El Pacifico

The weekend before heading back to the frozen tundra, chris and I took a solo trip to the beach.
We stayed at a “quaint” little “boutique” hotel on Playa Tunco. Boutique and quaint translates into incense, Australian backpackers and the inability to flush toilet paper (you have to throw it away in the garbage can, I was sure I was going to flood the place. The drop is a hard habit to break). Our apartment is only 30 minutes from the beach. We went for one night. In the morning we walked the beach and ran into some friends from the Embassy, the Doc and his wife go to the beach nearly every week to surf. The playas in El Sal are famous for the surf and are therefore flush with gringos braving the crazy strong undertow and paddling for 200 yards out to the crashing waves.

We watched the surfers and don’t really have any interest in getting pummeled by the ondas. Although I like to walk the beaches, Chris has decided that he does not really enjoy it. Something to do with the questionable sewage/sanitation systems in El Sal… We enjoyed the peacefulness of the beach and watching the sun come up and go down. These two Midwest kids sure could get used to listening to the surf, even if it is the smelly Pacific.

Our First Visitor & Medredes

We had our first visitor the beginning of December, Chris’s dad Don. He flew down for a quick weekend and as you can expect, we kept him very busy. Back in the 80s Don was an instructor for TWA and trained a Taca pilot from El Salvador on the 767. For two months Nicho Lopez, the El Salvadoran pilot, was part of the Stokes family. When Chris told his dad that we were coming down to El Salvador Don went into his office and came back with a business card containing Nico’s contact information. It turns out that Nico is a local legend here in El Salvador, and one trip to the local airport was all Chris needed to find his dad’s long lost friend.
Nico was the first officer on Taca Flight 110 flight from Belize City to New Orleans in 1988. The 737 plane lost both jet engines in a thunderstorm right outside of New Orleans and had to perform an emergency landing just like in the movies… nose down, bank hard right 180 degree turn to land on a grass levy. One of the only successful manual landings in history.Chris and his dad spent the day at the EL Sal Military Museum representing the US at a ceremony and reminiscing with Nicho and his comrades at the officers club. On Saturday morning we all attended the graduation of the ES military academy. Each graduate received their orders and a sword from the President of El Salvador, Tony Saca.

I took a paparazzi shot of Chris with the President. Actually it’s a side shot of the pres. with the top of Chris’s hat in the background. Ambassador Frasier and his wife sat in front of Don and I and the ambassador joked with Don about making the retired Generals sit in the back. It was a great weekend.

Early on Monday morning, Chris, I and a driver left the city for the opening ceremonies of a medrede in La Union. La Union is a department on the far east side of the country, close to the Nicaraguan border. Four times a year the Military Group coordinates a medical readiness exercise (aka medrede) in El Salvador. A Medrede is a free medical clinic staffed by doctors, nurses, and technicians from the US military. The general purpose is to provide a basic health care blitz to several communities over a two week period.

This specific medrede traveled to 5 location over 10 days, spending anywhere from 1 to 3 days at each location depending on the need. In the end they served over 7 thousand patients. There were dermatologist, GPs, Ems, Pediatricians, Ophthalmologists, OBGYNs, dentists and a pharmacist all from Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Two of the 18 docs spoke Spanish. The US docs required translators in order to communicate with their patients. There were several groups who helped with the translation over the two week period: El Salvadoran Marinos, Cuerpo de Paz volunteers, Mormon missionaries, and a few embassy spouses. Funny story, after the opening ceremony Chris went straight to work finding more translators. One of the docs was Mormon and gave Chris the name of the guy in charge of missionaries in El Sal. He made a few phone calls in the car on our way back to San Sal and found the guy, remember…small country, small circles.

After hanging up the phone we stopped in San Vicente for our first fast food experience. (They have all the fast food restaurants down here: Wendy’s, Mc Ds, Burger King, Quiznos, KFC, etc. Chris and I can get Pizza Hut delivered to our door, third world hah!) Anyway, we stopped at a Wendy’s and in walk 40 Morona Brothers and Sisters, all dressed up in their Sunday best. It was as if God said Ha! I can do better than give you a name I can deliver them to you. We laughed and told them the story about just getting off the phone with their Jefe. The Mormons ended up helping everywhere except on the islands; turns out Mormons and water don’t mix (just a joke, they are not allowed to travel on boats). The medical evaluations were pretty basic: fever, rash, infection, tooth extraction, anti-parasite script, vitamins, anti-biotic, etc. I volunteered for three days with two other spouses. We were transported every morning out to a remote island by a marine cargo boat. And by cargo I mean livestock, goods for market and whatever else they needed to transport. I had always been told that the navy/marines first job is to ensure their craft is clean. So clean it four times right? Well the El Sal Navy/Marines have not adopted the same MO. They were pretty content to just hang out it cow poop. The Grandma Shirley in me wanted to start throwing garbage overboard and soak the thing in Clorox.
The clinic was held at a grammar school, their summer vacation is Oct-Jan. Each room housed a different doctor. All the meds were donated and brought down by the Military. The dentists were very busy and not very popular. After an extraction the patients would receive a little pack with 15-20 Motrin tablets. Buenos suerte mi amigo. The OBGYN was amazed at the number of female creams she had to prescribe one day after not prescribing any the day before. Turned out, the first day she had a male interpreter and the patients would not tell him what was wrong with them. It is still very taboo and unacceptable to talk about sex and birth control down here. In many places very young children are having babies because no one will talk to them about “the birds and the bees”. Very sad situation. The next medrede is the first week in March back down at the islands. IF you have any interest in participating send Chris an email and we can provide more information. It was an eye opening experience for me, the other volunteers and all the doctors. It definitely makes you think twice about becoming inpatient waiting 20 minutes at the doctor’s office back home. Many of these people walked, or rode in the back of a pickup, for 2 hours to sit in the sun for 4 hours waiting to see a doctor. The sick children break your heart and then melt it with their sweet little curious voices. We’d love to have you join us if you are able, no need to speak Spanish, they always need people to corral and carry stuff. Vale la pena, vale la pena.