Hello from San Marcos to all of you who have so generously helped MHI with your donations. It’s time for a first quarter update.
The COVID pandemic is still with us, but travel restrictions have been eliminated, business are open, and people are moving about. Most are masked, at least in the cities. No one knows how many cases there are, and the vaccine is still not available. Until the end of October, most of the rural “aldeas” were isolated, and access to markets was restricted or impossible. We could not do therapy, so instead focused on nutrition. In addition to the Plumpysup® generously donated by Edesia, we spend four $10,000 aliquots of money on basic food stuffs for families identified to have the most need. Several hundred families received donations of corn, beans, and a nutritional supplement known in Guatemala as “Incaparina”. The directiva in San Miguel Ixtahuacan was responsible for negotiating prices, identifying the neediest families, and delivering the products. The program was a proverbial “finger in the dike,” but I believe was of great help to many people.
Four weeks ago the therapy program restarted, with protocols for hygiene, social distancing, etc. Our initial impression is that many children have suffered setbacks in the improvement they had shown pre-pandemic, which is not surprising. We have hired 2 additional therapists to allow us to recuperate as many children as fast as possible. The additional help will also allow us to accommodate the increase in patients we anticipate will come when the pandemic is over. Both of the new therapists are recent graduates put through school by Padre Erich of San Miguel- they are both fluent in Spanish and the local idiom Mam.
Some of you read about the massacre of 19 people, including at least 11 Guatemalan migrants, at the Mexico-US border. The Guatemalans came from Comitancillo an extremely poor municipality that is adjacent to San Miguel. We have some patients from there, and provide help to a nutrition program. One of the victims was a 17 year old girl who was heading north to try to make money to pay for surgery for her baby sister, who has a cleft lip and palate. The family wanted to pay a Guatemalan surgeon to repair the baby’s lip- this because all of the visits of American specialists were cancelled due to the pandemic. We did not know about this baby. We had paid for a cleft lip repair for one of our patients in November; the surgery was done by a Guatemalan surgeon who agreed to help us at a much reduced cost. The week before the massacre we spoke about the possibility of announcing that we would help any child in the altiplano with a cleft lip. Children with cleft palate obviously suffer terribly. We know that this will be costly- the surgery is one problem- the bigger issue is the expense of the infant formula these babies need, since they can’t breastfeed. The kids also need to be followed closely to assure they gain weight, and for the various medical problems for which they are at risk. We now have 11 patients, some with cleft lips/palates, a couple with just a cleft palate. The baby whose sister died was operated on last week with the help of another NGO. We’ll continue to help the others, and those who will invariably hear about our program, until such time as the medical jornadas resume. In the best case scenario this will be 6 months to a year; there will be a huge back-log of cases. Yesterday we brought 4 of ours to Antigua to meet the surgeon.
I want to thank everyone again for their support. It has been a difficult year for the world. I wish everyone a better 2021. May we all stay healthy.
Bill