Sunday, February 27, 2011

Our best-kept secret



Shhh...don't tell our secret.
For years, Children of the Americas volunteers have returned from our annual team trips looking weary after a long week of work in rural Guatemala, which gets us a lot of sympathy from our families for a few days after we arrive home.
Our volunteers typically see over 1,400 clinic patients, and do 80-120 surgeries in a week. Our dental team pulls countless teeth, our pharmacists dispense thousands of medications. Orthotics staff give out hundreds of crutches, special shoes, and several dozen wheelchairs. We should be tired!
Barb Buss, seen above this past January on our last COTA team, has divulged our secret. Her smile gives us away. We LOVE what we do. There is no more meaningful way to spend a week of volunteer time than to offer medical/surgical/dental/orthotics care to those in rural Guatemalan who have no ability to obtain this for themselves.
But please, don't tell our family members. They might stop pampering us when we get home!


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