by Katie Slagle, Community Health and Surgery Coordinator

My first trip to Guatemala was three years ago when I decided to spend a week volunteering to get a feel for what medical care looked like in a developing nation. Throughout the week, I not only learned a lot about medical care, but I also learned a great deal about Guatemala. I fell in love with the Mayan culture and the simple, yet joyful lives of the Mayan people. The image that stuck with me and kept me coming back was the beauty of this country contrasted with the terrible poverty.

A year after my first visit to Guatemala, I returned with my church, the Florida State University Wesley Foundation. Several of us spent the week in a village called Chontala, which happens to be about 5 miles from the Salud y Paz clinic in Camanchaj. On my second trip, the things that I had fallen in love with a year earlier were only reaffirmed. When I left Chontala I did not see myself returning to Guatemala in the near future because I had graduated and was now in the “real world”. I needed to get a job and start paying the bills. So I did. I got a job at a dialysis clinic and began “real life”.

But then everything changed.

Last February, four of my friends from FSU decided to move to Chontala for the summer to teach English and computer literacy. From the moment I found out they were going to Guatemala, I became restless. On my first trip, I learned about the lack of healthcare and what was being done to try and fulfill this need. On my second, I saw firsthand the need for medical care out in the rural village and became friends with those people who needed it. As a nurse, I knew this was a problem I could help solve. I made the hard decision to quit my job and move to Guatemala.

My first week in the country I met Heather Nielsen, the previous Community Health and Surgery Coordinator. We got to talking, and it turned out she worked for Salud y Paz. Heather invited me to volunteer with the Las Amigas women’s health education program. After a few months, my role expanded and Heather trained me as the new Community Health and Surgery Coordinator. Soon after, Heather returned to the States to pursue her Doctor of Nursing Practice. And now here I am, having already lived in Guatemala for eight months. I have enjoyed my experience so far and am very excited to see what is in store for the future.