Today Pablo, Mari and Leo's med. student son, and eight of his friends came to Hermano Pedro to have an activity with the kids. They have to do a certain number of community service activities each semester, and Pablo wanted to meet the kids I'd talked about so much.
Many times these groups come in dressed as clowns, and seem to have a difficult time connecting with the kids. I had a chance to get to know this group a bit over the past few days and I hoped they would be different. They wanted to do a puppet show on hygiene (partly because they had to have some kind of "health" connection in their service), as well as the ever present pinata, but I'd asked them to bring their love, attention, and friendship to the kids, as well as their treats.
While the first part of the morning went as most of these visits do, focusing on the activity, the whole climate changed when they began to feed the kids the snacks they had brought. This group selected jello in small plastic bags, as well as "icey-sticks." Some of the kids didn't like the cold of the popcycles, but they all inhaled the jello, and were given seconds if they wanted it (a rare treat for kids who are fed an institutional diet). They also brought juice boxes for the group.
The best part of this snack experience, though, was that since many of our kids can't feed themselves, the medical students needed to help feed them--not something someone training to be a doctor would ordinarily do. I stood back and watched with tears in my eyes as they worked one-to-one with our kids, demonstrating a kindness and gentleness I've seldom seen in doctors in this country. The group even stayed late to help feed the kids lunch! I don't know how much our kids got out of this experience, though I know they got plenty of attention and treats today. I hope, however, that the med students were changed by the experience, and that this experience will someday benefit their future patients.
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