Issue date: 3/26/07 Section: News

Media Credit: paige marshall LIFE FAR AWAY - Tim Bossie applies flouride to an Ecuadorian child's teeth.

Media Credit: paige marshall LIFE FAR AWAY - Chimborazo, an inactive volcano, looms near a village where MEDLIFE did volunteer work.

Spring Break is a time for students to relax and catch that second wind to help them finish the semester strong. One group of University of Maine students chose to forgo the festivities of spring break to volunteer with the group MEDLIFE to help give medical attention to underprivileged people of Ecuador.

MEDLIFE (Medicine, Education and Development for Low Income Families Everywhere) was founded in 2005 by UMaine's Nicolas Ellis. The non-profit organization is associated with Dartmouth Medical School.

Third-year student and MEDLIFE president Juan Vanegas is in charge of recruiting students and preparing them for the trip to Ecuador. Planning and fundraising for the trip runs year-round, but the students first met last fall. Students were required to attend these meetings to acquire information on how to interact with the people, what to expect and how to perform the different tasks.

"We show movies to prepare the students for what they will be doing but also to prepare them for the stress they will encounter from the shock of the overwhelming poverty," Vanegas said.

The journey began Saturday, March 3 at 4 a.m., with a van ride to Logan Airport, where they took off for Atlanta then boarded the plane for Quito, Ecuador.

Four hours later, they arrived at the Sierra Nevada hostel in Riobamba. It was 3:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Paige Marshall, a UMaine junior, recalls Martha, the hostel manager, as a godsend. "She took such good care of us," Marshall said. "We would wake up to a nice breakfast, she would pack us lunch for the missions and we would come home to huge dinners."

The villages the group visited were generally around one hour from the hostel. There they set up the clinic stations where physicians took note of the patients' height, weight and blood pressure and students assisted doctors in evaluations and worked at the pharmacy. The mission also put a focus on educating people about women's health issues.

"Generally you would take the patient's medical histories and then find out what was wrong with them," Vanegas said. "The only problem is that the mission tends to be a Band-Aid at best because we cannot do anything for the more serious patients that need surgery." The group saw close to 60 patients each day.

Students would switch stations once a day to help relieve the stress and share experiences. Students ate lunch around 1 p.m. and the townspeople often brought extra food to them.

"They fed us with the best food they had at each village we worked at," said Craig Fournier, a third-year student. "Stuff like guinea pig, fish, chicken, soups." Vanegas explained that the group would not always eat everything because they did not know if it was safe, but ate what they could so as not to offend the locals.

Tim Bossie saw a man who had been working in the fields for nearly three months with a torn bicep and a woman who had been working at home for nearly two months with a broken arm. "It was incredible to see how tough they are and how they just keep working," Bossie said.

Fournier said that his most memorable moment of the trip was when he and some other group members were playing Hacky Sack while waiting for a ride and they invited a young boy to play with them. More and more people gathered to watch and soon they were playing soccer against several Ecuadorian children.

"I feel that I have gained better insight into the poverty that exists in the world that as a student at UMaine, I might not have [had] the opportunity to witness," said Aimee Guy, a third-year student. "I have developed a stronger desire to provide healthcare to underserved populations."

Vanegas said that the number of patients served decreased this year compared to the previous two years because they spent more time with the patients to give them the quality help they deserved. A team of surgeons will make a trip to Ecuador in April to help patients with more serious needs.

"We have a real opportunity to make a real difference," Vanegas said. "We have the resources; we just need the money to help the group grow."

Fournier hopes to return next year. "I feel as though I made a difference. Not only by helping some of the poorest people in the world, but also by letting them know that people do care and they are not alone."

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