What We Carry Home in Our Aguayos: Gynecologic Surgery Mission Trip
By Mary McCann Sanchez
We sat in a circle in a room with tall windows with a view to the busy streets of Sucre, Bolivia. We were a group of 11 people, midweek into a surgical mission at the Instituto Chuquisaqueño de Oncología (ICO), a hospital that treats cancer patients. Our group consisted of gynecologic oncologist Dr. Erin Stevens, general surgeon Dr. Gay Garrett, who led the breast surgery cases, Solidarity Bridge (SB) Program Director Jodi Grahl, two medical interpreters, four key members of the Puente de Solidaridad team in Bolivia, and a Solidarity Bridge board member. I was privileged to join this team as a volunteer who supported the team by facilitating reflection together.
Marcela Canedo, responsible for mission identity at Puente de Solidaridad in Bolivia, held a vibrant woven rectangular cloth in her hands. She stood in front of a table where another tapestry, woven in softer colors and tiny animal figures, held three lighted candles.
Marcela explained to us that these textiles are aguayos, living legacies of centuries of indigenous culture and livelihoods in Bolivia. The aguayo carries the life of the community, a beautiful yet sturdy vehicle for transporting food to and from the market. It safeguards schoolbooks and important documents. It holds a child closely and safely to a parent moving forward with daily tasks.
The image of the aguayo as a transporter of life is a powerful one, reaching beyond the aesthetic to the functional, spiritual and cultural. We had seen aguayos carefully folded on hospital nightstands where Quechuan patients, garbed in a hospital gowns, awaited not only surgery, but information on the status of their health, specifically on the detection of cancer and its treatment. Marcela challenged us to identify what we now carry in our own aguayos: what the week in Sucre, in a cancer hospital, has given us to hold.
The responses were varied, dependent on roles and experiences. Several missioners identified the strength of the eight women patients, with ages spanning five decades, who were undergoing surgery to remove and examine abnormal masses, cysts, and myomas. Others noted the imperative for precision in the operating room, where SB surgeons mentored Bolivian counterparts in laparoscopic procedures. Some identified the glaring need for an expansion of services. One individual noted the faithfulness of an elderly Bolivian man encountered daily in the corridors as he accompanied his grandson in more than a year of leukemia treatment.
The image of the aguayo speaks to us in technical, organizational, and personal ways, with the patients always at the forefront. SB surgeons are teachers and mentors: they travel from heavy workloads in their hospitals to share knowledge and surgical techniques across borders. Our organizations provide medical equipment and supplies to ensure that surgeries will be both efficient and safe after we leave, in what Dr. Gay Garrett has termed an ambitious goal to “move the mountains of resource inequality.” These efforts absorb hours and hours of Solidarity Bridge and Puente de Solidaridad staff time and ensure that surgeons will operate safely and patients will survive.
As the mission ended, I was privileged to travel north with Solidarity Board member Michael Terrien and Dr. Erin Stevens, both with deep wells of life experience, as well as professional achievements. Our backpacks and group chats replaced the aguayo as we shared bits and pieces of our lives in airport lines and coffee shops. Importantly, Dr. Stevens gave us a gift from her practice to carry with us: the wisdom of a life of service, of speaking plainly, and of celebrating every phase of life. She captures this beautifully in her recent TED Talk, which I share here in deep appreciation and with the hope that we may all carry its message forward with grace and solidarity: https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_stevens_ending_the_war_on_cancer
Special thanks to all the patients and staff at the ICO in the welcoming city
of Sucre, Bolivia.