As a long-time Bangkok resident, I have long been familiar with Operation Smile Thailand’s fundraising activities like Fight Night and its yearly Color Miles for Smiles, charity run. A few years back, I was lucky enough to join the tail end of an Operation Smile medical mission to Nepal. But I’d never had the time to experience a medical mission from start to finish until November 2015, when I was lucky enough to volunteer with a medical mission to the Thai/Myanmar border city of Mae Sot. There are two equally extraordinary “start-to-finish” experiences I would recommend to any Operation Smile Thailand volunteer. The first is getting to witness the extraordinary logistics operation that is critical to the organization’s success. Several times each year, Operation Smile staff transport 100-or-so volunteers, staff members and a huge amount of medical equipment and supplies to remote hospital sites. The effort is gargantuan and it is a tribute to the tight-knit staff and a team of extraordinary volunteer doctors and nurses that such a massive operation can be completed successfully. Second, make it a priority to follow a single patient from registration, to pre-op preparation, through the actual surgery and then to the recovery room. The real magic of Operation Smile’s work is witnessed here. A five-year-old patient with a double cleft can be running around within an hour or two of coming out of anesthesia. Days of trepidation and worry transform into a life-long smile in a matter of hours. My job was to assist with the completion of pre- and post-operative patient interviews. At least four languages are commonly spoken in the vicinity of Thailand’s border with Myanmar, and over the course of several days I was alternately paired with Burmese, Karen, Karenni and Thai translators. Most of the translators had primary duties in the operating rooms and with patients and families, so I had to make due with whoever was available. In most cases, I was able to get a direct translation, but at times I cobbled together multiple translators, peaking at a total of four, to interpret from Karenni to Karen to Burmese to Thai to English. Patient stories tend to follow similar themes, but some of the stories, particularly those of patients who traveled to the medical mission site from Myanmar, were quite compelling. The long distance award went to a thirteen-year-old boy who journeyed from Myanmar’s Wa province. Let’s call him Saw Luther. The son of farmers, and one of ten siblings, he is from a remote mountainous village with a surprisingly high number of cleft cases and he is the first to travel to seek corrective surgery. His journey to the Thai border lasted four days and included a two-day walk, a boat journey and an extended trip on the back of a truck. All told, it was a week-long journey to Mae Sot, all without the presence of family or close friends. Because of his deformity, Saw Luther says he feels shy when playing outdoors, and prefers instead to spend time at home helping his mother. An ardent football fan, he hopes the surgery will end all of the teasing and make him “normal” like the other kids. He said it felt special to be at the hospital in Mae Sot with so many other people who want to have their gaps closed just like he does.

As a long-time Bangkok resident, I have long been familiar with Operation Smile Thailand’s fundraising activities like Fight Night and its yearly Color Miles for Smiles, charity run. A few years back, I was lucky enough to join the tail end of an Operation Smile medical mission to Nepal. But I’d never had the time to experience a medical mission from start to finish until November 2015, when I was lucky enough to volunteer with a medical mission to the Thai/Myanmar border city of Mae Sot.

There are two equally extraordinary “start-to-finish” experiences I would recommend to any Operation Smile Thailand volunteer. The first is getting to witness the extraordinary logistics operation that is critical to the organization’s success. Several times each year, Operation Smile staff transport 100-or-so volunteers, staff members and a huge amount of medical equipment and supplies to remote hospital sites. The effort is gargantuan and it is a tribute to the tight-knit staff and a team of extraordinary volunteer doctors and nurses that such a massive operation can be completed successfully.

Second, make it a priority to follow a single patient from registration, to pre-op preparation, through the actual surgery and then to the recovery room. The real magic of Operation Smile’s work is witnessed here. A five-year-old patient with a double cleft can be running around within an hour or two of coming out of anesthesia. Days of trepidation and worry transform into a life-long smile in a matter of hours.

My job was to assist with the completion of pre- and post-operative patient interviews. At least four languages are commonly spoken in the vicinity of Thailand’s border with Myanmar, and over the course of several days I was alternately paired with Burmese, Karen, Karenni and Thai translators. Most of the translators had primary duties in the operating rooms and with patients and families, so I had to make due with whoever was available. In most cases, I was able to get a direct translation, but at times I cobbled together multiple translators, peaking at a total of four, to interpret from Karenni to Karen to Burmese to Thai to English.

Patient stories tend to follow similar themes, but some of the stories, particularly those of patients who traveled to the medical mission site from Myanmar, were quite compelling. The long distance award went to a thirteen-year-old boy who journeyed from Myanmar’s Wa province. Let’s call him Saw Luther. The son of farmers, and one of ten siblings, he is from a remote mountainous village with a surprisingly high number of cleft cases and he is the first to travel to seek corrective surgery. His journey to the Thai border lasted four days and included a two-day walk, a boat journey and an extended trip on the back of a truck. All told, it was a week-long journey to Mae Sot, all without the presence of family or close friends.

Because of his deformity, Saw Luther says he feels shy when playing outdoors, and prefers instead to spend time at home helping his mother. An ardent football fan, he hopes the surgery will end all of the teasing and make him “normal” like the other kids. He said it felt special to be at the hospital in Mae Sot with so many other people who want to have their gaps closed just like he does.