Notes from Tetouan, Morocco

Team Tetouan concluded 5 days of surgeries having completed a staggering 189 surgeries. An international mission organized by the in country team in Morocco, the Tetouan mission is very much the shape of the future for Operation Smile. Everything about Operation Smile is remarkable, but there was something extra-emotional about seeing relatively privileged Moroccans looking after children from some of the poorest reaches of their own country. Nothing was too much trouble for this team. There was a feeling of togetherness between and among the volunteers and patients that was unique because they all shared a common culture and a common language. Here are a few highlights:

• A wonderfully elegant man in traditional dress brought his 12 year old son for surgery. He was an Imam (a religious leader) and was spotted reading the Koran while his son was in surgery. After the successful surgery, I asked him if he had anything he wanted to say to the doctors. His response was that he had been praying for them throughout the surgery. He had asked God to take care of the doctors and nurses and to help them fulfill all their dreams throughout their lives. I will never forget his face. It was full of love for his son and gratitude and love for everyone else.

• The team tried to avoid the disappointment of patients who were unlikely to receive surgeries. Cell phones are everywhere in Morocco, even amongst the poor communities, so instead they called to deliver the bad news. However, inevitably, a couple of patients showed up to find they had not made the list. A mother came up to me, begging me to look at the burns that were carefully hidden by a hair band on her beautiful daughter’s head. It broke my heart, and all I could do was explain that I was not a doctor. I called over Abdou Jbara, the mission leader and Executive Director of Operation Smile Morocco, and he told me to send her to see one of the specialists from Casablanca. This man had such a big heart, and he did not want to turn anyone away. He was there for one reason only: to make arrangements for the most difficult cases to come to see him in Casablanca where he would be able to treat them. He took the cases that could not be treated in Tetouan. We had come to expect extraordinary acts of compassion. This was just one more.

• One evening, the team was invited for a wonderful dinner at the local Sofitel. I had arrived early, and the Restaurant manager came up to me and told me that they had a young man working at the hotel who had a cleft lip. I mentioned it to Abdou and thought nothing of it until three days later when I saw the boy in post-op. I kept wondering that if I was experiencing these random acts of extraordinary kindness, how many were occurring that I was not witnessing – not just in Morocco, but everywhere throughout the World Journey of Smiles.

• The recovery room was a place full of love. Dr. Merhdad Mehr would not want me to single him out because he is perhaps the most humble person I have ever met. It was a privilege to watch him work. He was one of the very few foreign doctors on the mission having traveled from Boston. The kids will never know how he held every one of them in his arms when they came out of surgery. He read their chart to learn their names and talked to them and cradled them as though they were his own children. His eyes were everywhere. At one time he heard a child crying and said, “there’s something wrong.” He actually recognized a difference in a child’s cry. He went to the child and quickly found a small problem with the IV that needed to be removed and replaced. The story I want to share about this amazing man took place on our day off. As he walked around a beautiful Moroccan village, Dr. Mehr spotted a child with a cleft lip. By now, I’m sure you know the rest of the story. Three days later the child was in post-op with his parents proudly looking at his new smile.

• Then there was Dr. Najib Jilali, the “gentle professor” who led the post-op medical team with patience, skill, and compassion. At one point I saw a mother enter the nurses’ area with a child. The child was the sibling of one of the patients. The next thing I knew, Dr. Jilali was examining the child who seemed to be in perfect health. I asked him what was happening, and he explained that this boy’s mother simply wanted him to check out her other son. He had never had the chance to have a medical check. I learned later that this was happening throughout the week.

• There was music and dancing in the child life room. At the end of the long days of surgery, there was singing and dancing in the operating rooms. Incredible young women led the nursing teams. Our clinical coordinator was just 27 and wise beyond her years. In the last 12 months she lost both her parents and her only sibling, making her contribution all the more remarkable.

I could go on and on, but the most important stories are the ones that have not yet been lived. 189 people came to Tetouan in search of a new life. Tired, concerned faces lined up for screening with hope in their eyes. Over the course of the next week, these families dared to dream of a new life. Perhaps for the first time, they could think about the future and smile. Team Tetouan changed 189 lives this week. I have never been kissed by so many men, women and children as the grateful families showered us all with their love and prayers. Clearly, many more than 189 lives were changed.

Last year, my 17 year old daughter went to China on an Operation Smile Mission. I talked to her on the phone while she was there, and she said, “Dad… you have to come on a mission with me.” So there we were together in Morocco. Now 18 years old, my daughter has shown me a level of human compassion, love and giving that has literally changed my life. Thank you Team Tetouan.

- David Wolfe