Friday, November 05, 2010

La Carpio



Garbage trucks rumble through the main street of La Carpio, heading for the dump south of town. As they negotiate the hills, their engine brakes rumble. “It’s hard for me to get a blood pressure on the first try,” admits a young nurse from Seattle. She came to this community right out of college and is living on a stipend for six months as she works in a clinic. “After six months, I’ll have to go back to the states,” she states sadly, acknowledging that her students loans will then kick in and she’ll need a real job. She’s been here two months, helping run in clinic in this town built on a landfill. Most of her patients are Nicaraguan refugees who came here during their country’s civil war. As aliens (many of them illegal), they have limited access to health care. Costa Rica has a universal health care program, but one has to be a citizen. That’s where this clinic comes in. The office is filled with files on patients (she explains that they are they’re trying to convert to electronic records to reduce the space that’s needed for paper files).
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La Carpio is a dangerous place. On the corner are two police officers, a man and a woman, both heavily armed and wearing body armor. They smile when we cross the street to where a temporary clinic has been established. A part of the group with which I’m traveling, those with medical skills (there are four doctors and a number of nurses), have set up camp and are doing what they can to reduce suffering and to take the load off the clinic across the street. The hot tin building is filled with children and mothers. Sheets have been hung as dividers between exam rooms. A few old men and woman (who are probably younger than me) are also waiting to be seen. Eye glasses are being dispensed, along with antibiotics and vitamins and medicine to fight worms and other ailments. The clinic is surprising clean, and so are those who’ve come for help, but La Carpio is filthy. This is the end of the rainy season and there’s mud everywhere, along with the trash that blows out of the constant caravans of trash trucks. I’m told it gets worse as one moves further down the hill, toward the river.
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I don’t stay long. I’m just here to see what my friends have been up to for the past week. But the images of La Carpio are etched in my mind.

I spent last week in Costa Rica with a mission team. I got to work like a campesino, along side some Costa Ricans on a construction project. We worked five days helping a church to be handicap accessible. I’ve never busted so much concrete in my life! But I had fun and also had several free days got to tour around the country. We even went to see active volcanoes, but because of the cloud cover, didn’t get to see them… More stories and photos forthcoming. Costa Rica is a beautiful country.

15 comments:

  1. Wonderful post, Sage. Had my best friend survived, he would have moved to Costa Rica--a country he loved. There was a hotel and marina in bankruptcy that he wanted to take over and turn around, had his cancer not been so advanced at the time. He visited twice and had a blast!

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  2. I loved my short stay in Costa Rica, on vacation. I'm sorry you didn't get to see the volcano, Sage. We didn't either, until we flew back home and passed over it.

    Re your comment: the post telling about the court date was the day before that one.

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  3. nice. sounds like an intriguing place..the hint of danger adds a bit of spice...but sounds like there are some peope there doing some good work...

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  4. Fascinating post. I look forward to hearing and seeing more. What a wide and wild world.

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  5. This is one of those posts that really grabs my perspective and yanks it back closer to where it should be. Nicely descriptive. Looking forward to more stories and photos.

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  6. I too found this fascinating. Do they need a social worker? Not sure I'm kidding
    Very few people can ever get my blood pressure or heart rate on the first or even fifth try! sometimes when I watch TV and see them trying to get a heart rate I think "I'm doomed if anything happens to me." If you're in touch with that nurse tell her that it's both a skill that comes with much practice and some people are like me

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  7. Thanks, bud. You are my eyes and ears in far-flung places. I have seen a volcano in Guatemala, however; the rumbling could be heard from miles away.

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  8. A 16 pound sledge hammer is a beautiful tool when used with efficacy.

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  9. Nothing like something you experienced in a town like that to make the past elections here in the states seem trivial.

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  10. It makes me upset to think there are people here that would deny healthcare coverage to someone who is not a citizen, as well. Sometimes even to citizens who happen to be poor.

    I'm glad there are places like that clinic where those people can go.

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  11. You gotta take me on one of these trips one of these days :)

    Man, this will sound really self-involved I guess, but I sometimes don't think of other countries as having illegals.

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  12. I admire you for doing that kind of mission work. And what a wonderful service that clinic provides!

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  13. Well done.

    We do the best we can to try to alleviate what suffering we can. Otherwise, we'd just get overwhelmed and do nothing.

    Cheers.

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  14. the volunteers do such needed and difficult job. Those campesinos, low income, illegal aliens, all of them need medical care that they can't afford.
    I lived two years in a place in Ecuador that looks like what you describe

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