After spending the last two days with children, I accompanied the speech and hearing students to the local senior center to administer hearing exams on the elderly people in Usumatlán.
The students from WSU Spokane set up the audiometer, a small machine that sends different decibel levels to a set of headphones. The patient places the headphones over their ears to test for their hearing threshold and basic hearing abilities. Like I mentioned in a previous blog, you may have received the same test when you were younger, raising your hand and signalling when you heard a beep.
The majority of the people that passed through just had a bad case of earwax and hearing loss due to old age. Dr. Amy Meredith quickly led a class on how to properly clean your ears, showing patients that Q-Tips actually impact the earwax more, and worsens the ability to hear. It is better to pour a small amount of hydrogen peroxide in the ear, something I will start applying to my own hygiene.
Así es la vida of Manuel.
The only thing bigger than Manuel's ears is his love for God. I had the opportunity to sit with him and hear his story as he described to me his humble childhood. He had five brothers and sisters, three of whom died young. Another sister was born after him but she died at age three. He began talking about his people and the immigrants to Guatemala, and the tears began to roll. This is when he told me of how he turned to religion as his guide and as the foundation of his life. He then told me of how when his father died, his last request was for Manuel to sing. And I can't describe Manuel's ability to sing. I am attaching a video below to show you that he has the voice of an angel despite his advanced age. He found his first guitar when he was 18 years old, and taught himself to play by sight and sound. Life could have easily forced Manuel to shut down but instead he turned his story, and most importantly his music, into a way to reach and touch people.
It took us a while to leave the center. Every person in the center gave us a hug and a kiss on the cheek, showering us in thanks and prayers. A woman stopped us to tell us that our visits are so important, not necessarily for the exam results, because the majority of the people already knew they were hard of hearing and all the exam could tell them was how much hearing they had lost, but she told us the most meaningful thing to the people in the senior center was that we were there. Our presence alone was the highlight of their day, something that stuck with me personally thinking of my grandmother in a senior center back home.
I know I keep writing this, but I continue to walk away with a new appreciation for the Guatemalan people. In my past posts I wrote of how the children continue to smile despite the hard lifestyle they are forced to survive. It was once again eye-opening to see people who had lived their lives and still maintained the same amount of love and heart we received from the children who had just started. The motion of the hearts in the people of Zacapa is perseverance.
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