A crisis in the calm

We were up at five this morning and drove to the capital with Jaime, to pick up a group of 25 people. By the time we headed back toward Lake Atitlán, everyone was excited, joking around, getting to know each other, and talking about how amazing the month ahead would be. It was the start of a big adventure, and about twenty minutes from San Juan, as we descended the switchbacks of the mountains into the Lake Atitlán basin, my phone rang.

It was Ceci. She was crying and apologizing for "bothering me again". She had just received the results for little Karolinita and needed to get her to a hospital immediately. She didn’t know whether to take her to a private hospital or the public hospital, and she was overwhelmed and needed somebody to help make the decision. A few minutes earlier, I had been completely outside of this knowledge, thinking about the month ahead and the 25 people in the van. Now I was thinking about whether a little girl I love was going to be okay.

When I got back to San Juan, I told the 25 guests they would be on their own in getting their bags down to the hotel and that Christina would meet them there. I needed to get money for Ceci and go with her. I ran to three different ATMs, and all three were out of service, apparently because of some internet or banking system problem. Eventually I stopped trying to solve that problem and told Ceci I would come with her. I called Leo, our neighbour and a friend who does boat tours on the lake, and told him to get his boat ready.

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Ceci and Karolinita. Ceci is regularly paired with guests in our "local family pairing" programs and runs our Community Centre "New Hope Home". Local families have come to rely on her amazing hospitality and the safe space she holds for conversations about difficult topics with local moms.

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We got down to the dock with Carolina holding Karolinita. Her fever was very high, Ceci was a basket case, and Carolina was trying to stay strong for her sister while holding her niece. Then we got on the boat, and almost immediately the chaos of the afternoon became strangely quiet. The water was like glass, allowing Leo to move quickly across the lake, skimming over the surface without the normal bumps that would have been so hard on Karolinita’s fragile little body.

Just 35 minutes earlier, I had been descending the mountains with 25 people excited and joking about how amazing their month was going to be. Now I was racing across Lake Atitlán with a very sick little girl on the way to a hospital. The contrast was almost impossible to process, but somewhere in the middle of that crossing I stopped trying to process it and simply looked out at the lake.

We’ve had so much rain lately that everything is unbelievably green. The mountains were lush and jungle-covered, enormous cloud formations were building over the lake, and then there was a rainbow. It was one of the biggest, brightest rainbows I’ve ever seen over Lake Atitlán. I pointed at it and told Ceci, “If there ever was a sign, I’m assuming this is a good one.” She was still inconsolable, but I remember that moment very clearly.

I remember it because I knew that regardless of what happened next, this day was going to have a profound impact on me. I didn’t know whether Karolinita would die that day or survive and grow up into a beautiful future. We didn’t know then, and we still don’t know what the conclusion of this story is. I couldn’t make the hospital work better, diagnose her, make the fever disappear or guarantee an outcome. All I could do was sit on a boat and watch these enormous mountains slowly pass by, and for a little while everything was completely calm. I prayed.

I thought about how many times I’ve held Karolinita in my arms or on my shoulders, or have seen her on the shoulders of my own kids, her little voice saying, “Gracias, Owen. Te amo, Owen.” She does that sometimes. She’ll just come up to me during the day and tell me she loves me, and it always makes me feel good. What a beautiful little girl.

I looked back at Ceci with her hands over her face, and Carolina holding Karolinita and trying to protect her from the mild breeze with her rebozo, and I thought about how strange it was that this wasn’t some missionary story from the 90s. It wasn’t one of those stories about a crazy adventure in a remote country that eventually ends with a dramatic miracle and a happy conclusion. This was happening today. This is my life, a wild terrain under a spectacular sunset and rainbow, with a girl fighting for her life beside me, and there was no conclusion yet.

The symptoms were serious. Karolinita had been sick for 6 days with a high fever, in and out of local clinics, and tests had finally been ordered two days prior. The hospital we were heading toward was an old, worn place with old furniture and mediocre medical tools; however, it was the one where attention and staffing were guaranteed. The results that prompted the immediate action had been read by the doctor to Ceci in San Pedro, and he had cautioned Ceci about a severe kidney infection that had now spread to the liver along with possible appendicitis. As we got closer to Panajachel, I could see the ambulance waiting. Leo had called ahead, and the whole community seemed to move at once.

I had called Leo for the boat; he’d called the ambulance, and the ambulance was there waiting when we arrived. It was community clockwork.

Everything was happening so fast and so slowly and clearly all at the same time.

In the middle of all of this, I noticed that Leo was limping beside me. I asked him what happened to his leg, and he grinned and said, “Oh, I played today. I scored a goal.” Leo is a short, stocky, box-shaped bulldog of a man, and if his family were characters in a Richard Scarry book, they would all be “the bulldog” family. Here we were rushing a very sick little girl to an ambulance, and Leo was limping because he had played soccer that afternoon and was apparently very proud of himself for scoring a goal. It was absurd, but it was also completely normal, which is one of the things I love about life here. A very serious thing can be happening while somebody is still excited to tell you that they scored a goal.

Captain Leo and Christina

The ambulance driver told me the ride would be free. I tried to tip, but he refused. He told me there was too much corruption and they weren’t allowed to accept money like that, and he didn’t want the problem. I understood, and actually appreciated it. He could have used the money, and I wasn’t trying to buy anything from him. I was simply grateful and wanted to thank him, but he had rules and he was going to follow them.

At the hospital, I wasn’t allowed inside, so I went for a walk. Strangely enough, I enjoyed the walk. Not because the situation was enjoyable, but because for the first time all afternoon there was absolutely nothing I could do. I walked through Sololá at night, a massive city sitting high on the plateau of the mountains overlooking the enormous basin of Lake Atitlán. Parts of the city were almost completely dark, and there were streets where the darkness made the place feel like it had stepped back in time. People noticed me. They whispered and giggled, because a white guy walking around Sololá at night isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. This isn’t a place where tourists generally wander around looking for dinner and souvenirs.

I noticed people going about their normal lives underneath this enormous landscape, with the old hospital sitting up on the mountain above the lake. Eventually Ceci told me that Karolinita would be admitted for at least three or four days, so at least we knew where we stood, sort of.

The night was late, with most cab drivers having gone to bed. Ceci’s family was settled in the hospital, so I started walking back toward Panajachel until I hitched a ride. I started thinking about something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. People who have a lot sometimes look at people who have very little and envy something about their lives: the simplicity, the relationships, the way people seem to know their neighbours, the way life can feel immediate. I’ve felt that envy myself, and I think there is something real in it, but there is also a danger in romanticizing it because I don’t want to pretend that poverty is beautiful. There is nothing beautiful about not having access to good medical care when your child is sick, or about an ATM system not working when you desperately need money, or about sitting outside an old hospital with mediocre tools while you are terrified that someone you love might die.

Generated image for visual contrast.

Comfort has a strange way of spoiling us. The longer we enjoy warm houses, reliable electricity, fast internet, good medical care and things working as they should, the more they stop feeling like privileges and start feeling like rights. What was once a luxury becomes normal, and when that baseline drops, it can be surprisingly difficult to adjust. Perhaps it’s not the person who becomes spoiled, but the luxury itself, spoiled by becoming an expectation.

That is entitlement in a nutshell.

I’ve experienced that. Of course I would choose my life a million times over, but I understand the strange question underneath it:

Would it be easier to have less if you had never experienced having more?

Would you rather live with less and never know what the people with more experience, or experience all of it, become accustomed to the comfort, and then when a pullback needs to happen, have to live with the awareness of what you’re missing?

I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure there is one.

What I do know is that sitting on that boat today or walking along the side of the highway in the pitch black, I didn’t feel like a victim. I wasn’t asking why this had to happen to me or to Karolinita. I was looking at the lake, hitching that ride, watching that rainbow, surrounded by mountains that were impossibly green after weeks of rain, while a little girl I love was being taken to a hospital. I had no control over what was going to happen, but I felt incredibly alive in that moment, not because everything was okay and not because I knew how the story would end, but because this was real: the blistering hot fever, the terrified mother, the calm of the lake, the rainbow, the sunset, the concerned guests, the childlike joy of Leo’s goal and his impulse to tell me about it amidst a crisis.. it all happened within the same frame.

This wasn’t a story from the 80s or 90s with a deep adventure and a positive conclusion waiting for us at the end. It was today. It is my life, and we still don’t know what the conclusion is going to be.

Please pray for Karolinita.

If you would like to help Caci's family, Lidsay, a friend who has spent time getting to know Ceci and her children, has set up a go-fund-me to make sure she has options during this difficult time. Please check out the link and give generously, or, if it is not within your means, please still help by sharing the link!

-Written by Owen.

GO FUND KAROLINITA

UPDATE

I wanted to share an update with everyone who has been praying, donating, checking in, and carrying Ceci and Carolina through these last few days.

Last night was frightening.

Carolina had become non-responsive to Ceci. A new doctor had just arrived at the hospital and technically wasn’t scheduled to see Carolina for some time, but Ceci found her in the hallway and pleaded with her to come take a look.

She did.

And what an answer to prayer that turned out to be.

The doctor immediately realized something was very wrong. She called in the nurses, gathered Carolina’s records and reviewed everything. She found something the other doctors had missed: Carolina had become severely backed up, to the point that an enormous amount of stool was trapped inside her body and was causing serious complications. They acted immediately to clear the blockage, which they believe was contributing to her going into shock.

After everything that has happened this week, the fact that this particular doctor walked into that hospital at that particular moment, and that Ceci found her in the hallway, is something we are incredibly grateful for.

Today I went to the hospital and took Ceci out for lunch while her sister stayed with Carolinita. I was also able to give Ceci a good amount of the money that so many of you have generously donated.

There are six families sharing the hospital room. Some of those children are in very serious condition, and some of their families have almost nothing.

So I want to tell you what Ceci did with some of the money you gave her.

She went shopping, but not for herself.

Right now, as I write this, she is happily buying sanitary pads, towels, toothbrushes, underwear, socks and other necessities for the mothers and children sharing that hospital room with her.

This woman is exhausted. Her own little girl has been desperately sick. She has spent days afraid, sleeping in a hospital, navigating tests and doctors and uncertainty. She genuinely needs the help all of you have given her. And yet, the moment she had a little more than she needed in her hands, she looked around the room and noticed who else needed something.

I’m having a hard time even writing this without getting emotional because the joy on her face right now is incredible. She is so excited to give these things to the other families.

That is Ceci!

I wanted all of you who donated to know that this is where some of your generosity went today. You helped Carolina receive X-rays, ultrasounds, transportation, medicine and care when waiting wasn’t an option. You helped Ceci carry an enormous financial burden during one of the hardest weeks of her life.

And somehow, through her, you are now helping six families in a hospital room in Guatemala too. Thank you, truly.

Thank you for the prayers, the donations, the messages, the concern and the kindness you have shown this family. Please keep praying for Carolinita as she continues to recover, and for Ceci as she carries all of this.

If you would like to send a few words for either of them, please do. Christina has been reading books to Carolinita over video calls, and we would love to collect your messages into a card and read them to Ceci and Carolina. COMMENT BELOW ON THIS POST!

It has been an absolute roller coaster. But today, in the middle of a hospital and a situation none of us would ever choose, I got to watch generosity pass from one set of hands into another.

❤️ It was absolutely beautiful.