International Service Learning

I went to Managua, Nicaragua to deliver medical care to people in need, and my experience was amazing. I plan to be a physician assistant some day soon and this experience helped me get hands on experience that will be important to me for the rest of my life. My group leader was incredible and I felt safe the entire time. Not only did we work hard, but ISL helped make the experience fun too by adding in cultural lessons and sight-seeing!

I went on this trip with just my daughter and we were able to stay in the home of our host. She was amazing! She was incredibly prepared, helpful, knowledgeable and made us feel like members of her family. We worked in schools, a senior center, did community home visits, and participated in a day of community health clinic. It was eye-opening and truly enriching. Rose was in contact with the country coordinator and even made adjustments to our schedule to assure our comfort and safety for our recreation days. I would highly recommend this program.

ISL is a wonderful organization from the pre-trip planning to the post-trip follow-ups. There are trips offered for every interested from health to sports to education. I went on a Global Health trip to Mexico. Preparing for the trip was painless as ISL has the requirements listed very clearly on the trip website, and any questions are answered promptly. They also provide a large list of fundraising ideas to offset the cost.

In country we felt very safe with our locally based team leader, paid friendly, security staff, and wonderful chef. The translators were very patient and knowledgeable.

As far as medical experience, we assisted with vitals in a local health clinic, performed community health surveys with abbreviated triage including taking blood glucose, held a free clinic with a doctor, nurse, and pharmacy, and shadowed in a local hospital. In the hospital I was able to assist in the beginning of a live birth, and watch the delivery! The best part of the program is that, rather than setting up a clinic once a year or once ever, ISL strives to maintain clinics so that communities have regular access to medical care.

Beyond service, we had so many opportunities for recreation, exploring the local community, and eating exquisite food. After the trip, ISL reached out to find out what was good about the program and what to do to improve it. They also offer incentive to continue in the ISL family, and help it grow.

The trip leaders from ISL are ANGELS in disguise. They were the highlight of this trip. There were aspects I enjoyed, and some I did not. I enjoyed our two trip leaders, our two fun days at the end where we went sand boarding/sand duning around the Ica Desert in Pisco, Peru and our trip to the National Reserve that included a beach in Pisco. I also felt very safe traveling with ISL and the other students I was with. They made sure to give us safety tips like when we could safely take our phones out for pictures, how to identify fake money, and how to watch each others backs when we went out in public. Our trip leaders had such a heart for service and I will miss them so much. If I were to do another ISL trip, it would HAVE to be with these two. We also had a third ISL representative who was from Peru. She was very knowledgeable about where we should and should not go, and obviously knew the culture well. Her attitude some days was unbearable however. She was pregnant so I kept that in mind, but at times I feel like she didn't care what experience we were getting. For example, on days where ISL paid for our lunches (which was about 3 or 4) we had to split 5 entrees for 17 people for lunch and dinner for about 3 or 4 days in a row. We went very hungry for those days. Fortunately, we brought some of our own snacks but I can't imagine the $4,000 we paid to go on this trip could not cover the cost of more meals. Another lack in this trip was communication, which was KEY for 17 people to have a successful trip. The two trip leaders communicated everything they knew to us. Our nursing "leaders" that went with us had no idea what was going on and if they did the rest of the group was so confused day after day with what we were doing because our itinerary got changed from what we were originally given. I would not like to go on another trip with this Peruvian representative from ISL. I just could not find where our $4,000 went for this trip. Our plane tickets had to be about $1,000-1,500 because we flew out Wed to Wed and we even took a red eye home, our first hotel in Lima was disgusting and could NOT have cost more than $30 USD per night for 4 nights. Our second hotel in Pisco was better, I would say 4 stars on the outside, 2 stars on the inside and in the middle of a desert so that couldn't have cost much either. We did pay for bus service the entire trip which was nice but it was often late because of A) Peru time (it's such a real thing..) and B) they weren't always told when to be there to pick us up. One last aspect I would suggest to change would be to have a more relaxed schedule. I understand they wanted us to see as much as we could in two weeks but we got up between 6 and 7 AM every single day and got home at between 9 PM and 11 PM every single day. Girls were very sick and still had to go to the days events and it was exhausting. If our schedule wasn't as packed as it was and we could spend more or less time at places we liked or didn't like it would have been more enjoyable.

Overall the trip was a good experience, if we include recreational and tourist time. Strictly speaking about the missionary work, I am extremely disappointed. It was my first time traveling alone outside of the country and everything went smoothly for me, I felt safe at all times. However, there were a few things which I cannot ignore. For being a 12 day mission trip we really only had 3 days worth of clinic, or hands on time with patients. This was extremely disappointing to me as I really hoped to go to communities in need and serve them with all of my knowledge and donations we were able to. More over, OUR GROUP LEADER WAS RELATED TO THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY IN WHICH WE SET UP OUR CLINIC, her father was our driver and he knew all of the people in the community. I asked one patient that came to our clinic what had brought her in- if she was having any pain, etc, she said no, she knew our group leaders father and he told her to come in. I felt lied to, like this was all a show, a set up for us, like none of it was real and I wasn't making a real impact in this community. I was so disappointed. At that point I realized there are some many other people in the world who have no access to care, and who could have better benefited from my time, efforts and especially money, rather than our group leader's fathers family putting on some sort of show for us. Granted it wasn't all of his family members coming into the clinic, but how suspicious, how can something like this be allowed? Also, the next few days we were scheduled to go to a local hospital is Maras. When we got there the doctor explained to our group leader it was the beginning of the month and they don't see patients, they only do paper work. The day before I saw our group leader make a phone call to this doctor to give him the heads up we were coming to the hospital, so there was no planning done in advanced. So after we got to the hospital with nothing to do, we ended up folding gauze for the nurses for the next few hours. At one point I thought to myself, did I really just travel all the way to Peru to fold gauze? What good is this possibly doing? So the next day they (our group leader translated from the doctor) promised we would be able to see patients, make house calls with the doctor, do injections, etc. Turns out September 2nd is "nurses day" in Peru, so there were no patients again. I really feel like this should have been planned out ahead of time. This could have been avoided, it was two whole days wasted, traveling two hours to this hospital and back, when we could have been doing more good in the community we set the clinic up in. Perhaps if our group leader called further ahead than one day we could have swapped the hospital and community clinic days and avoided this all together. Overall 12 days was WAY too long, being that we only saw patients three days. Something else that happened was, our Peru country organizer did not tell us there was limits on the luggage when traveling from Lima to Cusco. We had to transport our personal items as well as the donations we brought and the donations ISL made us transport. My fellow team members and I ended up having an extra bag due to donations and we had to pay this out of pocket. This too could have been avoided with communication. No where in the itinerary did it state needing to take Peruvian airlines or their luggage restrictions of one bag, especially if someone was coming from a flight where they could have two bags. I really wish I could have had a more profound affect on the surrounding communities, but I am leaving that to no fault of my own. I am grateful that I was exposed to the conditions and the healthcare system of Peru, it ignited my desire to become the best healthcare provider possible so that one day I can return to communities like the ones I saw in Peru and better treat them without the constraints and strings of ISL.