Red Dirt, Smiles and Hope
Tap, tap. I roll down my window. “You have two options,” the silver-haired Bolivian man smiles at me. “Park here, or over there by the truck.” Nodding, I glance at his tag: M.D. So this is his clinic, his initiative, his mission. Out here in the middle of a kind of alien nowhere, nowhere except for this farm and these workers.
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Red dirt stains the white snow under my feet as I walk toward the maple steps leading up to the old trailer. I’m not sure what to expect as I climb the stairs. Not sure what to expect as I open the door. “Good morning!” “Hey, I’m Jared — so this is your first time?” I exchange hellos with other volunteers — medical students from a nearby medical school. The tiny room fills, each of us balancing on a chair. We join hands for a prayer and then the patients begin to arrive. Every fifteen minutes: “Hola.” “Como estas?” “Quieres café?” My broken and rusty, high school Spanish serves as their welcome and as their entertainment as they wait to be called. Most tell me, in slow Spanish for my benefit, that they work here on the farm, long hours, no family close by. When my Spanish runs out, we both find that smiles and laughter need no translator.
The medical students readily share their stories — in English this time. Stories of heartbreak, of death, of disease that have led them to this place of medicine and volunteering. Our common ground is God and love for people — and this trailer, where wide smiles belie the pain of overworked bodies.
By noon, our last patient has walked down the steps of the trailer. Staff and volunteers naturally begin to congregate in the small reception room. The smell of beef barley soup pervades the small space, courtesy of one of the nurse’s love for food and fellowship. The shared meal brings more prayer, more stories, more laughter. As spoons scrape against bowls and talk dies down, no one wants to leave. The trailer holds a unique mixture of suffering and love, pain and fellowship.
As we walk toward our cars, we leave knowing that every week the red dirt outside this trailer crunches with hope of healing and welcome and love — if only for three hours on a Saturday morning.
