Hey folks! I’m back in Guatemala for my shortest trip to date. I arrived here two weeks ago, after taking my step 1 exams in the states. It is down to the last three days here to wrap everything up before returning to Vermont to start third year rotations (I fly in midnight Sunday night, starting on Monday). During that time, I hope to accomplish… well, the same thing I’ve hoped to accomplish the last two times I’ve been here, which is finally getting the truck up in the villages. I’ve been thwarted twice before, and the stakes feel higher than ever. I have no idea when the next time I can return to Guatemala will be… perhaps not for over a year. And after all the time and money I (and my incredible benefactors) have invested in this endeavor, there’s no way I can put off any longer.
This time, however, I feel I have a lot going in my favor! For the start, I’m getting a LOT of help from my friends. I’m fortunate enough to be joined by my classmate Adam Ackerman, who spent last summer at the clinic has well. Adam’s area of expertise is diagnostics and microbiology, and he is working around the clock just like me to bring the lab to completion before he leaves. Adam is also incredibly adept at communicating his enthusiasm for the ambulance and the lab to others. It is thanks to him and the incredible generosity of the FAHC pathology department and the Blanchard Foundation that we have funding for all the infrastructure we’re presently setting up.
The next humongous advantage is that truck is actually in my possession—which is a big step up from last summer. Last May, I took up an offer by a vocational autobody center to completely refurbish the truck for only the cost of materials. Although I’d been told the truck would just spend a few months in the shop, done in plenty of time for me to work on it during the two months I was here… that was of course not the case. After uncovering many deeper structural flaws (they took the entire truck apart down to the chassis), the repairs lasted until last December.
For another, the paperwork has managed to come along. It became clear that the Guatemalan “tramitadores” (experts in navigating the bureaucracy and greasing the right palms) I’d hired to last summer were less than trustworthy. I’d been promised completed documents back in two to four weeks, but after over six months they had nothing to show for it, despite holding the identification of our pediatrician and the future guardian of the truck locked away in the capital the entire time (obviously at enormous inconvenience to them).
I spent the last week hassling them on a daily basis, and on Monday my efforts were rewarded when they returned the last of the paperwork. We now have Guatemalan license plates! As I am writing this, I am sitting on a shuttle to Antigua, where I will rendezvous with our pediatrician (who is grant writing from the city) to notorize the title, and tomorrow I will go with the cocodes (village elders) to the Solola tax office to finalize the transfer. Although it is highly exasperating to spend seven hours winding along the Pan-American highway for a few signatures, it is at least giving me a little time to catch up on the blog—otherwise there’s simply been too much to do to take time to write about doing it.
My ace in the hole are two fourth year medical students from Ohio who have become my construction geniuses. Peggy was a mechanical engineer and rebuilt her house and Stacy is a rock climber who has lived out of the back of similarly tricked out pickups. They came up with a stunning design for the truck bed. And they’ve been working with me over the weekend and every day after the clinic lets out until nine or ten at night to build it. Today the benches (which double as storage space) are going in, as well as the rollable and locking backboard. All that will be left to do is paint and shellac everything to make it washable, and mount the oxygen tank, and we will be in business!
In addition, with the ambulance lettered on the side, and the back more or less occupies with storage space, the cot, and medical supplies, I hope to pre-empt possible abuses of the truck by those who will take ownership. That will be a principle objective of presenting the truck to the people of the villages as well. Although I will no longer have any legal say in how the truck is used, I believe with three different communities all feeling ownership of the truck, lots of eyes keeping watch on it, and no room in back for cinderblocks or chickens… it should only be used as it was intended to.
Another hurdle that I had to clear involved getting new tires for the truck… as it still had the same ones as when I bought it in 2008 in Montana, now barely showing any tread. To complete the construction work in the bed, my Guatemalan friend and go-to Noé had the truck driven down from Sololá to Santa Cruz. The road is a switch-backed, steeply pitched talus slope that is riddled with landslides. It has been known to break many an axle in the past, and worse. On the decent into Santa Cruz, the truck got two flat tires and barely limped into town. It was an expenditure I’d hoped to avoid, but the quality of the road between the villages and the hospital is nearly as bad (if not as steep)… and the last thing I want is for the truck to get a flat while transporting a woman in labor in the pouring rain in the middle of the night. Plus, I’ve got to admit the truck looks pretty badass perched up on its new all-terrain tires.
The tires will get their first test on Friday morning when the truck takes the journey from Santa Cruz up to be presented to the villages. I think I’ve recently decided that I’ll take the wheel myself instead of hiring a local go to do it. I ran the road the other morning and felt fairly confident on the way up, but rather terrified seeing the same conditions on the way back (it was far too steep and loose to run down). Four-wheel drive should be the trick.
Alright, gotta run, but more updates to come soon.
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