Paul and Laura Manship, Author at Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc.

June 6, 2016August 4, 2023

Cultural Exchanges

What does a three year old have to tell us about the complexity and importance of cultural exchange? A great deal more than you would think. Jonathan Waite, three years old, is the grandson of Wayne Waite, the Board President of Shoulder to Shoulder, and his wife Christina. Jonathan lives in Xenia, Ohio with his parents, Daniel Waite and Nidia Belissa Waite. He is presently visiting his grandparents in Camasca, Intibucá, Honduras, accompanied by his mother. His father will join them this week. Daniel and Nidia have organized a one-week sports brigade for the young people of Camasca with their church, AHOP, A House of Prayer. We’re very much looking forward to their arrival.

Last week, Nidia had to take a trip to Tegucigalpa to attend a high school graduation and she left her son Jonathan in the care of her parents. Jonathan is fairly bilingual, accustomed to hearing English and Spanish at home and using them interchangeably in his verbal communication. Still, those who he is speaking with are most often monolingual and he has a ways to go to figure out who knows which language. Additionally, he’s three, and his vocabulary is still a bit limited. Because of this, when his mother went off to Tegucigalpa, he ended up with a bit of a communication impasse. It seems he didn’t have his favorite t-shirt with him in Honduras. His favorite t-shirt sports a picture of a shark on its front and he refers to it as his shark shirt. His consternation at not having his favorite t-shirt was aggravated and exacerbated when his grandparents could not understand what was causing his angst. His attempts at expressing his great dismay literally fell on deaf ears, and that frustrating sense of not being heard nor understood simply eroded into a terrible state of unparalleled crisis.

It’s bad enough for an adult to be in this situation and I personally can empathize with Jonathan’s plight. There is nothing more terrible or frightful as to find yourself unattached. Your sense of security, of worth and honor, of integrity, begins to crumble, and as hard as you try, there is nothing you can do to stop this freefall into a dark and lonely place. Jonathan perhaps knew enough that the persons around him, his family, could not solve his terrible dilemma. They could not give him his favorite shirt. But it was a thousand times worse that they could not even appreciate the import of the matter. Jonathan’s crisis soon became everyone’s crisis and seemingly not a soul could make any sense out of the simple annunciation, “Shark shirt.”

But his cousin, Eduardo, a second grader at our bilingual school came to the rescue. The word shark in Spanish is “tiburón.” Being only in the second grade, one would not necessarily expect that Eduardo would know the word tiburón, let alone its translation, shark, in English. But as fate, luck, or simply a well rounded education would have it, Eduardo has a friend in the third grade who is something of a budding artist and also likes to draw sharks. The young artist has a pen pal in the fifth grade at St. Mary’s School in Lee, MA with whom he has been sharing his portfolio of a variety of maritime predators otherwise known as sharks. Thus Eduardo was well acquainted with the word. He simply told his family that Jonathan wants his shark shirt, “camiseta de tiburón,” and the crisis that severely threatened a three year old’s trust in his Honduran family was diffused.

Communication, even among people who speak the same language, is often as challenging as it is critical. It is by communication that we discover and invest in relationships. Sometimes I am asked why we are investing so much time and resources in a bilingual school in Honduras. Isn’t that secondary to the tremendous problems that poverty causes? I don’t know. Perhaps Eduardo and Jonathan, having easily overcome a problem for which all of the adults around them were rendered impotent, will actually find solutions to the causes of poverty. Shark means tiburón. This is more profound than you might think.

May 15, 2016August 4, 2023

Elevations

Most of my life I’ve kind of hung around at the same altitude, give or take about 1000 feet. I suspect that is mostly the case for anyone living in the US. Our elevations don’t vary tremendously from day to day or hour to hour. That is not the case here in Honduras where everywhere you look there is the remnant of another volcano standing in your path. Almost every Saturday morning I wake up at 1624 feet in Concepción. I get on a packed bus with thirty some other people, at least as many backpacks, and sometimes a chicken or two and begin to climb. About one hour and forty-five minutes later, having traveled along 34 miles of road a total distance of 22 miles, I find myself in La Esperanza at 5577 feet. It’s colder and clearer, the air much thinner, and the whole world seems changed. On Monday morning, I do the reverse, shedding layers of clothing on the way down. Everything changes in the rapidity of ascents and descents.

Rapid changes in elevation is what best seems to describe Maine-Dartmouth’s experience on their recent medical brigade to Colomoncagua, Intibucá. It’s safe to say they started out at or about sea level in Maine. Because of the irregularity of flights from Maine to Boston to Tegucigalpa, their odyssey lasted almost two full days, and, by the time they caught up to us in La Esperanza, they were exhausted. Flying in and out of the heavens, they were diverted from their final destination in Tegucigalpa to return to almost sea level at San Pedro Sula. Back in the air quickly thank God, they arrived at Tegucigalpa, 3248 feet, where Shoulder to Shoulder was waiting for them. Up and down a few dozen times more in an escort van, they finally got to the highest city in Honduras, La Esperanza at 5577 feet. Oddly, the weather they experienced, the damp and penetrating cold, might have reminded them of the late April weather of Maine that they had just left behind. There only for one night, their elevation changed drastically again, falling about four-thousand feet to arrive in Concepción. After a brief bathroom break and tour of our main clinic in Concepción, they winded back up another mountain pass to finally settle in Colomoncagua at 2576 feet. Talk about a roller coaster.

Older Man's Consult — Older Man’s Consult

Laura and I usually spend a good deal of time with brigades on their way in and their way out. We hear about their expectations on going in and share in their reflections as they leave. We might get a half day with them at their work site, but we’re busy taking pictures and they’re busy seeing patients. We did see Maine-Dartmouth on their way in. But we wouldn’t be available on their way out as we were already committed to important meetings. Because we would miss them on their way out, we decided to spend the weekend with them in Colomoncagua. We were so pleased that we got such a close up view of their rich experience.

The varied elevations, their varied experiences, and their varied characters and personalities weaved and waved in and out of their time together. But without diversity, harmony cannot be achieved. José was born and raised in El Salvador, a literal rock’s toss away from where we were, but Barbara had never been on a medical mission trip and spoke no Spanish. But their voices blended in a theme of service and compassion. We witnessed them working among the simple townspeople at the San Marcos clinic. They had come from so far away, had traversed high peaks and low valleys, and yet they all seemed as if they belonged. Laura and I felt privileged to be part of this concerto of care.

The next day was yet an entirely different experience. It was Sunday, it was May Day, it was Nancy’s birthday, and it was certainly time for fun. After a great breakfast and a visit to the local market where hand crafted leather belts, woven shoulder bags, and other local goods were purchased, we headed out to see the beauty pristinely hidden within nature. The waterfall dominates the natural amphitheater where the stone walls rise majestically above us. One further elevation to consider and explore. I watched them all under the curtain of the water’s fall. They surrendered to the experience of the moment, defined and enhanced by it, elevated to great heights and plunged to great depths. It is all so very enriching.

April 23, 2016August 4, 2023

The Character Of Service

The character of each brigade team that travels here to shoulder with us is unique. Some of them are much more seasoned than others and they know what to expect. Others are new to the game and they can be timid and uncertain. The seasoned groups are generally not as much work for us, but frankly they can also be a bit demanding. The newer groups are very open to direction, but, sometimes unable to be initiating, they require a great deal of attention. Sometimes the individuals on a team are overly fearfully, but others might be over confident. When we pay proper attention to a group’s character, we can help them process their emotional states such that they can feel at ease and focus on the work they have come to accomplish. This is the nature of what it means to be present to another culture, to be challenged by another language. It can be a transformative experience, but it takes patience and understanding on our part as leaders as well as on the part of the participants. We find that almost always this happens, but sometimes we have to work at it harder than at other times.

We didn’t know what to expect with the Buffalo School of Medicine that recently visited us for a week throughout the southern territories of Santa Lucia, Magdalena, and San Antonio. The Buffalo School of Pharmacy had visited us last year, and we thought of this group as returning. That was not the case at all as the School of Medicine is completely independent of the Pharmacy School. Being a new brigade group then, we expected that they would be timid, even a bit insecure. Our preconceived notions sometimes fail as with Buffalo who were anything but timid. The first year med-students planned out their medical mission trip and they did an excellent job in preparation. They researched the type of organization with which they wanted to involve themselves. Patrick, who had long-term experience in Mexico and Peru, and who was competent in his Spanish, wanted an organization that was providing regular health care and invested in a sustainable model of service. He and his team did not want to “parachute in” to provide health care that would have little or no follow-up care. They found Shoulder to Shoulder to meet their criteria and they studied the organization. When they got here, their questions were intelligent, insightful, and well related to the work they’d be doing. They were a good three steps ahead of first-time brigades and they hit the ground running.

We were fortunate to spend some time with them on their first night and next morning in our main clinic in Santa Lucia where they would be housed for the week. We had a special treat on their first night as it corresponded with Ever Bonilla’s, our Brigade Coordinator, birthday. Cake and coke is a time honored Honduran birthday tradition, as is the honored guest getting to wear some of the cake’s ingredients. The Buffalo students, residents, and faculty had no trouble joining into the celebration. We met up with them again about mid week in the small, isolated community of Las Marias, Magdalena. They had no trouble joining in here, either. Often at a field medical site one can sense a certain disconnect between the patients and the visiting team. It is to be expected in an environment of such cultural diversity. The people are always well served and tremendously grateful, but still a palpable feeling of hesitancy and awkwardness is in the air. This was not the case at Las Marias with the Buffalo team. There was a sense of belonging, order, and flow that carried a sense of relaxation and confidence. There were a whole group of kids there, who are sometimes forgotten. But today they were being treated to chasing soap bubbles, having stickers attached to their shirts, receiving toothbrushes, and then happily being medically examined. The Medical Students were seeing the patients and then consulting with the doctors. There was a grace of movement in the whole process.

At Ever's Birthday Party — At Ever’s Birthday Party

Throughout the week, the Buffalo team met with local doctors, nurses, medical professionals, and health promoters. They took overnight shifts for our emergency department at Santa Lucia. The conversations, the professional sharing, the willingness to be invested was again key to a feeling of belonging. It is a tremendous thing to offer service for people who are recognized as having need. But leaving our service there, simply responding to need, is a one way-street for which there is no way to return. Seeing people for who they are beyond their need, recognizing the dignity of their lives, and valuing their cultural experience as potentially enriching your own, this is service that is empowering. It takes so much more than specialized expertise and talent. It takes humility, commitment, and grace. The gratitude it generates for all who are involved is life enduring.

I assumed a particular character for the Buffalo brigade team based on my bias. How happy I was to be wrong. Whereas I thought it was my job to lead them by the hand through their challenging experience, their embrace of the people they came to serve taught me a great deal about the privilege of service.