The Language of Grief

Honduras is a beautiful landscape with lush green and vibrant colors.  The palm trees dance underneath the sun’s life-giving rays, while the mountains in the background climb upwards with diligence, trying to surmount the sky.  Daily, I am awe-struck at the amazing power and beauty of the landscape that I have taken for granted.  The panorama of visual stimulation during the day only transforms to the glittering sparkle of the mountain villages at night that light up the landscape above like stars in the sky.  Though there is poverty, there is such beauty that lingers despite the vivacious landscape spotted with destruction.  It is vexing how the landscape transcends the tragic story of the people here, proving that life is possible among the desolation.

This week started off like any other week here, as I am starting to get some coherence with all of my ministries.  The trend normally follows in Honduras that things change within a matter of moments, even seconds, leaving no mercy for those who seek out normalcy.  The week continued to unfold as we all went about our ministries, but everything changed on Thursday morning.  We had received a phone call that one of the girls that lived in our barrio had died.  She had been receiving medical treatment in Tegucigalpa where the doctors told her that she had a tumor resting behind her eye.  Her condition being in-operable, we had all been keeping her and her family in our prayers.

The other two American girls and I, along with one of the Honduran missionaries went to inquire whether the family needed any help with the preparations and to pay our respects.  Due to the erratic  communication between people and the complicated and intricate manner with which information is not only obtained, but comprehended, we found out that the young girls best friend would come to the mission house to take us to where the family was holding vigil.  We all anxiously awaited the arrival of the friend, and when we heard the knock at the door, we did not expect to receive not only her friend, but the mother of the dead girl.

In this moment, it became very clear that above and beyond my Spanish capabilities, I could not even begin to express my condolences or my grief for the family and their loss.  In the mother’s eyes, I could see the pain, the desire to recklessly weep and howl from the very abyss of her soul.  No one should have to bury their 19-year-old daughter.  She wept as she told us how her daughter did not want anymore treatment and that she had suffered enough.  Her frail body could not take any more chemo-therapy, or any of the treatments that the physicians employed to treat her.  She wanted to go home and be at peace.

It was incredibly hard to hear her mother retell painstakingly the story of her daughter’s final days and moments.  I did not know what to say and just stood there like a fool.  Hugging her, or trying to show compassion would not help.  I stood there with no emotion, completely ignorant of the grief that she was going through.  I have experienced my own grief, and my own loss, but that does not translate.  I only knew the most infinitesimally smallest aspect of the living Hell that she was going through.

After awkward exchanges of condolences, we all headed off for the house where they were viewing her daughter.  While the family all reunited inside the house, the other missionaries and I went to the supermarket in order to buy soda, rice, beans, coffee, and cookies for the family to prepare for all of the visitors.  We all dreaded the moment when we would return, knowing fully that we were going to have to see a dead teenager, something that never gets easy, or forgotten.

When we returned, we entered the small house with the coffin, family, and friends sitting quietly on chairs encircling the room.  Nobody was talking, everyone was just sitting there.  People trickled in from the street to glance at the body and then left, not even acknowledging her mother and offering their condolences.  I remember feeling disgusted by the appearance of these actions.  This young woman was not there for display or personal pleasure; she had a family, children, and siblings.  Not only will she be missed, but she deserves more than to be paraded on display like a sarcophagus at the Smithsonian.

After sitting in the family room for a good 15 minutes, which seemed like an eternity, we all led the room in the Divine Mercy Chaplet, offering it for the souls in Purgatory and for the young woman.  Even though I had my own frustrations and disgust at the whole situation, I quickly realized that I did know the language of grief, a way to recapture the puzzle pieces of language that had been lost in my head when I first encountered the mother.  Prayer was how I was able to console her mother, family, and prayers.  Prayer was the way to bypass my own muteness in order to console the inconsolable.

Grief is a language that is unknown, hidden in the mysteries of humanity.  Even though philosophers and sociologists have attempted to define its complexities, the world remains baffled and inept regarding how to deal or approach such complexity.  The only way that I have learned to handle or resolve such problems is through prayer, which always perseveres triumphantly and valiantly over difficult situations.  Just like the beauty of the landscape that is woven within the fabric of poverty and tragedy of Honduras, prayer is the luminescent thread of hope and healing in the fabric of grief and desperation.

Blind Signs

This week brought its own share of challenges and well appreciated lessons.  However, this week started off with a jubilation of life; with raw and innocent happiness.

A few of the missionaries and I went to the Missionaries of Charity to take the HIV positive children out to the carnival that has been taking place in our barrio for the past few weeks.  Initially, my heart leapt for joy when I first encountered the seven beautiful souls that we were going to spend the afternoon with.  Every child had their own unique personality and their own individual attributes.  Some were clad in cute little dresses while others had evidently already worn through an initial pair of clothing earlier in the day and were now wearing faded play clothes.  The excitement was high, and we quickly filed outside the gates where our fun-filled afternoon would begin.

Instead of going to the festival, we elected to go to Pollo Campero (basically Burger King meets KFC) where we got the kids all coked up on soda and greasy chicken before they attacked the jungle gym like children uncovering presents on Christmas Day.  It was incredibly uplifting to play with all of them, and act like a little kid just for a moment.  Even though I nearly vomited and jokingly protested that we had violated the “30 minute after eating” rule, I learned to truly treasure the moment and not get caught up in all the chaos and uncertainty that seems to be inevitable at times.  The most infinitesimally small things really make a difference here where things change every moment.  I remember just sitting there and realizing that even though things have been so wild and crazy at times, moments like this where the world is put on pause for a split second, and I am able to take a deep and relaxing fresh breathe of air, I truly appreciate the amazing gift of life and how apparent it is in children.

Though the week started off with a gregarious and refreshing outing, the work of the week quickly unfolded.  Working at San Benito was refreshing, but nerve-wracking at the same time.  I am learning an incredible amount, and further pushing my boundaries by seeing and doing things that I would have never thought I would ever be doing when I first set foot on Honduran soil.  Though I have seen my initial visions of my mission pulverized, I have learned to see new and more intriguing things.

The walk to San Benito is not very far, but everyday I pass a barrio where pigs sleep in baths of sludge meters away from houses.  The streets are strewn with garbage, animal excrement, and ditches that seem to swallow your body.  In a way, the society that I now live in is what would occur if American life was turned upside down.  When nobody cleans up after themselves or cares to lend a hand in fixing a pothole, or cleaning the side of the road, the result is terrifyingly real.  All around, there are signs of disregard, of personal self-interest, and blindness.  Mothers are not neglectful if they do not wash their children because they do not know any better since they were not clean when they were children.  Young women are still victimized and prayed upon by older men because there is no way out of the cycle that has seemed to become so routine in this culture.

I pondered on all of this for an afternoon, getting really tied up in the absolute, sheer-rawness of society.  I remember questioning whether this was ignorance or neglect, only to realize that you cannot be ignorant or neglectful to things that you do not know.  Ignorance has such a negative connotation in American society, yet it does not apply here where people are blind to everything around them.  At times, I feel like people walk down the street blind to the charred remnants of garbage, or the young children playing in the street after dark.  Where is the self-worth and the power to change?  Have these people been oppressed so much that they choose blindness over reading the blatant signs that are in front of them?

After chewing these thoughts and images for a while, I realized that in reality we all are blind.  There are signs everywhere of people who need love, food, or just someone to talk to.  There have been so many times that I have been blind to other peoples needs due to my own selfish wants.  I want to change and make things better, but am blind to the fact that here, I need to bring more than some fancy public health and medical intervention program.  I need to bring the love of God to the hearts of these people who live in a perpetual time warp of poverty.  I have learned what it means to be loved by God, and to change my life because I have a self-worth and a value.  It may seem impossible to change the squalor of society overnight, but little by little, if people come to know and love themselves and how God made them, they will realize that caring, and taking care of themselves and their environment is a huge part of God’s loving plan for their lives.

Everyday brings new challenges here, and I am learning to really appreciate the small things and enjoy the strife for the growth in the end.  What I truly take away from another week in paradise is that there are signs everywhere guiding me on my journey, it is just a matter of whether or not I allow myself to cure my own blindness and read them.

America vs. Honduras

This week started off interestingly with the football/ soccer game of USA vs. Honduras.  I showed up to the party clad in a red, white, and blue polo in honor of my beloved country among a sea of blue and white representing Honduras.  Everyone in the room, including some Americans were rooting for the Hondurans, which I would have been rooting for other than the fact that I really couldn’t help but feel the patriotic zeal of supporting my home in a foreign country.  This game would determine who would move forward in qualifying for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, which would mean a lot to a country like Honduras with such a complicated and difficult political environment.  In the end, the US triumphed over really somber Hondurans (however, they qualified later on in the week making this the first time the country has qualified for the World Cup since the 80′s….. it became a National Holiday!)

The game occurred on Saturday night, but I really did not know that it would foreshadow the week that would soon unfold.  I started my week off at San Benito, which I have come to recognize as a haven for my desire to practice medicine in the future.  The day seemed to go by pretty normally minus the fact that there was a new nursing student who was shadowing the nurse Lidia that I have been helping on Tuesday mornings.  I remember within the first few minutes, the amount of frustration I had when I was trying to explain how to take a blood pressure, or weigh a patient and take basic vitals to a nursing student who should have already known all of this information before starting clinical rounds.  I remember thinking that it was just the education system and how in the US, things would be entirely different.

When a patient came in that had both arms bandaged and one eye covered, I was extra careful when taking all the vital information, and even more perplexed as to her condition and fearful mannerisms in my presence.  I later found out that she had been recovering from injuries that were inflicted when her husband decided to take a machete to her body.  After the initial shock of her tragic story, I immediately got frustrated again with how such an animal would not see the light of day for a very long time if the same case were in the US.

I would have to say my ultimate, but most rewarding frustration came the next day when I was shadowing in the clinic with Dr. Carlos.  Patient after patient came in with the same illnesses; we saw children with impetigo, and various dermatological fungi.  The funny thing is that every single child had the same thing in common….. they were all filthy, with dirty fingernails.  Dr. Carlos later explained to me that he instructs parents to wash their children everyday and make sure that their nails are cut and clean, but this is all done in vain because the parents do not listen or understand really what to do.

The public health student jumped at the opportunity to prove that primary prevention is absolutely necessary.  All of these health problems are associated with uncleanliness, and can be remedied without that much cost…… just a bar of soap.  Since the parents chose not to listen, their children got sick, and needed to rely on free medical care when they could have avoided the problem in the first place by simply bathing their children.

I remember feeling so helpless and overwhelmed and frustrated with the situation.  I remember thinking how could parents not know how to bathe or properly clean their children?  How could people be so ignorant of the health risks of not washing their hands regularly?  In the States, cleanliness was a part of basic grade school education, why is it so different here?

I pondered on this for a while and was chasing my tail, moving no where.  Then I found the grace that I was seeking.  The problem is not the education, the parents, or the people.  The problem was actually me and my judgments.  I had been spending all of this time judging the infrastructure, finding someone to blame, and judging the poor that I was serving.  I was adding to the problem, and not resolving it or investigating a better way to serve more lovingly and compassionately.  I was standing on my elaborate pedestal of privilege, with my Rutgers University degree.  I was seeking out all the bad that there was, and how in America things would be different.  More importantly, I was looking for conformation of cultures.

What I did not realize was that I cannot hide behind my college degree, or my fancy resume in a country like this.  The people here already know that I have more opportunity and freedom in my native country……… but this does not give me the right to judge them.  I found myself doing to other people the very thing that I hate.  I am not the person to say that they are wrong, and I am right, or that society here should be more like the society that I was raised.  I was wasting opportunities to love and appreciate people for who they are, not what they have done or neglected to do.  If I want to heal people, I have to first learn not to judge them first and heal them after.  In judging, am I not adding to that initial pain or injury that I am trying to fix?

This was a very humbling lesson, which is one of many that I look forward to learning on this journey.  I have to learn how to loose myself more, getting rid of every aspect of my life that I used to hide behind in order to protect myself from becoming vulnerable.  Love and compassion require a certain level of vulnerability that I have not quite allowed myself to enter.  The week that started with a competition between two nations soon manifested into a mindset of superiority that was only resolved in learning that in the real world when USA vs. Honduras, no one wins and no one loses.