18 March 1999
The ride home, back to the estate where we are staying, is
beautiful. Our keepers feel security is a big concern in our locale, so our
travels are always by group and with escorts. The team keeps three vans
constantly busy. They cart us to the Dr. Jose Rizal Hospital in the morning and
relay us back at dusk. Most of us were released early this evening to attend a
banquet in our honor given by a local politico and Operation Smile sponsor. I
managed to remain alert enough to get some bearings of the surrounding area.
The hospital is in a walled compound. The stretch between
hospital and the Kalapayan Estate teems with people and business and life. The
ride is about ten miles, much of it on dirt roads with no stop signs, traffic
lights, or street signs. During heavy traffic times there are traffic directors
who stand valiantly in the major intersections, trying to direct the flow. I
don’t see any posted speed limits. Our drivers go as fast as possible. There is
much traffic and no apparent road rage. I’ve been in several situations that,
had they occurred, say, near Exit 16 on the Interstate 95 corridor in
Connecticut, tempers would ignite, most participants would give or receive the
bird, and more dangerous driving would erupt. Disorder is rampant here but,
despite the constant crush and confusion, there is a politeness of sorts.
There are trucks, some buses, a few cars, but mostly
jeepneys and tricycles. Tricycles are motorized bicycles with sidecars. They
serve as taxis. Most are slapdash affairs, dented, beat-up, and covered with
road dust. They weave in and out of traffic with slapstick abandon and even bump
up onto sidewalks in congested spots to get where they want to go.
Jeepneys are Filipino SUVs. I think they are some
bastardized version of American military vehicles. About the size of a Chevy
Suburban, there are two doors up front for driver and passenger, and an opening
in the back with bench seats for paying riders to clamber in, pay the fare, and
hold on. Most display signs and an array of lights across the top of the windshield
alongside several long decorative horns. Shiny stainless steel is the embellishment
of choice. There are babe-mobiles decorated with curvy silhouettes and
holy-rollers plastered with bloody crosses. All of the jeepneys are named: “Saved
by the Light,” “Sexy Cool,” “Purple Heart,” and “Hot Love.” They are the main
form of local transportation. People grab hold of railings next to the back
door and swing themselves in, then pass their fare from person to person up to
the driver. I would love to get the chance to ride in one.
A typical Jeepney
Our commute circuits by a mango plantation, a university
hospital with a sign out front reading, “This is a No Smoke-Belching Area,” a
technical school, a McDonald’s. Children walk along the roadside in crisp
Catholic school uniforms – plaid jumpers, starched collars, handkerchiefs over mouths,
arms linked with one another, book bags, and backpacks.
We pass rows and rows of corrugated-steel-topped shacks –
open-sided, dirt-floored, with flickering blue TV lights visible in the
advancing darkness. We pass a rice peddler, a coconut peddler with a large
wide-bladed knife, a blind man by the side of the road. I see women with cloth
bags and infants slung over their hips, thin men in sagging shorts with lit cigarettes
dangling from their lips. I find myself searching through the faces in the
crowd, waiting for people to turn around so I can see what they look like.
There is such a mix here: Asian, Spanish, South Sea Island, and more.
A cock fighting stadium sits within walking distance of the
Kalapayan Estate. It is the size of a bowling alley with open sides along the
roof line. We get held up in traffic there and through the open windows I hear
roars and bellows and whistles of derision. In a half-minute’s delay we vicariously
experience the contest taking place inside.
We pass an open sewer and turn into the entryway of the
estate.
19 March 1999, first light
I am up early by some quirky rhythm my brain is adhering to. I’m still tired and could use more rest, but here I am, synapses popping
away, my legs restless and ready to move. The dawn sun is slanting through our
curtains and I’ve got at least a half hour before our gun-toting stewards
announce over the speaker system in monotone English, “Good morning. Kalapayan
Estate. Members of Operation Smile. Time to get up. Good morning. Kalapayan
Estate . . .”
Okay, the Kalapayan Estate: an oasis, literally. We
are holed up here in beauty and luxury, surrounded by barbed wire and armed
guards. I prepared for Spartan. I brought rolls of toilet paper and
antibacterial hand wash. I figured if I don’t find a shower, hell, no one else
would be finding one either. Dorothy, a post-op nurse experienced in Op Smile
missions, claims we are most lucky. I agree.
I share this room with two others: Karlene, the child life
worker and Isabel – or Izzy as she likes it, one of the floor nurses. Each of
us is assigned her own bed and closet. The room is more efficiency apartment
than hotel room. There is a small kitchen area with no running water but a
table and chairs with enough room to organize our papers and equipment. There
is running water in the bathroom although we must request our hosts to turn on
the hot water for us every evening. Floor-to-ceiling drapes cover the double
sliding glass doors to our balcony. Yes – a balcony. From it I survey extensive
gardens, a pool, fountain, and servants’ quarters.
I’m told Operation Smile was given the use of this facility
by a wealthy trucking baron. He purchased the property for his wife to grow a
garden and he constructed this apartment-style structure with accompanying penthouse
as a venture to house business travelers.
His wife is an astonishing gardener. There are orchids
trailing everywhere and different varieties of palms and pines and ginger and
more I don’t recognize at all. There are seating arrangements and cabanas
scattered throughout begging for a bestseller and a lazy afternoon. In the
center of the compound is the Olympic-size pool. I’m not sure how big an
Olympic-size pool is supposed to be. This one might be bigger. There are dramatic
water features, night lighting, wide lap-lanes, and, in the far corner, an
elevated man-made island suspended above the water on cement pillars. The
structure has a roof and railings and a ramp across the water along with steps
down into the water. Aside from some dispersed tables and chairs, every available
patch capable of holding a bit of earth is lush with vegetation. Our team has
fallen into a routine of meeting here after we all straggle back from the
hospital.
We are pampered by the staff. They are more servant than chambermaid, a collection of eager teenage boys take care of our needs.
Every night we return from the hospital and find our rooms immaculate and all
of our possessions repositioned. Some of the team was concerned about this invasion.
It is disconcerting. There is much worry about possible theft but nothing is
established as missing as of yet. My belongings, I brought clothes and toiletries
but took up the most luggage space with trinkets and stickers and toys to give
away, are thoroughly rearranged each day but I’m not missing anything. The one
change of earrings and bracelet I brought with me remains on the night table by
my bed. The few valuables I carry, passport and money, are within my sight at
all times so I’m not worried. I think they are curious and not wayward enough
to hide it.
What I find most charming here are the geckos. As I lie in
bed now I can spy two frozen in place on the ceiling. I shepherd them gently out
of the shower each morning. I surprised one on the wall when I returned to the
room last night. It darted off with electric speed. They all peacefully
co-exist with the human population here. I suspect they offer pest control. I
observe no alarm or significant reaction from the locals. One of my medical
student translators at the hospital, Janine, tells me most homes consider it
good fortune if a “house lizard” takes up residence with them. These, I think,
are bigger – more substantial, than the finger-length green geckos dangling
above my head right now.
My call. Time to start this day.
19 March 99, 6:05 PM
Back from the volcano, grimy and hot but not feeling as
scattered as before. Yesterday and the day before were overwhelming, so much,
too much. Today was better. I remembered to breathe. I maintained a handle on
some things. There was solid interaction, beneficial exchange. I found a rhythm
of sorts. Yesterday I found my pace but it was within so much chaos, so much
action and sensory input, such a stream of faces and no bearings, no point of
intuition about what I should say, what I could say, how they will handle and
absorb it. Am I making sense here? Did I make sense there? I am not sure.
I know I worked as hard as I ever have in my life,
incredibly hard and then harder. Quietly, patiently in the brutal midday sun,
the families waited for a chance. I caught glimpses of the crowd out of the
side window. The sisters who run the hospital distributed numbers so no one
needed to stand in line but you could see the urgency, the reluctance to escape
the heat even through flying dust and blazing pavement.
This is Leo and his Mom. See the worry and love on her face.
Our in-country host, an orthodontist from Manila named Joy,
went from room to room begging us to continue despite the crowds, despite the
impossibility of ever offering help to all these people. She broke down in
tears in my room when I told her I would go on as long as my translators were
willing and the doctors kept sending me patients.
I saw humanity flow before me, one face after another. Even
now I don’t recall it in a continuous thread but flash after flash. Children,
frightened and clutching their anxious mothers, babies with faces gaping open
to the world, fathers wiping tears from dusty cheeks, toddlers with teeth
splayed out – unable to talk but smiling, pointing to the sticker they want,
looking straight through me with pearl brown eyes – haughty teenagers with
Reeboks and Nike t-shirts, dirty feet, history in their eyes – a story I know
just a little about: how they are toughened by their lives, how there was no
protection. They all nod to me in understanding or speak as best they can,
covering the ugliness of their mouth with the habit of their hand, their sotto
voice.
When I am through with my questions and explanations they
say they understand. They have no questions. This is translated to me by Sheila
or Romille or Pam, my translators for the day. I know these people have at
least one burning question for which I don’t hold the answer: What is my future
with you?
Today was better, much better, but draining in a way I don’t
experience in my normal life. I will regroup and pull myself together for
tomorrow. I worry so many will be turned away. The best outcome, the ages the
surgeons prioritize for surgery, is somewhere from one-and-a-half- to four-years-old.
If an open palate is closed this early, or if a lip is joined together, the
prognosis, especially for speech, is a better one. The teenagers who moved past
me today, many of them hidden from life, withheld from school, and kept by
their families in shame, what is my future with them?
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