Quick Facts: Guatemala
- 58% of the national population have incomes below the extreme poverty line
- More than 75% of the national population lives below the poverty line
- 45% of the population over the age of 15 is illiterate
- 42% of Guatemalan citizens do NOT have access to clean water
- Over half of children in Guatemala have chronic malnutrition. In some areas the rate is as high as 90%
- Guatemala has the highest percentage of malnourished children in all of Latin America
Turning Facts into Faces
Before traveling to my International Summer Service Learning Program in Antigua Guatemala, I familiarized myself with important statistics. I became aware of saddening numbers, but it wasn’t until I finally arrived at my site in Guatemala that I began to comprehend the impact that those pixelated numbers had on the Guatemalan people. I was shocked as I saw the distant numbers change into the people and faces I came to know.
One of these amazing revelations occurred a few days into my trip, and subsequently a very similar situation arose for my site partner Mariana a week or so later. While researching Guatemala, I had read about the high level of illiteracy, especially amongst adults. But I was not able to get myself to, I guess believe, the reality of the statistics. While working in the medical clinic a few weeks into my trip, a patient asked me for instructions on how to take her medicine. I copied the doctor's instructions onto a piece of paper and gave it to her. She took the paper and again asked me for directions on how to take her medicine. A little frustrated I held up the paper I had written and said they’re written right here. She shyly admitted she couldn’t read. I was shocked. Yes, I knew the statistics but my mind had never changed the numbers into real people and names. I felt awful for embarrassing her as well as for being frustrated myself. I immediately told her the instructions. Afterwards I couldn’t help wondering how many other people I had written instructions for. What if some of them were too embarrassed to explain that they were illiterate? What if they took the wrong dose of medicine?
To me this experience was not only eye opening in regards to the lack of resources people had in Guatemala, but I think more importantly, it showed me that I had been culturally insensitive. It was then that I saw just why it is in fact so incredibly important for doctors to have some kind of background in sociology or anthropology or poverty studies. My assumptions about the people we were treating in the clinic could have a great impact on their health. Even if a doctor correctly diagnoses the patient, it means nothing unless the patient takes the medicine correctly.
Throughout the rest of my journey working at the clinic, I became uncomfortably aware of the rights to health, to nutrition, to education, to life, that these people were lacking and that I had always taken for granted.
One of these amazing revelations occurred a few days into my trip, and subsequently a very similar situation arose for my site partner Mariana a week or so later. While researching Guatemala, I had read about the high level of illiteracy, especially amongst adults. But I was not able to get myself to, I guess believe, the reality of the statistics. While working in the medical clinic a few weeks into my trip, a patient asked me for instructions on how to take her medicine. I copied the doctor's instructions onto a piece of paper and gave it to her. She took the paper and again asked me for directions on how to take her medicine. A little frustrated I held up the paper I had written and said they’re written right here. She shyly admitted she couldn’t read. I was shocked. Yes, I knew the statistics but my mind had never changed the numbers into real people and names. I felt awful for embarrassing her as well as for being frustrated myself. I immediately told her the instructions. Afterwards I couldn’t help wondering how many other people I had written instructions for. What if some of them were too embarrassed to explain that they were illiterate? What if they took the wrong dose of medicine?
To me this experience was not only eye opening in regards to the lack of resources people had in Guatemala, but I think more importantly, it showed me that I had been culturally insensitive. It was then that I saw just why it is in fact so incredibly important for doctors to have some kind of background in sociology or anthropology or poverty studies. My assumptions about the people we were treating in the clinic could have a great impact on their health. Even if a doctor correctly diagnoses the patient, it means nothing unless the patient takes the medicine correctly.
Throughout the rest of my journey working at the clinic, I became uncomfortably aware of the rights to health, to nutrition, to education, to life, that these people were lacking and that I had always taken for granted.