lose U p
Doc's
unusual
Holiday
Six weeks every year, Dr. Harris Mainster
takes his family for an unforgettable vacation:
to the Third World.
By Elizabeth Applebaum,
Assistant Editor
Photos by Glenn Triest
The Mainsters bring a souvenir from each country they visit.
L
ast summer, Harris and
Phoebe Mainster spent six
consecutive weeks eating
pineapple sandwiches for
breakfast. For lunch, they sat
down to a delicious meal of
pineapple sandwiches. And
what better way to cap off a
tough day than with a
scrumptious dinner — of
pineapple sandwiches.
It's not that the Mainsters
have any great affinity for the
tropical fruit. It's simply that
pineapple and bread were
practically the only safe-to-
eat foodstuffs in Cambodia.
And besides, aren't families
supposed to do wild and crazy
things on vacation?
That's right, vacation.
Meet Dr. Harris Mainster.
He is a successful physician,
serving as chief of surgery at
Botsford General Hospital.
He is active at Beth Abraham
Hillel Moses and with the
Jewish Federation and the
Allied Jewish Campaign,
among others.
His wife, Phoebe, is a lec-
turer with the Wayne State
University English depart-
ment.
They have three daughters
and an elegant home over-
looking a lake in Bloomfield
Hills. Their pet bird regular-
ly cackles and caws, breaking
an otherwise peaceful quiet
in the large and airy house.
Each summer, this seem-
ingly typical family does
something extraordinary. For
the past 22 years Dr. Main-
ster, his wife and children
(who, from the time they
were infants until they were
in their late teens always ac-
companied their parents
abroad) have spent six weeks
every year in a Third World
nation, where they give free
medical and other care to in-
digent residents.
Their travels have taken
the Mainsters to such spots
as Ethiopia, Zambia, Pak-
istan, Indonesia, Bhutan,
Taiwan, Liberia and Ugan-
da. Dr. Mainster calls the
trips "our summer medical
missions."
Dr. Mainster says he de-
cides where to go by "looking
at a map and realizing I
haven't been there yet."
Arrangements are then made
through medical relief orga-
nizations, and with the spon-
soring hospital where the
Mainsters work.
It all began in 1964, when
Dr. Mainster became inter-
ested in joining the Peace
Corps. But by then he and his
wife already had three chil-
dren; the Corps was hesitant
to send a family to a desti-
tute, remote area.
Soon after, a friend at Bots-
ford told Dr. Mainster about
an acquaintance working at
a Catholic missionary hospi-
tal in Nicaragua. It was a
small, poorly developed hos-
pital run only by nursing ri
staff. They desperately nee6- -
ed modern medical assis-
tance.
After the conversation, Dr. S I
Mainster decided to volun- j
teer. Six months later — it (-=[
takes time for foreign goy-,
ernments to give work clear-
ance and to become a licensed
physician abroad — the Main-
sters were on their way to
Managua "in a DC-3 where
they had to clean out the
chickens and set up benches,",
landing on what Mrs. Main-
ster describes as "a strip of
ground."
From the start, the Main-
sters — who pay all the tray-
el and accommodation ex-
penses — rejected any notion'
of luxury while working
abroad, preferring to live on
or near the hospital com-
pound.
In Nicaragua, they found )
their home-away-from-home
in an attic. In Nepal, they
lived in "a coffin for two," Dr.
Mainster says. "There was
just enough room to line up
two beds, end to end." In
Uganda, they stayed in a
monastery where "we lived in
cement rooms with a sink.
You had to go down the hall