Guatemala: At the End of the Road

Wow! It's been almost 2 weeks since I returned from Guatemala and I already miss it. What an awesome experience that was doing dental work on the wonderful people of Guatemala. This picture and the title describe those 9 days we spent there at the end of the road. Each day we were able to load up our generator and compressors and hop in the back of a pickup truck and drive to where the road ended in the mountains surrounding Chiquimula


I didn't know what I was getting into when I helped one of my scouts do an Eagle project a year and a half ago for a Dr. Richard Call. We built mobile dental chairs(see pic) out of folding lawn chairs that would be easy to pack around. Dr. Call explained to me the need for dentists in these extremely remote areas of Guatemala. The people have no access to care, yet they need the care in such a bad way. Dr. Call has been doing this for the last 6 or 7 years and it didn't take much get me to commit. I mean who could turn down an opportunity to traipse around the jungle and mountains of Central America with the promise of pulling teeth as a bonus!

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You can kind of get a feel for the conditions that we were able to work in. We would set up our equipment in the small buildings and would use whatever they had to sit on (in that second pic I'm on a wooden sunbeam style chair. Man, when your used to sitting on a nice comfy ergonomic chair all day that took some getting used to). Don't mind the pained look on that poor ladies face I'm sure she was enjoying that injection just like all of my other patients do!

When we finally arrived at our set destination (usually a two hour drive bouncing around the back of a pickup truck loaded with gear), our driver would lay on his horn for a while and people would come from whatever they were doing to see us. Most of the men and boys would bring along their machetes straight from the hills of corn. Corn was everywhere. Cutting down corn on 75 degree mountain inclines must be quite an experience. They would all line up and watch us work while the kids took turns teasing their friends in the dental chairs. It was different doing dentistry with an audience.

(Trust me I felt like a giant)

If you guessed that thing above our heads is a giant spider web....... then you would be correct.



Trust me when I say that thing was bigger than my hand (and I have big hands) and that we were very conscious of the fact he was sitting there. He had a friend with him also who was a little more active so we scooted pretty quick when we went in between rooms. This may come as a surprise to many of you but I really am a sissy when it comes to creepy things like this (my wife does all of the spider killing around our place).......eeeeesh. Although i must say I did slay 3 or 4 cockroaches in the shower of our hotel. I was pretty much trapped with those guys and VanTassell wouldn't do it for me. Thanks a lot Keith.


This is the daily attire for the women. Dresses and skirts.



What an awesome experience. The people were so great. The trip was very successful as we were able to see over 550 patients and alleviate at least a little bit of their pain. We were able to restore almost 400 teeth but extracted 850 that were causing pain. What a blessing it is to serve and give back where we can. If anyone is interested, next September I'll need a good assistant who isn't afraid to kill a few roaches and doesn't get queasy at the sight of blood. I am accepting applications.

Mayan ruins in Coban, Honduras.




Those are houses on that slope and fields of corn.