Jennifer Mings
Growing up in the United States, I’ve taken small things for granted. I wake up every morning, take a hot shower, and eat a balanced breakfast.
I know that in the majority of the world people are starving and are lucky to live past the age of forty, but I’ve never been sure how to help. Then, I got involved with Operation Smile.
Operation Smile is a worldwide children’s medical charity that sends medical missions to third world countries to perform corrective surgeries for children and young adults with facial deformities such as cleft lips and cleft palates.
As a high school student I thought this was one of the best things ever! I would be able to help the people I had always wanted to help. Little did I know, I would soon get more involved and Operation Smile would become one of the most important things in my life.
In fact, I became so involved in Operation Smile that I was given the opportunity to go on a mission. My main job was to teach the children the importance of dental hygiene, burn care, oral rehydration, and adequate nutrition. In addition to that, I kept the kids company before and after surgery. Bubbles and stickers became the best distracters, and a coloring book and a crayon would ease the crying of any unhappy kid.
With at least fifteen patients in and out of our child-life hallway a day, I bonded with many special kids. Although I was touched by many, I will never forget Kaseech.
This little girl was a handful; I could not keep her busy! We played with cars, stuffed animals, stickers, sunglasses, coloring books, bubbles, balls, and balloons. Kaseech loved and appreciated everything she saw, which was a pleasant surprise to me. From my experience as a babysitter, I knew how hard it was to keep kids entertained, and how quickly toys became “boring.” Boring was definitely not in Kaseech’s vocabulary.
As the hours passed, however, Kaseech’s father became unhappy. Kaseech, who had been one of the first patients of the day, had yet to enter the operating room. Unbeknownst to him, her surgery had been switched with another patient’s surgery. From a bystander’s perspective it looked as though the surgeons had just bypassed his daughter.
He became more and more infuriated as time went on. As I watched the enraged expression on his face, I began to frantically hope and look for one of the surgeons to come through the door. Then, another patient was taken back into the operating room who had come an hour and a half after Kaseech did. Kaseech’s father had had enough. He told the translators they were leaving and would come back another time.
I knew that if they left, my friend would never receive surgery. I ran to the end of the hallway, pleading with her father in a language he would never understand. They had to stay. It wasn’t working. As he tugged his daughter down the hallway, I found someone who knew their language to persuade him. Finally, he was convinced to stay.
Kaseech received surgery for her unilateral cleft lip, and the next day I went to visit her in the post-op room. When I saw her face, I fully realized the miracle that Operation Smile is. She looked perfect.
When she saw me, she broke out in a smile and ran to grab my hand. For the full ten minutes I was in the room, she never let me go. As we approached her recovery bed, I saw her father. His immense happiness of his daughter’s new smile made me lose it. I posed for pictures and then ran down the hall bawling. This is what it was all about.
Of course Operation Smile helps children gain new confidence in their appearances, but it also gives them something more important. It gives them hope.
Senior at Cibola High School, Albuquerque, N.M. Jimma, Ethiopia: May 29- June 6, 2009
