Special Spirits

Our day started very early today. At 6 AM we loaded all the volunteers and their luggage into the van for the short ride up to Godinez where they caught the shuttle to Panajachel and then on to Antigua for a few days before they head for their next assignment in Honduras. At the same spot I left our volunteers I had 6 moms with their special needs kids, along with our ever faithful Dominga, waiting for me. Everyone loaded into the vacated seats and off we went to Tecpan to visit a special clinic for these special kids. Dr Peter Rohloff, a US pediatrician, has dedicated his time and skills to establishing a clinic to try and help some of these kids who, otherwise, would have no hope at all. Tecpan is a good hour and a half from our home in Los Robles and for the entire trip with everyone crowded in together, I never heard a single whimper from any of these kids. As we arrived in Tecpan I asked these mom's if their kids ever cried or fussed. They confessed that only when hungry would they give a small whimper to let mom know. I asked why they thought their kids never cried and the answer was most revealing; for the first two years of life, these kids are almost never put down. They are tightly wrapped in a bundle and held closely to their mothers body. Everywhere their mother goes, they are right there with her. They have absolute security and no reason to fear anything. They feel love 24X7 and the warmth of their mother every waking minute. 

Our good doctor spent considerable time with each of our wonderful kids and gave us prescriptions and information on how to treat them. Dr Rohloff is not more than 35 years old and it is gratifying to see someone who could certainly be making a lot more money building a practice in the US, spending time and resources to help those who have essentially been rejected by the system in a third world country. It was mid afternoon before we got all our moms home and although we were all tired, everyone was excited with a sense of hope that just maybe the quality of life for these special kids might have been improved by this great man's selfless attitude.