Humbled

I am humbled numerous times a day here, mostly by the grace and mercy that Jesus, my colleagues, and our patients have shown me.

But I cannot tell you what it means to me to see these patients come back and bring us gifts and hugs and smiles.   I have been blessed with bags of bananas, with little cough drops slid into my pocket, with invitations to folks' homes,  and yesterday with a huge (and i mean enormous) feed bag full of platanos, limes and habichuelas.   Yesterday's bag arrived on a motorcycle and two of us could barely carry it to the guesthouse.    We had amputated a dear gentleman's 4th right toe and he and his family wanted to send us food gifts.   I was BEYOND humbled.   And today another patient arrived after hours to take me to her house for habichuelas con dulce, a local specialty (WHICH ROCKS!).   So off we went via moto to her house where I feasted (and watched the movie Beethoven in spanish) and then walked to another home to visit another recent patient.  His amputation recovery is stressful for him and so we shared a few tears as well.  

I don't quite know how to describe how i felt, flying along on a moto with new friends...bugs in my teeth...dust in my hair...exhausted from this amazing week of nearly 80 ENT surgeries and yet feeling SO grateful for this time.   Grateful to meet all the neighbors, grateful to have spent today laughing with the interpreters and patients and team members, grateful for the recovery of some sick patients yesterday, grateful that my amputee friend will return to the clinic tomorrow (PRAY people PRAY), grateful for the habichuelas, grateful that it is Thursday night, just....grateful.  

And so- another team has come and will leave tomorrow and I will spend much of tomorrow preparing for the next one.    Don't want to close my eyes, don't want to fall asleep.........don't want to miss a thing.... wait, isn't that part of an Aerosmith song?