Serving Las Placitas

I Care International may have served patients on the slope of a volcano before, but this was the first time I was aware of it.  Known as “Chaparrastique” by the locals, but formally Volcan de San Miguel on maps, the volcano upon which we worked in El Salvador is one of the most active volcanoes in Central America.  I learned that after I got home.

I’m glad they don’t tell us these things before we go, or while we are there for that matter.  I did hear an anecdote in the clinic that gave me pause, but I didn’t pursue it.  It came from a colorful local woman I was giving glasses.

Dispensing is the final station of six that we set up at every eye clinic.  The progression is this: intake, nurses, acuity (eye charts), autorefractor (a machine that measures the eye), a thorough eye exam by an optometry student, optometrist, or ophthalmologist, and at the end the dispensary, where we give them the eyeglasses if needed.  Almost all do.  It’s why they come.

I like dispensing because it is that part in the process where improved vision is realized, individual after individual.  Sometimes the change is dramatically better.  You can see it in their faces as they look around them.  Who wouldn’t like that job?

We were located under a high roof with no walls.  We caught the breeze.  All around us were leafy tropical plants and trees.  It was one of the most beautiful clinic sites I’ve worked in.  One morning, loud booms on the steel roof above us interrupted our work.  We were alarmed.  The locals in the clinic instantly reassured us.  They pointed up and said “mangos.” 

A lot of volunteers had pre-trip worries about the heat.  Two years ago, temperatures reached 100 degrees F.  Not so in 2026.  The locals were more bundled up than us.  A cool spell brought the temps down into the 60’s and 70’s. 

Back to the volcano story.  Duolingo, a self-paced digital language program, is slowly expanding my ability to have conversations with our Spanish speaking patients. 

I began fitting a sixty-year-old woman with glasses by reading her first and last name to confirm I had the right person, but also to introduce myself.  Then I shook her hand, smiled, and told her I was glad to meet her.  That’s the most important part of the dispensing process.  The patient inevitably smiles back.  It’s a good way to start.

Next, I scanned the intake sheet, looking at her acuity score, the prescription the eye doc had written, and the glasses chosen for her. But before I started, I asked her (in Spanish) if they had problems with forest fires.

I asked because each day we took a bus ride from San Miguel, elevation 423 ft. up to La Placita, elevation 2,800 ft..  During the ride, I peered into the forest.  It looked dangerously dry.  I imagined flames sweeping up and down the slope. 

“No mucho.  Solo fuegos pequeños y no a menudo.”  Not much.  Only little fires and not often.

She went on.

“No tenemos miedo con fuegos, pero cuando Chaparrastique estallas, tenemos problemas grandes.” We don’t fear fires, but when Chaparrastique estallas, we have big problems.

“Estallas?  No entiendo la palabra estallas?  I don’t understand the word estallas. 

She held two fists tightly together in front of her chest.  Then she raised them, pulled them apart, and spread her fingers.  It was the sound she made that drove her point home. 

“POW!”  No translation needed.

Pantomime can be powerful.  Estallas means bursts.

“Ah si, claro que si.  Entiendo.”  Oh yes.  Of course.  I understand.

She nodded vigorously. 

“Que pasas entonces?  Que tipo las problemas?”  What happens then?  What type of problems?

“Ceniza y piedras. El sol se oscurece por la ceniza, y las piedras son peliogrosas.  Ash and stones. The sun goes dark because of the ash, and the stones are dangerous.

“Que tamaño tienen las piedras. How big are the stones?”

“A mi tía le atravesó el techo de su dormitorio una piedra del tamaño de una estufa.  My aunt had a stone the size of a stove crash through the roof of her bedroom.”

“Dios mio, eso es horrible!  My God, that’s horrible!”

“Estuvo bien.  Estaba en la cocina.  It was OK.  She was in the kitchen.” 

I couldn’t help but look out at the sky.

¿Cuándo ocurrió eso? When did that happen?

“Hace viente anos.  Ahora esta bien.  No te preoccupes.  Twenty years ago.  It’s OK now.  Don’t worry.

I began to laugh.  So did she.  One of the bifocals we had picked for her suited her well.  It was a five-minute encounter.  But it goes to show there is more to the clinic than glasses.

El Salvador experienced a civil war from 1979 to 1992 that resulted in 75,000 deaths (mostly civilian) and massive displacement.  Today, it's popular new young leader built and filled one of the world’s largest prisons with tattooed Salvadoran gang members.  Recently, that same prison held deportees from the U.S. as well as U.S. citizens swept up in our deportation efforts. 

But I Care doesn’t travel to countries to affect their politics.  We go to give the gift of vision to those for whom it is not available.  We helped people like these:

·      Two sisters, one on each side of their elderly mother who was barely mobile.

 ·      A very fit 79-year-old man with a machete in a leather case.  When I asked about the machete, he said that he no longer works in the fields but just feels more comfortable having it with him.

 ·      Another pair of sisters, each with two rowdy kids.  We served one sister while the other watched the four cousins, then vice versa.  I gave them all Pez.

 ·      A woman with her nearly deaf father.  When I asked him questions about his new glasses she bent down within inches of his ear and repeated my questions at the top of her lungs.  His eyes grew wide at the sound of her voice as if he had heard it for the first time.

 ·      A young mother managing her two kids alone getting her first glasses.  She was high minus, very near sighted, who was blown away at how far across the clinic she could see.  I told her kids “Mira.  Tu mama lleva lentes.  Ahora podria verte mas de cerca.  Look.  Your mama has glasses.  She can watch your closer now.”  Smiles.  More Pez.

 

We served individuals, families, a whole community of ordinary people living their lives.  We think we saw the best of El Salvador.  We hope they saw the best of us. Every mission is unique.  Las Placitas in 2026 was extraordinary.  I can’t wait to see what next year’s mission brings.  

Find your own Magic

There is a sign over the highway entrance into Walt Disney World (WDW) that proclaims it is “The Most Magical Place on Earth.”  I’d never been there, but I know there’s a certain amount of guilt put on American parents who deprive their kids of the Disney magic.

I acknowledged that early on.  When our kids (now 42 and 40) were young I told them I could take them each to a beautiful foreign country for what it would cost to take them to WDW.  And I did.  I took them each on an eye care mission to Guatemala when they were teenagers.  Did I really deprive them of the most magical place on earth?  I was about to find out.

My wife and I were at WDW to celebrate our granddaughter’s fifth birthday.  Birthdays at a resort are a new tradition her family started.  For three years we spent the birthday weekend at a sprawling indoor water park in Chicagoland, which was magical in its own way.  WDW, however, is on another level, magically speaking. 

Pundits say five is the perfect age for children to enjoy the Disney experience.  June would turn five on a trip that included her Mom and Dad, both grandmas, an aunt, two uncles, two cousins, and her Papa.  I think being with family provides its own magic.  But WDW is stiff competition.    

When I got home, I found that Walt Disney World is but one property of Walt Disney Company, a major independent and publicly traded multinational entertainment and media conglomerate.  It’s not a subsidiary or part of any larger company, but rather, the parent/holding company itself, owning brands such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20^th Century Studio, ESPN, ABC, Hulu, Disney Parks, and more.  The company's total value as of February 2026 is approximately $186.5 billion USD. Their brand of magic has a high cost.  

But back to the trip.  Walt Disney Company’s property in Florida, Walt Disney World, occupies 45 square miles (26,000 acres) of low-lying land near Orlando.  The average number of daily guests is about 150,000.  The number of visitors to the Magic Kingdom alone often reaches 90,000.  And it feels like every one of them is ahead of you in line for the next ride.

WDW is one of America’s largest employers with over 80,000 “cast members” in the park each day.  I kept seeing doors by rest rooms marked “Cast Members Only.”  I assumed cast members were those people who paraded around in costumes with big heads representing iconic Disney figures like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Turns out everyone is part of the cast - the maids, the servers, the food service staff, the gardeners, bus drivers, you name it. 

The biggest stars of the cast are still the costumed characters from famous Disney animated movies.  Those heads, including eyes and smiles, are way out of proportion to their bodies.  And they are locked into whatever expression the artist chose to create with plastic, fiber glass, and paint.  They play their roles without speaking, using only pantomime.  Each looks overjoyed.  Can unrelenting displays of joy day after day create magical overload?  You’d have to ask those cast members, and they won’t talk.

No American kid I know can feel magical 24 hours a day, day after day.  I know June couldn’t.  It was in the Animal Kingdom that June experienced her low point.  She failed to meet the height requirement for the “Avatar Flight of Passage’ ride. She broke down.  Some might describe it as melting down.  In any case, it was not a magical moment.  She pulled herself back together though.

I’m not sure what moment was June’s most magical.  But I know what mine was.  We were back at the rooms in the “Art of Animation” section of the park.  Low key.  Blocks of motel rooms built around a swimming pool with gaudy statues.  The largest was a gigantic fiberglass monument to “Ursula the Octopus” the famous sea witch from “The Little Mermaid.”   Our rooms were on an outside corner by a lake.  Thank God it was quiet and not crowded.  There was a lawn with trees and bushes.

On February 17, June’s birthday, we took tables and chairs from our room, put them outside, and ordered pizza.  We had a cake with candles for dessert.  It was just us.

As it started getting dark, June organized a game of sorts.  She was the cook and I was chosen as the server.  June and the I went to a big tree where she “baked” pretend cupcakes on a square ground drain. It looked like it could have been a grill. 

I held my hands together like a bowl and she filled them with sticks, some leaves from the bushes, grass, any stuff would do, and then June and her server delivered the cupcake to someone of her choice in the family, describing in detail the flavor of the cupcake.  There was a lot of pretend chocolate and cinnamon involved, with mint thrown in for good measure.

Then the person who received the cake became the next server, and everything was repeated.  It was good to see full-grown adults involved in an imaginary cooking show.    They were a little confused but played along nicely.  I spoke with my wife, known by June as Goggy, after her short-term stint as a server.

“How did you like June’s restaurant?”

“I complimented her right away.  Told her how much I liked her restaurant.  You know what she told me?”

“No idea.”

“It’s not a restaurant anymore, Goggy.  It’s a café.”

Evidently, June’s business model changed rapidly.

June was delighted at how the whole project was going, but then the last adult was served, and the café closed.

“What can we do next June?” I asked.

“Well,…”  June starts her sentences like that when she needs time to think.

“I know.  We can build a Fairy House!”

“A fairy house?  Are there fairies around here?”

“Well, yeah Papa.  It’s my birthday.  Fairies always come see you on your birthday.  If you listen close when you go to sleep, you can hear them flying.”

She sounded so convincing.  I wanted to ask how she knew all this but held my tongue.

“Where do Fairies like to live?”

“Well…., they’re very small.  They like to be in bushes and out of the wind.  I know, we can make the house there.”

She pointed across the yard to a bush that looked as if a frost had hurt it.  The leaves were brown and dead looking halfway down. 

“We can break these branches and make a little hole in here, then make a floor.” 

June was the architect and I was the general contractor.  I broke out twigs to make a little pocket in the bush and tried my best to fashion a floor with them. 

“Now we have to make them a bed.”

June began gathering bedding material that bore a close resemblance to the cupcakes we had just baked.   We carefully laid sticks and leaves and grass on top of the stick floor.  Amazingly, it held.  June stood back and pronounced the fairy house done.

“All we need now is something to draw the Fairies attention to their house.  Something shiny or bright.  Look for something Papa.”

It was getting darker.  I wondered why the pizza was taking so long.  We struck off in different directions looking for the perfect thing to attract the Fairies.

Sometimes, you get lucky.  By the best-traveled sidewalk near our rooms, I came upon a plastic pink barrette pressed into the dirt.

“June, I got it!”  

June approved.  I laid it on the fairy bed.  The Fairy House was complete.

That was the kind of magic I hoped I’d find at Walt Disney World.  An idea from the mind of a five-year old that sprung to life on a warm night as darkness fell was pure magic to me.  You can have the rides.  I’ll take the Fairy House.