An international pandemic doesn’t seem like an invitation for travel. In fact, I spent the first several months of lockdown in my Portland apartment doing what any responsible citizen would—watching Netflix original series without ceasing. I became an amateur pasta chef and tried knitting for one gray afternoon.
This isn’t to say that I wasn’t on the front lines of the public health crisis. I work at a pediatric hospital, and each shift reminds me that “normal” is constantly changing. Many families are living in fear and grief. And though vaccination rollout in the United States is curbing daily totals, countless countries don’t yet have access to vaccines.
My impulse to minimize contact with others was one of responsibility. Working as a nurse prevented me from forgetting why life has been limited by so many regulations. But as I watched borders close and patients be separated from their families, I began to adopt a different perspective on how I could help.
From a young age, I was very driven to become a nurse. I jumped from high school to a nursing program to my current position with single-minded devotion. The medical field just made sense. Was there any more concrete way to give back to the world around me? But in some ways, my ambition prevented me from considering how I could help in a global context.
I had never studied or volunteered abroad. I had never really traveled apart from family vacations that had grown grainy in my memory. But the mounting panic surrounding the coronavirus made me reassess nationalistic responses to global crises. The fragmentation that Covid-19 had caused left me seeking cohesion.
Disease doesn’t discriminate; every community is susceptible to infection. However, not every community can be equally served. There are glaring disparities in the health care system of my own country. And it occurred to me that inequalities could only be amplified between countries with different economic infrastructures.
So, I decided to step beyond my own borders. Society had become fractured by panic and loss, and I wanted to counter all the fear-based headlines I had been reading by serving a community other than my own—to heal wounds by first crossing over them.
My search for international volunteer opportunities led me to Máximo Nivel. I found a medical program, so I could put my background to use in an otherwise unfamiliar setting. After spending nearly a year in the routine confines of home and work, I signed up to volunteer in Antigua Guatemala for a month.
As I awaited the online results of my Covid test and checked box after box on Guatemalan health forms, it occurred to me how impersonal this problem had become though it was so personal to billions of people. It was no longer possible to point an alienating finger across the globe when so many were personally affected.
During my stay in Guatemala, I was placed in the Paediatric Department of a small clinic. A lot of my responsibilities were unremarkable—not unimportant, but very similar to what I was used to doing at home. I checked in patients and took their vitals. I assisted nurses as they administered flu shots and other vaccinations.
I was happy to interact with the children, nervous to meet with their doctors. However, their growing vocabularies already rivaled my own limited Spanish. I had been nervous myself to leave home during such a tumultuous time, but so many little experiences proved universal.
For a few days, I shadowed an OBGYN doctor. I assisted her with patient observations and monitored their medical history and medication plans. I was even able to observe some ultrasounds and identify the babies’ heartbeats. It was really moving to work with excited young mothers. I had not expected to be placed in obstetric medicine, and yet I was doing exactly what I had come to do.
By shifting my perspective on an unnerving situation, I was able to find joy in helping others again. I was doing my best to lend a hand amidst widespread uncertainty. A myriad of small differences can be made in the day-to-day lives of others, no matter where they live.
The rhythms of life have not stopped. Families are still growing every day, even as many other families have experienced unspeakable loss in the past year. Branching out this past month has helped me realize that helping communities through the pandemic does not necessarily mean helping them with it.
However, during this time many Guatemalan clinics are especially understaffed and struggling to serve their neighborhoods. Not every facility has the technology and infrastructure necessary to keep its staff and patients healthy. Distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine will be on a very different timeline here than it has been in the United States.
But the obstacles that the clinic faced only reaffirmed my desire to travel now more than ever. I know I’m only one nurse. I cannot solve the systemic issues that society is grappling with, but I can cut gauze and cotton balls. In uncertainty and division, I turned outwards. The only way to begin healing is to bridge the gaps between us.