A Cleft-Palate Party and The Health Department Shrine

On Wednesday the hospital had a cleft-lip party with a Father from Austria who has provided a lot of the monetary means for the children to have these surgeries at the San Gabriel hospital. There were probably 30 families that came with their children who had cleft-lip/palate and balloons and dancing were the main event. We were able to survey a lot of the patients parents while we were there at the hospital and also interview the Father. The presence of the Catholic Church here in Bolivia is quite unbelievable. Jayson and I have talked to a lot of “Fathers” as a part of our research project. Although we had always planned on interviewing community leaders as a part of our project we didn’t know that so many of the civic leaders would end up being Catholic priests. We were also amused by the presence of the Catholic church when we went to the public health department office that afternoon and found this unusually large shrine to the Virgin Mary in their room for vaccinations. I am not sure how receiving vaccinations and worshiping the Virgin relate but even so it is quite common to find their public buildings and hospitals adorned with these types of things. Additionally many of the hospital directors are Catholic nuns.