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We Are Doing It! -- But We Are
Not Done Many people ask me what makes CAMO different from other organizations.
Many organizations give you 80-90 cents on your dollar. We are able to
take your donation and turn each dollar into four dollars of assistance.
How is this possible? First, we use existing infrastructures
and contract with other organizations for the human resources. In
this manner we are able to keep our overhead down. Our in-kind donations
are accepted only if they can support and be of use to our Honduran counterparts.
As a result, we are able to do more with your donation. The chart
below illustrates the cost per person per program and the number of people
served in 2004. With the tsunami tragedy our funding took an enormous
hit. We continue to operate, but with a skeleton staff. There
is so much more to be done and with your support it becomes possible…and
as always it is greatly appreciated.
2005 Spring Team Services Rendered This year’s spring teams delivered the following services. This represents the value of service if the same procedure had been done in the USA. Keep in mind that the team members provide services otherwise unavailable to these patients, procedures just not done the rest of the year. The other great part of the teams’ job is to make sure that the Honduran facility, staff or organization has what they need to continue to give services throughout the year. The team touched 3,400 patients’ lives directly during their stay, but by the years end we will have touched more than 90,000 people through direct contact.
Coming Full Circle: Felicita and Jessica -- Submitted by Kathy Tschiegg, Founder A wave came of memories washed over me and for an instant I was taken
back to a Today this memory came to me as a mother and a father carried their intelligent little Jessica to me and asked if I could help with heal a chronic wound she had on her back. They carried the 9-year-old girl because she suffers from spina bifeda and doesn’t walk. Again, a simple request but this time, I had resources as my disposal. Ruth Brown was with me and we needed supplies. Instead of fighting with customs and waiting a month, we simply walked upstairs at the CAMO distribution center and found exactly what we needed, right at our fingertips. From gauze to special material to a wheelchair that fit her perfectly, all we had to do was look. I kept in touch with Felicita over the years until she passed away in 1995. Today I celebrated her life. My experience with Felicita helped me define the needs of the community, the diet of beans and rice for me was a blessing which made human suffering a bit more personal. As 9 year old Jessica Alvarado was placed in her new wheelchair by her mother, she immediately took to her new independence with a huge smile and rapidly sped down the hallway to her father, who waited with outstretched arms. I too smiled and silently felt a blessing from God for giving me the memory of Felicita. Last year through a joint effort with Wheels for the World, Wheels of
Hope and Teleton, CAMO was able to repair and distribute 481 wheelchairs.
Program cost: $14,472 per year.
You’re Late -- Submitted by Dr. Ron Pycraft 3/13/05
I tell my good friends, Drs Hector and Lourdes Robles that the mom is having a problem, Lourdes gives the mom a Kleenex. Hector speaks with her in a low tone in Spanish. Damn, why didn’t I pay more attention in my high school Spanish class? I try to understand, but I cannot. Then the silence returns. The kind you do not want to break. Our car stops at the next village. Hector gets out of the car with out a word. Still that eerie silence. He talks to a group of hombres (men), reaches in his pocket and gives them some money. He comes back to the car. Nothing is said. We drive on toward the airport. Several minutes go by, it seemed like hours. Mom is still dabbing tears. The young man still shows no emotion. I pat his knee and tell myself it will be all right. After all, he is going to the States and we can fix everything. Finally, I cannot take it any more, I ask Hector what just happened. He tells me that mom is a widow and she is leaving behind three young children. The oldest is fourteen. They only have enough food and money for five days. Mom will be gone at least a month. The silence is back. I try to think. We drive on. Now I am the one that needs the Kleenex. I am often asked why I go to Honduras. It is not only for the love and
respect that I come to know for the people there. But because as a very
wise woman recently told me when I asked her why she volunteers for Hospice,
“True service is not about what you want.” I cannot say it better than
that.
Twelve Years and Counting: Submitted by Robin Hauenstein 2/28/2005 The work of the CAMO in Honduras has been well documented over the past
12 years, and If you don’t fall in love with the Honduras people, you simply haven’t opened your ears or eyes. Warm, gracious, funny, smart and giving are words that almost seem trite as I try to describe them. They care for each other, and look out for an anonymous brother or sister when others may not. When I go back home, it is easy to tell stories about the medical miracles of CAMO, and the work of doctors/magicians like plastic surgeon Les Mohler. Humble to a fault, Les travels around the word, performing plastic surgery miracles, but he never trumpets his success. The retired Columbus doctor and his wife, Rosie, simply smile, and let their work speak. You want to share stories of his work, or of any CAMO team. Photos sell the program, which funds the work done here in Honduras. But to be honest, it is hard to capture the pain. Before the triumphs of Les Mohler’s work, there were years of pain and deformity. People come to CAMO’s medical foundation offices in pain, seeking respite.
Our modern American lives are so complicated, mostly by our own design. We have the means and desire for what we buy, where we work, live and play. In Honduras, a day is one more collection of how to survive, find work, and feed your family. Kathy Byrnes is a registered nurse in Providence, Rhode Island. She and CAMO founder Kathy Tschiegg worked together 25 years ago in the Santa Rosa hospital as Peace Corps volunteers, and Byrnes has returned nearly every year as a CAMO eye team member, since 1993. She has seen the advanced state of medical care in Honduras, courtesy of CAMO, but laments the growing divide in economic classes and increased levels of crime and poverty. However, she doesn’t stop coming back because she loves the people. At the end of the week, we all are laughing, crying and sharing stories
about the people of Honduras. I wish I could bring some of that magic
home, and I know many, if not all, team members feel the same. We
come with faith driven desire and/or medical know-how to heal the sick.
We leave with our own hearts healed by the never-ending love of our Honduran
friends.
 Earning
Trust
For years on our departure the question that hung in the expressions
and the eyes of the people we served was “will I ever see you again?”
“Are you coming back”? As counterparts would leave in the years passed
we would assure them that we were there for them. We have tried to
always be an organization that would help address the long-term needs of
the community, not one searching for immediate self-gratification, but
of people who shared a dream of development, of higher education and independence
with a long-term commitment to this dream. The USA CAMO team members have earned the respect and trust of their
counterparts. Their Honduran counterparts have the absolute knowledge
that they are not alone and we are there for them in so many ways, and
they are there for us. As the next world crisis takes the front page,
we will remain committed to them. There is so much more that
needs to be developed, and we will continue to honor our promise to them.
Updates on Last newsletter
OB/GYN ADVANCEMENTS
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time
that I had nearly forgotten. Twenty-five years ago I was struggling
to find a simple walker for a woman who had a broken hip. She was in the
last bed of a ward of 30 patients and had been in my care for over 6 months.
Her name was Felicita (which means happy) but this woman in her late 60’s
was far from happy. She was a challenge and well, let’s just say she broadened
by Spanish vocabulary. Her hip healed painfully slow. Twenty-five
years ago in Honduras we had no pins, plates or prosthetic hips, only traction,
thus Felicita and I had a long relationship. The day I stood her
up after 6 months was quite a site. I placed her feet on top of mine and
we began to walk, everyday Felicita would cuss me out and then smile.
Soon she needed a walker, but there were none to be found in Honduras.
So I called home to Ohio and a walker was sent down about one month later.
When I went to get it out of customs they charged me $150.00, which was
my wage for a month as a Peace Corp Volunteer, and meant that month’s meals
consisted of only rice and beans for me.
He
had a chance though; he could still see light from the flashlight in one
eye. That chance for a quality life, lays in the skilled hands of the ophthalmology
team in Michigan. Arrangements had been made. How could they be late? We
reach the main road to the airport finally. It is a good road even by US
standards. Why did it seem so quiet? I look at the young man. He
seems emotionless. Not happy not sad. Not bouncing around the car like
most 11-year-old boys. I look at his mother. She looked just like the others
we pass on the street, dark eyes, pretty face that showed the strains of
her life. Her clothes were clean. I wondered if she was carrying everything
she owned in the small suitcase that she brought for her and her son. I
see she is crying. Not just a little tear in the corner, but a full stream.
She is quietly wiping with the back of her hand. It is eerily quiet.
many
people throughout the United States have opened their hearts and generously
embraced the people of northwest Honduras. The success of CAMO here
in Santa Rosa is all the proof needed. CAMO volunteers are the link
between the First and Third worlds, and it is a bond that draws us back
year after year, bringing little pieces of our world to share.
I
don’t know if I can describe the enormous weight of poverty. Friday,
our eye team made a rare trip out of the Santa Rosa hospital to join the
dental team caravan into the mountains for a day out. In the tiny,
dusty town of Saint Augustine, we set up shop in a school, dispensing eye
drops and glasses. Finishing early, I found myself surrounded by
kids and dispatched every piece of candy, granola bar, or pack of cookies
in my backpack. One boy, whose pants were literally a bunch
of rags patched together, stood watching the other children. Covered in
dirt and red clay dust, he watched me. Finally, he approached and
I gave him my last tootsie pop, which he carefully placed in a pocket and
darted off as I snapped his photo. I felt ashamed. Yes, that
photo will “sell” the program. But there’s so much more to that boy
I want to tell you.
our
eye program here in Honduras has changed people’s lives. We see 2- 3 blind
individuals per week; the sad part is that many of these cases need not
be blind. A simple 30-minute cataract removal procedure and vision
can be restored. Here in Honduras children and adults walk around
the mountains everyday and their vision becomes more and more blurred and
eventually they become legally blind. They often do not have
the money to come for help, or no one to literally lead the way.
We have now started to use the CAMO Honduras Medical teams that go out
to the remote village to identify these patients and assist them in getting
to the eye clinic. Our dental teams also goes out 2 days a week to
the rural areas, to help identify the more remote village medical needs.
Cover you eyes just for a moment and consider a lifetime without sight,
it might give you a new appreciation for the blessing of your vision, an
insight into why we are working so hard to give sight to the blind.
After
12 years, I feel confident in saying that CAMO has earned the trust of
the community that comes with time and perseverance. The trust
is built on the commitment of our volunteers. Susan Shetter from
Pennsylvania has been coming for 5 years and is now quite literally part
of the staff. This year when she finished her training with the nurses
they did not ask if she was coming back, they simply stated that next year
she’ll teach them more about managing children on ventilators. Susan has
earned their trust. Tim Larson and Sue Edwards are an important
part of the Respiratory and Neonatal training program and they have been
with us from the beginning and continue to be a vital part of the trust
that has been earned by the Hondurans. 
Paul
Potter and Jeff Keller have had similar experiences. They have both
worked with the Honduran anesthesia staff over many years to improve the
quality of care available to patients. They have become part of this
hospital and the local staff are now looking forward to the information
and continuing education that they can acquire through their dedication.
ELECTRICAL
PROJECT WELL ON ITS WAY
