As the year draws to a close, Carolien and I wish you happy holidays and a blessed New Year from Bolivia. Thank you, especially, to everyone who gave this year: your support keeps us close to the work we have been called to, and we are grateful for your trust. We continue to offer medical and pastoral help across Bolivia's neediest areas.
Back at our Andean base
Between the holidays, the work continued steadily. After our outreach in the Guarani area around Camiri, we returned to our Andean base for a multi-day medical trip through several nearby Quechua (Inca) villages. As always, our team is warmly welcomed wherever we go, no surprise in a region with little to no medical or dental care.
We see many children here whose baby teeth are already ruined by cavities, from irregular brushing or none at all, often for lack of toothpaste and toothbrushes. We see the same decay in adult teeth. Dental care is badly needed, and our dentist is indispensable to the team. To bring children in for a free consultation, we offer them creative activities afterward with Carolien and a few Bolivian girls, so some joy comes with it too.
Many children also suffer from partial malnutrition, lacking the vitamins and minerals that protect their immunity, as we saw again in Quiruña and Yampa Pari. It is no wonder that many adults from around 45 suffer painful joint and muscle disease in the back, hips, knees or feet, usually with no pain medication, when survival depends on hard farming on stony, eroded ground at 3,500 to 4,000 metres. Few can afford a tractor, so the soil is worked by shovel and pickaxe, and the climate crisis makes it harder still: last year's drought destroyed much of the harvest, and this year's heavy rains have brought mudslides. Between Aiquille and Sucre we saw the damage ourselves: streets swept away, adobe houses destroyed, several people killed.
A country in crisis
Our work has grown far harder over the last two years because of Bolivia's economic and political collapse. Corruption is rife, and protests over a severe fuel shortage make reaching remote areas difficult. It brings to mind our outreaches in Haiti.
Handing the mission on
After more than 35 years of medical aid in Bolivia, our whole team is now working to fully transfer and self-fund Doctors on Mission, a calling I first felt during my medical internship in Bolivia's poor state hospitals in 1986 and 1987. A second generation of young Bolivian doctors is training in Argentina: "Kike" (Dr. Enrique Iglesias) in cardiology, and soon his sister "Fabi" (Dr. Fabiana Iglesias) in paediatrics. Both feel deeply connected to Doctors on Mission, and the future is hopeful.
Every donation is welcome, and on behalf of the countless Bolivians we have already helped, thank you again for keeping free consultations and medicine available in Bolivia's poorest regions. To everyone who holds our work in their heart: thank you.
