BARRINGTON - Dr. Larry Ginsberg was midway through another long, hard day when the elderly man approached him, reached out his hand and spoke to him in Spanish through an interpreter.
"Only God can repay you for what you have done," he said, looking through eyes clouded by cataracts but now improved, ever so little, by the new glasses he wore.
Dr. Ginsberg looked around, at the hundreds of people lined up outside the makeshift medical clinic, at the team of medical workers giving checkups, administering medicine and talking through interpreters, and smiled. Making a life better is reward enough, he thought.
The exchange happened just over two weeks ago, when the Barrington optometrist and another Barrington resident, nurse/midwife Ann Mason, traveled to the rural village of Jinotepe, Nicaragua, to provide free medical care for hundreds of mostly poor farmers and their families through Volunteers in Optometric Service to Humanity (VOSH).
With a contingent of about 80 doctors, nurses and support staff, they flew from Boston to Miami, on to the Nicaraguan capital of Managua and then, by bus, to Jinotepe itself. They brought wheelchairs for the infirm, more than 13,000 pairs of donated glasses each categorized by prescription, antibiotics, hearing aids and scads of other medical supplies including prescription medication, drugs and bandages. The trip, made at each member’s own expense, was the fourth for Dr. Ginsberg, the third for Ms. Mason.
In return for their sacrifice, they were rewarded by steaming heat, the possibility of contracting malaria or other diseases, three square meals of beans and rice a day, and one other thing: Hope.
Through streets of dirt, villages of plywood and corrugated tin roofs and poverty brought on by an 80 percent unemployment rate, they came to know a people living contentedly, close to the land and their God.
"You get more attached every year," said Ms. Mason. "You get to see people who have very little but are happy and loving."
"It’s an addiction," added Dr. Ginsberg. "The only thing holding me back from going more is having to work."
VOSH volunteers set up in a converted school and opened up shop every morning around 8 a.m. Before their arrival, volunteers from a Nicaragua Rotary Club — VOSH’s partner in the trip — had canvassed the countryside, announcing the arrival of American doctors from loudspeakers bound to the tops of pickup trucks. Each day was the same; walking from their nearby quarters, the volunteers were greeted each morning by crowds of residents, hundreds strong, who might not have ever seen a doctor before and in some cases traveled dozens of miles by donkey, bicycle or by foot to get there.
"Every morning they would clap for us when we arrived," said Ms. Mason.
In their week of service, the volunteers saw hundreds of patients. They treated women whose infant children had trouble nursing, infirm patients who suffered from cerebral palsy and other degenerative disorders, gave hearing aids to those who needed them, and performed all manners of surgery, from gynecological procedures to correcting ingrown toenails. And they gave eye exams — lots of them.
Because many of Jinotepe’s residents are farmers who work pineapple and coffee fields most of their lives, many suffer from cataracts and other problems brought on by the bright sun. Their diet has also led to a high number of diabetes cases. Sometimes, treating patients is as simple as administering moisturizing eye drops and giving them a pair of sunglasses; other times, full-fledged cataract surgery is performed.
For Ms. Mason, who works as a nurse/midwife back home, the trip was a chance to extend her medical care and see a different kind of patient than she normally sees. The chance to help a wide range of people is heartening, she said, and sometimes the fix is easy. This year, she saw an infirm woman, probably in her early twenties, brought to the clinic in a wheelbarrow by her family. Within hours, she was given a wheelchair.
"Little things like that ...," she said. "They make such a difference."
Ms. Mason remembers one case in particular. While she was tending a patient, the woman talked nonstop in Spanish, a language she does not understand. Asking an interpreter what the woman was saying, she received her answer:
"She’s blessing you."
After one week and hundreds of patients treated, VOSH packed up and returned to the United States on Sunday, Jan. 26. Both Ms. Mason and Dr. Ginsberg said they will be back.
The preceeding article archived on NEVOSH.com
courtesy the
East Bay Newspapers, RI
2009 Nueva Esperanza | 2008 Nandaime | 2007 Monimbo | 2006 Nandasmo | 2005 Catarina | 2005 Mus | 2004 Nindiri | 2003 Jinotepe | 2002 Ticuantepe | 2001 Monimbo | 2000 La Concepción | 1999 Masatepe | 1998 Niquinohomo | 1997 Lake Yohoa | 1996 Jutiapa | 1995 Omoa | 1994 Vera Paz | 1993 Coatepeque | 1993 Salama | 1992 Chimeltenango | 1991 Chichicastenango | 1990 Comayagua | 1989 San Manuel | 1988 Omoa | 1987 Santa Rosa
Copyright © 1987 - 2009 Northeast VOSH, Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity, a not-for-profit organization, or our suppliers. Contact webmaster@nevosh.com for reproduction permission.