It is time to show you life at NPH Guatemala from my perspective, since Tobias –through his work but also his personal approach- has a very different way of looking at things. Especially now.
Frustrations, Frustrations…. Light?
While Tobias is cracking certain nuts, I am fighting to crack others. Many of you have heard about my initial frustrations re a family (brothers and sister) with psychiatric problems that had been sent back to live with their abusing parents, my frustrations re
the taboo around children with HIV at the orphanage and my frustrations with the organization in general. For the children with HIV things are looking brighter as we speak. I am very thrilled that together with the Guatemalan psychologist here I have been working hard on writing a booklet with information and policies on working with children with HIV at the NPH orphanages. This includes HIV education, prevention and a psychosocial treatment plan. It really gives me a great feeling that even though it is a great taboo here, people’s minds are slowly opening up to the fact that these children are facing a great social stigma that could be avoided (at least at the orphanage). Re the organization in general, I am starting to understand things more and more and feel more able to distinguish good intentions from a faulty coordination.
Frustrations, Frustrations…. Light?
While Tobias is cracking certain nuts, I am fighting to crack others. Many of you have heard about my initial frustrations re a family (brothers and sister) with psychiatric problems that had been sent back to live with their abusing parents, my frustrations re
the taboo around children with HIV at the orphanage and my frustrations with the organization in general. For the children with HIV things are looking brighter as we speak. I am very thrilled that together with the Guatemalan psychologist here I have been working hard on writing a booklet with information and policies on working with children with HIV at the NPH orphanages. This includes HIV education, prevention and a psychosocial treatment plan. It really gives me a great feeling that even though it is a great taboo here, people’s minds are slowly opening up to the fact that these children are facing a great social stigma that could be avoided (at least at the orphanage). Re the organization in general, I am starting to understand things more and more and feel more able to distinguish good intentions from a faulty coordination.
I see now that it is – especially in countries like Guatemala- easy to blame everything on the director, while in fact the place is running (or not) on coordinators (who e.g. have to make sure the Tios (group leaders) are not physically abusing the kids). In other words not a day goes by without a certain crisis: a very sick father, kid running away, kid needs to go to the hospital, or a child’s trauma caused by the abusive behaviour of the Tios. Still, I have to secretly admit that I kind of like having crises as well, since it gives me the feeling that there is really something that we need to work on (and it gives us a good excuse to push forward new plans e.g. to educate and monitor the Tios).
But let’s go back to that very initial frustration about this special family, which has changed my perspective more than I could ever have imagined. 
The Accident
Since by now the mistake of sending the two brothers back together with their sister (who had tried to strangle her teacher)had become clear and the judge had decided NPH still has guardianship which means that the children are still the responsibility of the orphanage, I was very pleased when I was asked to visit them. Great, I would even get to see something of the country since they live 4 hours driving away. So off we went, together with Alba, the social worker, and Izmar, the 3rd person in the hierarchy, who does not even know his job title himself.
What we saw in that small village radically changed my way of looking at NPH. Suddenly I realized all they had had accomplished. Somehow when we hear the children are orphans only of the father or have been sent to the orphanage for economic reas
ons, we (or at least I) tend to doubt whether that was the right decision. Are not love and family more important? But what we saw in this village were economic circumstances so grave and an education level of the family so low… And most horrifyingly, a disinterest in the children so high, I had never experienced before in my life. It was obvious that in this village, someone’s life is not seen as something very special. It comes and goes. I guess I had taken love – of people and of life itself- for granted. I always assumed that love was even there (in some distorted way) in abusive relationships. I even cherished the romantic idea that love is felt even more in the poorest of circumstances. I guess I was wrong. Hunger makes you selfish and drives you insane. Of course I know (and hope even more) that not all extremely poor families are like this, but the very existence of such lack of interest shattered my way of viewing the world in general and NPH in particular.
On the way back we discussed the situation and how hard it is to act (since the children have more or less expressed their will to stay). Here child protection is not as organized and NPH is too afraid the children will run away from the orphanage and end up in prostitution. Psychiatric hospitals here… well, do they exist? Not really.
To lighten up the graveness of the situation, Izmar and I were joking. When it started to rain (!! Note this was my very first experience of rain in Guatemala and it is not supposed to start to rain before June), Izmar slowed down and told me as the perfect driving instructor that you should be careful when it is raining. Meanwhile, I was more interested in staring at the beautiful landscape to process all the impressions of the day…
But then, all of a sudden, I can’t remember what caused it, we started slipping. We were circling over the road, right toward the other side of the highway. All I could think was: nothing is going to happen, we’ll end up safely in the grass on the other side, and Alba, don’t worry, there is no need to scream, you’ll see. Of course I could see the big truck coming our way, but a car accident, that’s just something that doesn’t happen to me. But then… it did. BANG!! The truck hit us from the back and seconds (or minutes?) later I felt like my head was going to explode, but I still thought: pff, good nothing really bad happened. Until I looked aside and saw Izmar unconscious and his shirt covered in blood. Alba was moaning a bit in the back, but she could still talk and said she was ok. Lots of thoughts were running through my head, but I knew this time I had to act. Thank god for that First Aid course… I grabbed a role of toilet paper and all I could think was that I had to put pressure on Izmar’s head wound. Meanwhile, Izmar had regained consciousness and had got up to leave the car (and I was following him to make sure to put pressure on the wound). Fortunately, bystanders had already called the police and ambulance. First to arrive was the police, since they are never far away. After a lot of questions from the police that I could not believe Izmar was actually trying to answer, the ambulance finally arrived. They attended to Izmar’s wound, but then also started asking a lot of questions and pulling out their paperwork. Excuse me?!?! I tried to explain that Izmar really had to go to the hospital asap, since the only thing he could say way: what happened? I don’t know what happened! However, we first had to decide which hospital to go to, someone needed to stay with the car to wait for the insurance guy… Anyway, after what at least seemed half an hour I had pushed Izmar and Alba (who was complaining of pain in her back) into the ambulance and found myself alone with the car. Fortunately, I had my phone and it felt like the entire NPH was calling me to make sure I was doing alright and was doing the right thing. However, I was still in shock and could not think straight. Not a very convenient position to be in if you have to speak in a language that it nr 4 in fluency. I just could not remember words people said to me, like I thought the hospital was called something like Centro… Centro Americano? Hmm, that could not be right. Two hours later, which felt like a century, the insurance guy finally came. Izmar had managed to instruct me not to say anything to anyone before the insurance guy would come and to guard the keys of the car with my life. Ofcourse, that was the first thing the police asked me to do: give them the keys. How wonderful to be a foreigner and to be able to feign you don’t understand someone’s instructions. Meanwhile, my head was still spinning and my leg was cultivating quite the bruise. After I had managed to take all valuables out of the car (which the police told me not to do, ofcourse not, because they would be the ones steeling it after), we finally went to the hospital to see how Izmar and Alba were doing. To make this story a bit shorter, I waited another hour at the hospital keeping an eye on the insurance guy and then finally, finally help arrived in the form of Tobias and the director and some other people and I could finally let everything go. It seemed physically everything was fine, I just got an injection of some sort against the pain.
The Surprise
The next day, my neck started getting stiffer and stiffer and hurting more and more. Julie, the physiotherapist offered me a massage, which I enjoyed, but alarm bells started ringing when I could not see clearly for 2 hours after. What had happened? The director and his wife were worried about me and called for an ambulance the next morning. At the hospital x-rays and MRT scans were taken to have a look at my neck. What they found was that 2 of my vertebras had moved slightly and there appeared to be a crack in one of time. Nice… now I have to wear a special collar day and night for the coming two months. When the painkillers are working I don’t feel very much, just that it is all stiff and I cannot move my neck.
Ofcourse, my parents were very worried, and I have felt myself going back and forth in trying to decide whether I should go home for a couple of weeks or not. Main thing is that I am afraid to fly. I cannot even get up on my own, let alone sit on a plain for 15 hours. At the same time, I am worried too, I want to have a second opinion of a doctor I can trust. Fortunately, last night, Tobias called his Guatemalan friend, and guess what, his sister is a doctor and can refer us to a good specialist. So now we just have to wait for those results and see. Meanwhile, I cannot go anywhere, but at least I feel comforted with the thought that a specialist will have a look at this crazy neck of mine.
I still cannot believe how late the pain in my neck started, but apparently if you are in shock, your body is so much on “alert” and besides, who knows what had been in that injection…
Anyway, I will let you know more about this crazy new perspective of mine, I cannot even see my feet when I am standing. Fortunately, I have my private nurse Tobias and it is nice to see how many visitors I get, the children with HIV come into my room several times a day, because they want to take care of me. I guess they understand what it is like to be sick for a longer time…
Since by now the mistake of sending the two brothers back together with their sister (who had tried to strangle her teacher)had become clear and the judge had decided NPH still has guardianship which means that the children are still the responsibility of the orphanage, I was very pleased when I was asked to visit them. Great, I would even get to see something of the country since they live 4 hours driving away. So off we went, together with Alba, the social worker, and Izmar, the 3rd person in the hierarchy, who does not even know his job title himself.
What we saw in that small village radically changed my way of looking at NPH. Suddenly I realized all they had had accomplished. Somehow when we hear the children are orphans only of the father or have been sent to the orphanage for economic reas
ons, we (or at least I) tend to doubt whether that was the right decision. Are not love and family more important? But what we saw in this village were economic circumstances so grave and an education level of the family so low… And most horrifyingly, a disinterest in the children so high, I had never experienced before in my life. It was obvious that in this village, someone’s life is not seen as something very special. It comes and goes. I guess I had taken love – of people and of life itself- for granted. I always assumed that love was even there (in some distorted way) in abusive relationships. I even cherished the romantic idea that love is felt even more in the poorest of circumstances. I guess I was wrong. Hunger makes you selfish and drives you insane. Of course I know (and hope even more) that not all extremely poor families are like this, but the very existence of such lack of interest shattered my way of viewing the world in general and NPH in particular.On the way back we discussed the situation and how hard it is to act (since the children have more or less expressed their will to stay). Here child protection is not as organized and NPH is too afraid the children will run away from the orphanage and end up in prostitution. Psychiatric hospitals here… well, do they exist? Not really.
To lighten up the graveness of the situation, Izmar and I were joking. When it started to rain (!! Note this was my very first experience of rain in Guatemala and it is not supposed to start to rain before June), Izmar slowed down and told me as the perfect driving instructor that you should be careful when it is raining. Meanwhile, I was more interested in staring at the beautiful landscape to process all the impressions of the day…
But then, all of a sudden, I can’t remember what caused it, we started slipping. We were circling over the road, right toward the other side of the highway. All I could think was: nothing is going to happen, we’ll end up safely in the grass on the other side, and Alba, don’t worry, there is no need to scream, you’ll see. Of course I could see the big truck coming our way, but a car accident, that’s just something that doesn’t happen to me. But then… it did. BANG!! The truck hit us from the back and seconds (or minutes?) later I felt like my head was going to explode, but I still thought: pff, good nothing really bad happened. Until I looked aside and saw Izmar unconscious and his shirt covered in blood. Alba was moaning a bit in the back, but she could still talk and said she was ok. Lots of thoughts were running through my head, but I knew this time I had to act. Thank god for that First Aid course… I grabbed a role of toilet paper and all I could think was that I had to put pressure on Izmar’s head wound. Meanwhile, Izmar had regained consciousness and had got up to leave the car (and I was following him to make sure to put pressure on the wound). Fortunately, bystanders had already called the police and ambulance. First to arrive was the police, since they are never far away. After a lot of questions from the police that I could not believe Izmar was actually trying to answer, the ambulance finally arrived. They attended to Izmar’s wound, but then also started asking a lot of questions and pulling out their paperwork. Excuse me?!?! I tried to explain that Izmar really had to go to the hospital asap, since the only thing he could say way: what happened? I don’t know what happened! However, we first had to decide which hospital to go to, someone needed to stay with the car to wait for the insurance guy… Anyway, after what at least seemed half an hour I had pushed Izmar and Alba (who was complaining of pain in her back) into the ambulance and found myself alone with the car. Fortunately, I had my phone and it felt like the entire NPH was calling me to make sure I was doing alright and was doing the right thing. However, I was still in shock and could not think straight. Not a very convenient position to be in if you have to speak in a language that it nr 4 in fluency. I just could not remember words people said to me, like I thought the hospital was called something like Centro… Centro Americano? Hmm, that could not be right. Two hours later, which felt like a century, the insurance guy finally came. Izmar had managed to instruct me not to say anything to anyone before the insurance guy would come and to guard the keys of the car with my life. Ofcourse, that was the first thing the police asked me to do: give them the keys. How wonderful to be a foreigner and to be able to feign you don’t understand someone’s instructions. Meanwhile, my head was still spinning and my leg was cultivating quite the bruise. After I had managed to take all valuables out of the car (which the police told me not to do, ofcourse not, because they would be the ones steeling it after), we finally went to the hospital to see how Izmar and Alba were doing. To make this story a bit shorter, I waited another hour at the hospital keeping an eye on the insurance guy and then finally, finally help arrived in the form of Tobias and the director and some other people and I could finally let everything go. It seemed physically everything was fine, I just got an injection of some sort against the pain.
The Surprise
The next day, my neck started getting stiffer and stiffer and hurting more and more. Julie, the physiotherapist offered me a massage, which I enjoyed, but alarm bells started ringing when I could not see clearly for 2 hours after. What had happened? The director and his wife were worried about me and called for an ambulance the next morning. At the hospital x-rays and MRT scans were taken to have a look at my neck. What they found was that 2 of my vertebras had moved slightly and there appeared to be a crack in one of time. Nice… now I have to wear a special collar day and night for the coming two months. When the painkillers are working I don’t feel very much, just that it is all stiff and I cannot move my neck.
Ofcourse, my parents were very worried, and I have felt myself going back and forth in trying to decide whether I should go home for a couple of weeks or not. Main thing is that I am afraid to fly. I cannot even get up on my own, let alone sit on a plain for 15 hours. At the same time, I am worried too, I want to have a second opinion of a doctor I can trust. Fortunately, last night, Tobias called his Guatemalan friend, and guess what, his sister is a doctor and can refer us to a good specialist. So now we just have to wait for those results and see. Meanwhile, I cannot go anywhere, but at least I feel comforted with the thought that a specialist will have a look at this crazy neck of mine.
I still cannot believe how late the pain in my neck started, but apparently if you are in shock, your body is so much on “alert” and besides, who knows what had been in that injection…
Anyway, I will let you know more about this crazy new perspective of mine, I cannot even see my feet when I am standing. Fortunately, I have my private nurse Tobias and it is nice to see how many visitors I get, the children with HIV come into my room several times a day, because they want to take care of me. I guess they understand what it is like to be sick for a longer time…
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