MACLOVIO ROJAS, MEXICO — They’d heard of a small community in Mexico, nestled close to the border and somewhere along the road to Tecate.

With no directions other than these sparse facts, David Carreon and B.J. Swanner set out to find Maclovio Rojas in 2006.

The two friends were students at UCLA and had recently founded the Fellowship for International Service and Health, a group that aims to provide medical services abroad. They had volunteered at another clinic in Mexico and were looking for a place to set up their own, somewhere their services would be truly felt.

Their search led them to the side streets of Tijuana, as they navigated their way to the dusty hillside where homes painted lime green and lavender stand. And here, in Maclovio Rojas, it led them to a taco shop.

“We were expecting some ‘Place free clinic here’ sign, and there wasn’t any,” Carreon said. “We thought the best thing to do was eat tacos and maybe that would give us an idea.”

They decided to approach a man eating lunch alone and ask, in broken Spanish, if the community needed a health clinic.

“Everybody’s sick,” he told them.

The next weekend, FISH held its first clinic in Maclovio Rojas. Ever since, the group has traveled back several times each quarter, assessing people’s health and recommending simple treatments.

Common health problems in the community include hypertension, obesity and diabetes, said Ryan Tsuchida, chief executive officer of FISH and a fourth-year psycho-biology student. And residents of Maclovio Rojas have little access to medical services – a gap FISH’s 80 or so members are trying to fill.

Still, the group knows its limitations, Tsuchida said. Because they are only students, members cannot diagnose patients or write prescriptions. FISH brings doctors to Maclovio Rojas once a year, when it hosts La Clinica in partnership with Destino, a UCLA Latino student group.

Monica Cepin, a doctor who participated in the 2010 La Clinica, said the group can have a major impact ­– it alerts people of serious health problems that they cannot detect on their own, such as diabetes.

“People are not aware when they’re sick. Or they try teas or alternative medicines,” Cepin said. “(FISH) can encourage patients showing signs of diabetes or high blood pressure that they need to be seen by a doctor.”

Bringing doctors to the town more frequently could strengthen the group’s effort to solve the myriad health issues there, Cepin said. On the day of La Clinica, the doctors drew a crowd of people, she added.

But even the doctors cannot solve everything. Cepin remembers meeting a teenager who didn’t know he had asthma until she listened to his lungs and heard wheezing. Although she wrote him a prescription, she doesn’t know if he obtained the medicine or could afford it.

Despite such restraints, Cepin said her day in Mexico was one well-spent combatting the many obstacles residents face when it comes to being healthy.

Crossing the Border

FISH began its Nov. 20 trip to the town at 5:15 a.m., when the group clumped under an overhang at Ackerman Turnaround. The weather was the main topic of discussion – the harsh rain could slow down traffic at their clinic.

The group took its chances. A few hours later, it crossed the border, and the world changed.

“I remember … seeing lean-to (homes) and piles of trash everywhere. It was shocking for me,” said Jeniece Alvey, chief operations officer of FISH and a fourth-year anthropology student, of her first trip to the town.

It’s a world where common knowledge about health is foreign.

“FISH provides some of the basic medical knowledge that we know as the result of health programs in the U.S.,” Tsuchida said. “Ideas about food, exercise, … information that isn’t necessarily present to (Maclovio Rojas residents).”

When FISH reached the town, the rain had petered out. Members set up the clinic in an outdoor market, where vendors sell everything from shoes to quesadillas.

The Clinic

At the clinic, Natalie Perea, a second-year sociology and psychology student, spoke to a man with hypertension.

The man said he showered when he felt tense to keep his stress level – and blood pressure – down.

When Perea explained that he needed to exercise each day, the man responded he’d had no idea.

Ruth Rivera, 30, visited the clinic so that her children could get checkups.

“Since we live in a community where not all the things kids eat are healthy, we want to make sure we’re doing a good job as parents,” Rivera said.

In addition to taking patients’ blood pressure, FISH members measure blood glucose to screen for diabetes and calculate body mass index to screen for obesity.

Members of the group consult with people, recommending lifestyle changes and distributing vitamins.

To pay for trips and supplies, FISH collects membership dues and holds fundraisers.

FISH’s work also includes surveys of the clinic’s patients.

The group is gathering data on the town’s overall health and will present the findings to local leaders.

Interacting with the community is a humbling, gratifying experience, Tsuchida said.

“It’s not just this community but this country that’s in need,” he said.
FISH heads back from Mexico to the U.S. in the afternoon, a journey that traffic at the border can delay by several hours.
In these last yards of Mexico, vendors walk between the lines of cars, hawking churros and other goods.
Many of the communities around the border require remedies more powerful than medicine, Carreon said.
“Poverty is holistic,” he said. “It’s more than ill health or a lack of money. … A solution to poverty requires everybody, from engineers to economists.”
FISH is a part of that solution in a corner of the world off the road to Tecate.