Happy Feet in Guatemala

Children of the Americas Team 2014 volunteers have been back from Guatemala for almost six months now, but there are many times that we find our minds wandering back to the patients we helped in our favorite Central American country. Families like this one (below), who traveled to see our American doctors so that their children could see a pediatrician. They had heard about our free vitamins and medicines, our compassionate hearts and  talented doctors.

A family patiently awaits medical care from COTA doctors

Families who waited for hours, patiently and gently while they tended to their children and visited with each other. It is one of the things we love about our Guatemalan patients during the annual dental/surgical/medical teams we take each January; the patient, calm people who cheerfully wait hours for us without the expectation often found among America's sick. 

Until we started giving out free shoes. 

That's when the energy of the courtyard changed to a sense of urgency. 

Waiting in line for donated shoes

Shoes in Guatemala are often an expense that families have a hard time affording. The majority of Guatemala's school-aged children walk miles a day, up trails that are slippery with mud during the rainy season. They need shoes that fit, and socks to prevent blisters that then become infected. We see all of the medical issues in our clinics that bare feet exposed to the elements bring, including parasites transmitted through skin.
Without shoes, children are not allowed to attend school. Without school, economic limitations have a lifelong effect. It seems so simple, but most of our patients parents have an average family income of less than a dollar a day. Purchasing shoes for even a few children every year cost a father more money than he makes in a month. 

This explains why, when COTA volunteers opened our boxes of donated shoes in the courtyard of the hospital we were working in, the karma of the hospital grounds changed. 
There was a sudden charge in the atmosphere, almost like mothers could smell the leather, and we quickly realized that caring for our Guatemalan pediatric patients meant keeping their feet covered. At our last board meeting we voted to add shoe donations to our list of things we will provide for future patients. We saw over 2,000 patients in January, and there is no way to provide shoes for all the children we will see on our next team in January 2015. But we can try.

COTA volunteers are used to not having enough...Guatemala is such a land of scarcity that we could fill a thousand containers of shoes and not fit every little foot that needs them. But you can help us make a few feet happy by doing the following:

• Ask you friends and family to donate new children's shoes for us to take to Guatemala in 2015. (Used shoes create customs issues)

• Ship or drop them off to: Jody Greenlee,1781 Eastwood Drive, Lexington, KY 40502
• Do a shoe drive for our patients among your church group, book club or with co-workers. 
• Purchase children's socks for us to give out with shoes. 
• Post this blog on your Facebook page and write a post asking for shoe donations.  
• Shoe donations need to arrive by September 1st in order to be added to our container. 

Sturdy athletic shoes, children's rainboots, sandals and lace shoes preferable. 
Thank you in advance for helping COTA with this project for next January.