Our October team from the US came from Denver, Colorado. Dr. Steve Stahl and Dr. Linda Jimenez along with Linda’s mother flew from Denver to Guatemala City for a week of work in the clinic. Additionally each day mobile clinics were held in the high mountains around Camotan. Each of our trips is unique but we typically keep a physician and dentist working in town (Camotan) then do mobile clinics in remote villages in the mountains.
Patients line up in the high mountain community of Muyorco for medical exams
And as we have mentioned in prior blogs, we have a rotating list of mountain villages that we try to visit twice a year. Many of the residents who live in the mountains rarely come down to town. The women, especially, often are home with children and have no means of coming down rough dirt roads (they have to pay someone with a 4×4 pickup) to Camotan. The men work in fields in the mountains but some also travel for work within Guatemala. They will do field work picking or planting whatever is in season. Melons, strawberries, bananas, avacados, sugar and other crops or similar are common in the hot climate of southern Guatemala where we work. In the central and northern highlands of Guatemala where the weather is cooler, coffee and cocoa are major products. The volcanic soils of the highlands makes Guatemalan coffee some of the best in the world. Thus the men from the villages are often away when we do our mobile mountain clinics. Women with children are much of who we see.
170 patients showed up in the remote village of Tular.
Each day, Dr. Stahl would take a team of Guatemalan dental and medical residents to remote villages. Tular was especially busy (above and below) and the need was great with many patients not having any medical or dental care in years. For physicians like Dr. Stahl, it is an excellent time to teach residents. Dr. Stahl speaks Spanish. The residents often know some English but for teaching purposes it is best done in Spanish. The days in the mountains are busy and fast paced. Any significantly ill patients are sent down to the clinic in Camotan where Dr. Jimenez was working. There, she saw 15-20 patients daily from the town. In the clinic, we have tools: rapid tests, ultrasounds, microscopes, a full pharmacy, etc. that is far beyond any primary care clinic in rural Guatemala. Patients come from far away for medical exams there.
Tular
On one of the days in the clinic, Dr. Jimenez identified a very ill child with an infection. She knew the child needed to go to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics. As is common, the family was very distrustful of going to the public hospital. They initially did not take the child there. It was only with follow up calls the next day to the mother’s cell phone that the family finally took the child to the hospital. The child was promptly admitted and treated. This is a common problem in rural Guatemala: the health care is so sparse and the public hospitals are underfunded. Sometimes the hospitals do not have the supplies or medicines to treat what would be a easily treatable condition. The patients then get sicker or die and they rumors spread that the hospital is a place to go to die. Camotan Clinic is working to improve the public hospital that we work with in Chiquimula (the town closest to Camotan). We continue to work on supplying them with up to date equipment and medicines: there will be more on this in 2026…
Dentistry is so desperately needed in the mountains. No one has dental care. Here Christian, our resident dentist, treats a patient
Our trips usually end with a few days of relaxation. 4-5 days of work in hot, crowded villages or in the clinic are usually followed by a day or two of doing something enjoyable. On this trip, Dr. Jimenez, Dr. Stahl and Dr. Jimenez’s mom Debbie went to Lake Atitlan. Lake Atitlan is in the northern highlands area of Guatemala. The air is cooler (think 60 at night, 85-90 during the day) and there are spectacular volcanoes surrounding the lake.
Lake Atitlan
Dr. Jimenez touring a village around Lake Atitlan
Doing a few days of tourism is a great way to end a trip. We are always so grateful to our providers who come and sacrifice time away from their families, their jobs and their lives to work in Camotan. It is a lot to give up. And although helping others is incredibly rewarding, it is great to relax and recover. Guatemala is a gorgeous country. It has so many great places to explore. So if you are interested in a trip, let us know. You will work hard but also get to see a beautiful place.
Our Christmas team will be from Florida. More updates when they get back..
Thanks for reading!