women in my group asked me to ask the Salvo volunteers to direct traffic a certain way. I asked, sometimes they did it, other times they didn’t. She asked me to ask again…I told her to drop it. It’s a cultural thing and you can’t change it is basically what I said. She let it go.

I also had fun with the fact that they couldn’t speak Spanish. One Salvo asked Jason what state he was from. The girl had never heard of Idaho, so I proceeded to tell her it was an ugly state that only had potatoes. Jason learned to recognize when I was telling people that…so he started to interrupt when I got started. It was fun. But, I also tried to help protect them from questions…like when people asked me to ask them how much money they earn. I would tell the questioner that that wasn’t a question I was prepared to ask and that it was personal. By the end I was also speaking Spanish to the English speakers and vice versa. I usually caught it early.

At the end of the week, I was ready to go. I had had a good time with my group, but my little pueblo was calling. Literally, Iris was calling wondering when I was getting back. Friday evening, I said good-bye to my little group of gringos. They were so appreciative and even gave me a couple of bucks for the road. Then on Saturday, I headed home. I left around 7am and got in around 3 something.

Sunday was spent cleaning the house. Though, I caved and had a muchacha come over and wash my clothes. There were a lot of clothes and I just don’t have the strength nor the patience. Besides, she gets them a lot cleaner then I do.