Helpless but not hopeless

Life is so damn unfair. Today I was again made very aware of that fact in the most heartbreaking way. A woman, Aura, from my association had a little baby boy six days ago. What is supposed to be one of life’s greatest joys turned out to be a devastating sorrow as the boy was born with a fist-sized portion of his brain protruding from the back of his skull. The doctors in the hospital in Cobán told her there is nothing they could do, so she returned home today with the baby to care for him at her house. With that kind of diagnosis, better the baby die with her in Chijacorral than with the doctors in a hospital nursery in Cobán.

I went over to Aura’s little dirt floored wooden house today to visit her. Her husband, children, and other family members sat somberly in a circle around her (the family’s) bed as she lay there next to her fragile baby. They had hung a blanket and fastened plastic sheeting over the walls to prevent the light from peering in through the spaces between the boards so Aura and the baby could rest in darkness. The last time I was at her house, just under two weeks ago, she was still weaving, joking with the other women there, and excitedly talking about the approaching birth of her child. But today there was no joy in the house—only downcast faces and sad eyes. Sad eyes, but no tears.

Life is harsh in rural Guatemala. Babies die. Children die. Parents and grandparents die. And life goes on. And amidst all this death and impending death, people display an inexplicable fortitude that I have seen only in the poorest countries in the world. Aura started breaking-down a little towards the end of the visit, but I think that was the result of seeing the tears that I was fervently trying to fight from welling up in my eyes. Everyone else was remaining strong, and I desperately tried to also.

It’s just that I am the gringa here, and I’m supposed to know how to fix everything…but I can’t fix this. I am not a doctor, and I don’t know if the problem with the baby’s skull is beyond repair, or if the doctors in Cobán simply lack the experience and equipment to do such an operation. I am aware that babies are born with life-threatening problems all over the world all the time, but I know this baby, and I know this baby’s mother, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do all that I could to try and find him help. I took some pictures of the baby’s head, and told Aura and her husband in a manner that would raise their hope as little as possible that I would contact everyone I knew to see if they could do something or knew someone who could.

Aura was so grateful for my offer, and her gratitude just made me feel worse. What can I do? Yes, I went home and with tears streaming down my cheeks wrote an email to all my friends and family imploring their help. But will that message ever reach someone who can act upon it? Yes, I wrote this blog post. But what are the odds of anyone with the ability to help actually reading it? I am here and everyone who could possibly do something is somewhere else, but, for some reason, I have the smallest glimmer of hope. I now know what a rural Guatemalan must feel like most of the time: helpless but not quite hopeless.