Reality makes objectivity so hard to sustain

DEEPA BHARATH

Where do I begin?

With the story.

That’s a question that has dangled in my mind for weeks. It’s

haunted me in my waking moments. In my dreams. When I was cooking,

driving, playing with my son or talking over the phone.

Ever since I got back from my 10-day assignment following a group

of medical professionals in the Ecuadorean Amazon, I’ve lost about 10

pounds just wrestling with that question.

I’m exhausted, as I’m sure photographer Don Leach is after poring

over and sorting through hundreds of images over the last month or so

since we returned.

But now that the story has been told in words and pictures, where

do I begin?

About my feelings on this trip.

This trip was, kind of, like my first workout in the gym. One

could map out the muscles in the human body by just connecting the

dots on my aches and pains. That day in the gym, I learned about

muscles that I didn’t know I had in my body.

My experience with the Plasticos Foundation team in Ecuador made

me feel emotions I didn’t know I could feel. I was in awe of the

magnificent rainforest. I was in shock when I saw the surgeons slice

open someone’s hand (Believe me, it’s not the same as watching an

open-heart surgery on the Learning Channel). I felt like my guts were

going to spill out of my mouth and to the ground as I saw plastic

surgeon Larry Nichter cut a bone off an Achuar Indian’s hand with a

power saw.

The line between what my body felt and what my mind sensed became

blurred. I no longer knew what gave me a headache.

Was it the plaintive cries of a 13-year-old girl writhing in pain

from her infected burn wound? Was it because the hospital smelled

weird? Or was it because my head was in overdrive and my eyes

wouldn’t close till 2 a.m. and I had slept for less than four hours?

I don’t know.

But this I do know. And herein lies the paradox.

It was the best 10 days of my life.

There were some aspects of the trip that didn’t shock me. I’m more

than familiar with the way of the Third World. I was born there. I

breathed its polluted air for 25 years -- and loved every minute of

it.

I’ve been to hospitals that were as impoverished if not worse than

the hospital in Macas. As a newspaper intern in Madras, India, I

tagged along with the reporter who covered the local hospital. That

was an eye-opener for a 19-year-old.

Corpses were strewn along the hospital’s corridors, waiting to be

picked up and taken to the morgue. As we turned a sharp corner there,

I got sprayed with water. A group of nurses were trying to douse a

burn victim with buckets of water as he screamed -- lying on a gurney

right there in that corridor.

The hospital in Macas, I don’t think, was as out of control, but

it still had its problems. Doctors in Ecuador make $150 a month.

Nurses make even less. They don’t have equipment, instruments or

sterilizers to clean them. They don’t have enough sutures, caps,

hospital gowns or linen.

The windows are cracked. The corners are dusty. The iron is

rusted. There aren’t enough beds. A woman who had just had a baby was

on a gurney in a brightly lighted corridor in which people were

walking up and down. She still smiled as she lay on her side with her

arm around her baby.

The maternity ward was one room shared by four new moms and their

babies. Juan Leon, a local doctor and an official with the Ecuadorean

Ministry of Health, said the hospital was in the middle of a baby

boom. He told us why.

“About 10 months ago, we had this carnival,” he said, with a smile

that suggested there was going to be a pretty cool ending to that

story. “It was this big celebration with a lot of young men and

women. It was called the Festival of the Virgins.”

And there you have it. The sheer funkiness of that town and its

people. Their delicious sense of humor.

It was hard not to become part of the action. It was tough not to

be overwhelmed by it.

It was impossible to stop myself from helping the nurses open a

packet of sterilized equipment when they stood in the operation

theater with their imploring eyes -- suture in one hand, knife in the

other. When someone broke down and cried, it was hard to not put my

arm around them.

I’m no Mother Teresa. But I am, after all, human. I’m a woman, a

mother, a wife and a daughter.

I’m also a journalist who is supposed to view everything with that

crystal clear lens of objectivity. I am to observe and tell the story

-- not become part of it. Try as I did to achieve that goal of

objectivity, which in my opinion is unrealistic, I did fail a few

times. A classic example was when operation room nurse Kathleen Fodor

became tearful as she tried to pacify 7-year-old Brigit Aray, who was

frightened and crying as she lay on the surgeon’s table.

Little Brigit was begging the nurses not to poke her. She spoke

Spanish. But Fodor was trying to comfort her while speaking English.

Fodor, who realized the futility of her words and her effort to allay

Brigit’s fears, broke down and cried out of sheer frustration.

I stood right next to Fodor and instinctively put my hand around

the nurse, who was the life of our after-hours sessions and always

had a joke or two up her sleeve. Leach shot pictures of that intense

moment. He had two good pictures that captured it all, but couldn’t

use one of them because I was in the picture, when I shouldn’t have

been.

But, I guess, if thrust in the same situation again I would react

exactly the same way. Why? Because when things get intense, your most

basic nature, your instinct, takes over. At that moment, you don’t

act -- you just be. You are what you are, whether you’re a lawyer,

doctor, plumber or journalist.

I didn’t feel as queasy as I thought I would be at the sight of

all the blood and gore. I flinched when I saw Nichter cut open the

cleft lip of a 2-year-old girl. And I flinched several times before

and after that.

But for me, the most enjoyable part of the entire trip was the

journey into the jungle to screen prospective patients in two of the

forest communities. And that’s largely because of who I am. I’d

rather watch the sun set in Newport Beach than spend a whole day in

Disneyland.

The jungle. La selva, as the locals called it. All I could do was

stare at its vastness and its pristine beauty while riding in a bush

plane. The muddy river our canoe traveled on was full of piranhas,

anacondas and at least one crocodile that I saw. We had no

lifejackets, and I was probably the only one who couldn’t swim.

But it wasn’t until I came back home and narrated the experience

to my husband when he asked me: “So what would’ve happened if your

boat capsized?”

That thought didn’t cross my mind one time in the three hours I

spent on that boat, which seemed primitive, although it was

motorized. The guy who operated the boat even had a business card.

But the point is, when I went into the jungle, I forgot about the

danger that lurked underneath all that beauty. I never thought about

what would happen if that rickety plane had crashed and landed on a

treetop. I forgot that we could get stranded in the jungle overnight

without food, light or camping equipment. To be honest, I was

secretly hoping that we would get stranded like team members did when

they made their maiden journey to the jungle communities in November.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been an urbanite all my life and am more

comfortable with tall, ugly buildings than I am with tall trees with

God knows what in its thick branches. To make matters worse, I’m

afraid of heights and needed two people to hold my hands while going

down a steep, muddy slope toward the river.

I’m no tough backpack-toting, smelly clothes-loving, wild

animal-petting jungle dude. Really.

But there was a strange kind of magnetism about that place.

Something almost ethereal, enchanting and exciting. Something that, I

can tell for sure, is going to draw me back there.

Until then, I’ll have the memories.

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at [email protected].