I went on a week-long volunteer trip to San Martin Jilotepeque, Guatemala with the Global Dental Brigade. On this trip I learned three things: we need to disconnect in order to reconnect, new places and people aren’t as strange as they seem, and Global Dental Relief makes a big difference in the lives of those they help.
I woke up from a nap after my red eye flight and I panicked – I didn’t have the wifi password and I couldn’t get in touch with my family or friends. I kept instinctively reaching for my phone every few minutes, just to realize that it was pointless.
When I finally met up with my group, I was so desperate for human interaction that I just threw myself in there in a way I normally wouldn’t have. We spent a lot of time together as a group and eventually grew close.
At first, the city was confusing and the language barrier was disconcerting. San Martin was very foreign to all of us, but it slowly started to feel familiar to me.
We went out to lunch at a local café and I realized the hustle and bustle of the rickshaws, stray dogs, and trucks with too many passengers inside actually reminded me of life in India.
I felt oddly at home because I could connect my previous experiences to this village. It was so revitalizing to find traces of familiarity in a foreign town.
Global Dental Relief had come to this town two years ago, so the older girls had already been seen and taken care of at that time. As a result, their teeth were in good shape because a lot of their problems had been fixed and future problems avoided. Some of the younger ones had more problems because they had never been seen by a dentist, but overall the teeth were much better than I had expected. It was so great to see the beneficial effects of these dental treatments and that they were keeping up with their dental hygiene after being educated about its importance.
My volunteer duties included being on entry duty for half of the trip, and that meant I had to air out my rusty Spanish to interact with and entertain the girls waiting to see the dentists. I felt awkward with my clipboard and dorky scrubs, and to make it worse, the girls would giggle at my poor Spanish. But I realized that they were just as nervous as I was and some of them were also having new experiences for the first time, too.
After breaking the girls into smaller groups, they started to take my presentation on dental hygiene seriously. I felt more confident, and this helped them to finally open up and start asking questions about how to properly brush their teeth.
My volunteering truly pushed me outside of my comfort zone, but I discovered that I could meet the challenge. By the end of the day, I, and many of the girls, overcame our nerves-together.
One of the patients that came in was such a testament to the much-needed work the Dental Brigades do. Her name is Wendy and she is nine year old special needs child who walked with a limp and was a little bit slower to respond to questions.
While she was sitting in the examination chair getting her teeth cleaned, she would look over at the window and flash a smile at her mother. It was such a genuine, sweet smile. It was so heart-warming to see, and I fell in love with her instantly.
Even during her tooth extractions, she did not cause a commotion. I had talked to her while she waited to be seen and was so sad to see her go after she was done. But as I was walking around the town a couple days later, I saw her with her mother and when she recognized me, she smiled, and waved. A selfless kind of happiness overcame me. I made a connection with her and that was one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip.
She became another familiar face that I had grown to love in this foreign country. I realized that the work that Dental Brigade does also opens the door for new avenues of connection to other people.
This trip was an amazing experience and I’m so grateful to have been able to be part of it. It was so nice to take a step back from technology and enjoy the beauty in the new people and places. The most surprising thing for me was that we can all find some piece of home even in foreign countries.
I found comfort in the familiar surroundings and my friendship with the children, while for other people it may have been something else that made them feel at home. Global Dental Relief is a wonderful organization that does great work and I am so honored to have been part of that.
While at first I wasn’t sure I would be able to survive a week without using my phone, by the end of the trip I had almost forgotten about all the distractions my phone offered. Instead of staring at the screen for hours at a time, I connected personally with many new people and made lifelong friendships and brought back memories.
Sonya Gadhe
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