Thursday, November 12, 2009

On Monday we had another trip back to Milagro, to the eye hospital there, this time with 8 patients, 5 kids and 3 adults. The little gray van came all the way here again to get us, everybody showed up on time, and off we went. The rest of the day didn't go quite as smoothly as it had the first time, the place was incredibly busy and both doctors who we were seeing had been away for 2 weeks, and were operating when we got there, so we had to wait our turn with the throngs this time. However, in due course, everybody was seen, diagnoses made, glasses prescribed, and a couple of patients got appointments to go back to see a retinal specialist coming from the States in December.

But the point of this story has to do with how I was struck anew by the realities of some peoples' lives. I know these families, I know their lives, and yet it's easy sometimes to forget about their struggles. But it hit me hard this week, again.
Sonia is an 11 year old, child of a family I know well, goes to our school. I've known that she needs glasses, has had trouble seeing at school, but I didn't know where to take her, until I crossed paths with this ophthalmologist. So she came along with us on Monday and was given a prescription for glasses. Perfect. What I didn't find out until we were all on the bus on our way home, was that she could have got the glasses there for $40. Good deal, eh? Try to find glasses in Canada for $40. But she didn't get them, because $40 for this family might as well have been $4,000. Completely out of the question.
Her father had a good job until a few years ago, earning enough to look after the family well. But then the company closed, and he lost his job. And he has never been able to get another one, he's 50 now, and it's hard enough to find a job if you're in your 20's. So he has been taking out his big tricycle affair, travelling the streets and picking through other people's garbage for anything that is recyclable. It all goes to a depot that pays cash for that stuff, and that's how he has been trying to support his family. These people get paid a pittance for the garbage they collect. And he has a bad knee and back pain. They tried raising chickens to sell, but they were doing it in a very tiny yard area, and the chickens were getting sick and dying. So recently an "opportunity" came their way: someone they knew has a business making almuerzos, the typical Ecuadorian midday meal, for workers, and delivering the meals to the workplace. The food goes in flimsy plastic containers, which they are reusing. That's great, less garbage on these streets. But they all have to be washed. And we apparently are talking several hundred meals. This is not a one person job. So father, mother and teenage son are all going off every day to spend hours, I mean HOURS, washing these things. It's taking 3 of them something like 6 hours to get the job done. And for this they get paid - brace yourselves - $30, no not each, that's what the combined effort earns, per week!! Oh, and deduct bus fare for 3 people. That leaves them with $25.
That's why $40 glasses were out of the question.
They now have the money, and Sonia will see.