I know I said I would write a blog entry about Ayia Napa, but honestly there wasn't a whole lot to see there that can be described with words and/or there's not much to talk about. It was extremely touristy and mainly a scene for nightlife and cheap souvenirs. However, we did visit the Sea Caves one day via mountain biking. This was amazing! Pictures are the real way to tell the story of what I saw and did here, including a 50 foot cliff jump! The caves were beautiful and exploring the natural beauty of Cyprus was truly amazing.
Prior to visiting Ayia Napa, we visited the Church of Saint Lazarus and the Hala Sultan Tekke Mosque. I will write specifically about these another time (I have a lot of blogging to do!).
I want to focus on my day today, Wednesday June 12 2013, in this entry. We did not have our anatomy class in the morning today so students from the pre-med program had time to do whatever we wanted! I had asked my study abroad coordinator if I could work with some Cypriot charities and to make a long story short, she put me in contact with Katerina. Katerina is a woman who works for an NGO that is funded by the Kykkos Monastery of Cyprus. The NGO's name is Greek and according to Katerina, there is no real translation in English but it has something to do with counseling. This NGO does several different things to help out Cypriots who are hurting due to the long-standing financial crisis here. When I first met Katerina, over coffee at the University of Nicosia cafeteria, she told me that one of their programs involves collecting food donations and packaging this food for families being cared for by the monastery to pick up at a "social supermarket." This social supermarket runs twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, and provides food for these people so to help ease financial stress and/or provide meals that they cannot afford. One of the other main programs involves collecting clothing for mothers and babies/young children and distributing the clothes by age and gender for mothers who cannot afford clothes for their children. Additionally, the NGO works as a counseling center for these families to help the adults feel confident in their skills and talents so that they are encouraged enough to continue looking for work. Finally, Katerina told me during the coffee meeting that she also is in touch with contacts in the hospitals in Nicosia as well as a school for special needs children that is also run under the monastery. Basically, this NGO is awesome and provides a variety of very useful services from what I have seen so far.
Today was my first day working at the NGO building in downtown Nicosia. It looked humble and small compared to the monastery building just a few blocks away, but the place was busy and there was much work for me to do! I started off the morning by packaging different types of bread for the next social supermarket, which will be Friday. Here are all the packages we prepared:
There were all sorts of non-perishable items inside such as canned fruits, vegetables, and other supplies. There was a wall with over a dozen crates of potatoes:
So I spent some time preparing these potatoes for the social supermarket. It was actually quite hard work and it was incredibly hot and sweaty in the warehouse but I felt good to be helping out!
After working on the food preparation, George insisted that I have a break and Katerina made me a Frappe and prepared some delicious treats for me!
I was very appreciative of their hospitality! Cypriots have been very kind to me and the people working at this NGO were no exception! Katerina showed me how to make homemade Frappes so that I could make them after I leave Cyprus! The pastries shown above were amazing too. Some were cinnamon, some had spinach and cheese, and one of them was just cheesy. They were so good and made for a good brunch!
After my delicious meal, I got to help out with the baby clothing program. There were several bags of clothes to sort through and they were full like this one:
I spent some time sorting the clothes by season, age/size, and gender and prepared some bags that could be handed out to the mothers when they come to the NGO building. The clothes were quite cute and I could not help but smile the whole time!
At about noon, Katerina drove me back to my apartment in Nicosia and thanked me for the help. I told her that some of the bags of clothes were not full and that she should wait to hand them out until more donations came in. She then told me that one of the main needs was at the request of hospitals in Nicosia who have great need for undergarments for poor pregnant women who come visit these hospitals. I am hoping to help Katerina find a place in Nicosia where she can ask for donations. We also talked about having some sort of fundraising events. If any of you, my readers, have any ideas for how we could raise money to purchase some of these special clothes, please comment below! I'd love to have your input! I told Katerina I would ask some of my professors about this so hopefully they will be able to help.
After my wonderful time at the Kykkos Monastery NGO, I got to visit the Makarios Children's Hospital for my management of care class! The hospital was much older than Nicosia General, which I visited last week, and also appeared to be much less well-funded. However, the demeanor of the hospital was generally positive and religious icons were everywhere, as was true for Nicosia General as well. While walking down one of the hallways, I came upon this scene:
It looks to be an orthodox presentation of Jesus with young children. It reminds me of the passage in the Bible where he tells the disciples to let the little children come to him. It was a heartwarming reminder of God's presence amongst sick and suffering children as well as the sick in general.
Though some of the children were very sick, they were as fun loving and joyful as other kids. We visited one ward where a child had undergone a tracheostomy. It looked incredibly painful, but this boy, younger than 5 for sure, ran right up to us with a smile! I gave him and his brother a high-five and said hello in Greek, both of them were giggling. Some of the other students in my program greeted them as well and these kids put the cardboard bowls they had on their heads. It was quite silly, and too cute, but I didn't want to take a picture of them for privacy reasons. Our professor talked with them some more in Greek and then we all left. The two kids watched as we left and it was impossible to not look back and wave goodbye to them and make faces at them as we all walked away. It was such a short visit and a seemingly simple moment, but it was so meaningful to see such happy faces from kids who have been through too much for their age. I will definitely praying for this family throughout my time in Cyprus.
We visited many other wards and we got to see the Neaonatal ICU along with operating rooms where C-sections and other surgeries related to pregnancy were done in the hospital. I have never seen an operating room before so of course I was fascinated and took a picture!
The lights were off so it's a little hard to see here but it was too cool! (I'm weird I love being in hospitals and working with patients in case you couldn't already tell!) In the ward with the premature babies, there was an observation deck and you could watch the nurses take care of extremely tiny, yet precious children. It was amazing to observe these children surviving against all odds. The nurses were very kind and gentle and it was quite wonderful to watch them in action for a while.
We visited some other parts of the postnatal wards and visited day-old through week-old patients. It was cute overload! It was sad to see some of the babies who needed to be treated for various things though. I learned a lot about baby health problems through this tour. For instance, many babies are jaundiced and have high blood bilirubin levels, which is toxic. To treat this, the babies, as I learned, are put under UV light to help breakdown the chemical. We saw several babies undergoing this treatment. The nurse also let me hold a baby that had just been born today! I won't post a picture for the baby's privacy but it was an unexpected blessing. (So you all know, I want to be and OB/GYN so I love working with babies/children/mothers because I get to learn communication skills/clinical treatments that are relevant to my profession later, when I hope to be training doctors in poor countries how to take care of mothers and babies and children. Moments where we visit these patients inspire me to keep studying because it is these people who remind me why I am working hard to go to medical school! I remember that I am doing this to help the vulnerable and sick as God has called me to do and that is very meaningful for me).
As I mentioned before, the hospital seemed to be rundown and struggling. I did not ask about it but that was my impression. The photographs I took don't quite capture it, but I could sense that the place was running on limited resources and old technology. I hope I am wrong, but it appeared to need renovation. In comparison to Nicosia General, it was definitely in worse shape. However, the staff were compassionate and the place had a sense of hope to it amongst widespread illness.
To summarize, today was a wonderful day of working with Cypriot Christians to help the needy here and visiting mothers and children in the children's hospital here. Makarios is the only hospital with a NICU in Cyprus, so many come from all around, even from the North part of Cyprus, the part that is occupied by the Turkish military, so it was a very special place to see. I really enjoy volunteering and making small differences in the world! Whether preparing food and clothes for a charity marketplace or spending brief moments with patients, young and old, to provide just a little bit more joy to them while they are sick, I felt I had a great day making just a small difference alongside my professors, friends from my program, doctors, nurses, and Cypriot Christians. I can't fix all the problems in the world, but I (and you) can do small acts of good that make a big difference for others! I feel very inspired at the moment and my heart is filled with Christ's love and compassion for the poor and sick. Today was one of the most meaningful on my trip so far and has really reawakened my passion for medicine and my hopes of one day being a medical teacher so that people who do not have access to the same knowledge I do may be able to take care of themselves and sustain their own healthcare system. I am so grateful to Jesus for using me in such small, but significant, ways and hope he continues to develop my heart and character so that I am a better doctor and person later on!
-Julia
No comments:
Post a Comment