Bobby was our contact and the leader of the group. He created the non-profit and is a student at Cal State Fullerton. I think from the group, Bobby was the only one really interested in practicing medicine in the future, which made it interesting as none of the other students had any medical experience. However, two of the students helped translate and everyone else had been taught to take vitals or asked questions about medications in order do their job.
Picture from convenience store at the Tecate Border
Once we had met, Bobby led us about 30 minutes outside of Tecate and turned onto a dirt road. Even though in La Mision we have dirt roads, we are close to the highway, but in contrast, when we turned onto this dirt road in Jacumé there was no sign of life in any direction. This town was very small and very remote. As we drove into the center of town there were many abandoned buildings and farms along the way. Everything was very spread out, in contrast to the close proximity of houses in La Mision. Jacume is also Ejido land, meaning it is owned communally and has been owned by generations of the people who now live on it. Their land can’t be sold but only handed down to family. We followed the road for quite a while until we came upon a few houses and what looked like a school.
We pulled up next to a small building that was the community center for the town. The clinic is only open once a month, so for the rest of the time the community uses it to hold parties or meetings. Students without Borders used one room as a storage room for medicine and supplies. The other room was where patients were seen by doctors. And the main common room served as the waiting room as well as triage station where students took vitals on the patients.
View of town from Community Center
Jacumé is out in the desert, so as I got out of the car to unload the medical supplies we had brought, I realized it was at least 100 degrees, hot…and I felt really glad I had bought a second bottle of water when we stopped at the convenience store at the Tecate border crossing. Out in this remote part of the desert, during the summer, the town only gets water two hours in the morning and two hours at night. Before Students without Borders started bringing doctors every month, the government would send someone to see patients every three months, and only allowed 5 patients to be seen, so medical care was definitely a need for this town of about 500 people.
We started seeing patients around noon and didn’t stop until 3pm. During that three hours of clinic I did urinalysis on several patients, an ear irrigation (lots of wax build up came out!), and just helped where help was needed. Sarah and Allan took the time to explain or show me some of the more interesting cases they had. And Sarah had brought her 4 month old daughter Noemi along so I also got to hold her some of the time while Sarah saw patients. We were busy the entire time, so even though it was hot, the time passed quickly, there was always something to do. And I think we ended up seeing around 30-40 patients in those 3 hours. We packed up a little after 3, took a picture of the group in front of the building and drove home. The students were driving back to the US and we were headed back to La Mision. I was grateful I was able to help out at this clinic and get to experience a new part of Mexico.
Picture of us infront of the community building with Students without Borders (Erin in green, Sarah holding Noemi, and Allan to her right)
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