You just took a picture of that??

Buen Dia!

Internet was down for a  few days so I wasn't able to write!

After we took the tour of the mansion we headed over to the hospital to go to a party that was being put on for friendship day.  They party was supposed to start at 11:00 A.M. but everyone (except for us and the interns who were cooking the meat) showed up around 12:30.  It was a BBQ and the food was AMAZING!!  The pastor from the hospital came and came a little sermon and had us sing a song in spanish about 10 times.  Then we gave/received our gifts to/from our secret people and ate the amazing food.  It was a lot of fun :).  At around 5 we went to the P.T.'s church and sang a few songs in english for them.  After that we went to the director of the hospital's church because they were having a special service for friendship day.  The service was supposed to start at 5:00 but didn't end up actually starting until 6:30!! It was a good service though, and everyone there was extremely welcoming!  We got back to the house around 9:00, and decided to watch Step Up One, which I recommend to all of you :)

Sunday was my birthday!  We decided not to go to church, because we had gone to a service the night before, so we just lay outside in the front yard reading for most of the morning.  Then we headed into town to go to the grocery store IC Norte, which for all who know me is great because I LOVE grocery shopping :).  Afterwards Joy, Katie and I went out for Ice cream, and then to get coffee.  We had egg burritos for dinner, my choosing :), and had an AMAZING chocolate cookie cake!!  It was a very good day.

On Monday I went to CBA with Katie and shadowed Dr. Mancilla the traumatologist.  In the afternoon we had spanish lessons with Audriana.  

On Tuesday I got to watch two surgeries at our hospital.  I got to see a Clavicle repair and a hysterectomy.  The clavicle repair started late because no one told the anesthesiologist that it was taking place.  The man had fallen from the second story of a building because he was drunk.  The hysterectomy was really interesting to watch also.  The uterus had calcified, which is apparently pretty rare, and once the surgeon had noticed this she turned to stephan and said "Saca un foto!"  He naturally gave her a blank stare because he didn't have a camera, so she turned to one of the nurses and told her to.  The nurse ended up using the surgeons cell phone to take a picture!!  It was crazy!!! She was using her bloody glove to show the nurse how to take the picture on the phone... Something like that would NEVER fly in the states!

Have to go to church, will write more later :)

Hasta Luego!

On Sunday it was my birthday!  

I love Harry Potter :)

Wow… I have written in awhile!  Lets see, I’ll go all the way back to last Wednesday…

On Wednesday I shadowed the gastrologist at Hospitals of Hope with Katie.  We saw a LOT of cases of heart burn while shadowing him, and also got to see an endoscopy.  The endoscopy patient was fully awake for the entire procedure.  The only thing the doctor did was skirt a little lidocaine down her throat a few seconds before he stuck the camera down her throat!  I felt really bad that she wasn’t given anything more to numb her throat, but it was really cool to watch.  In the afternoon all the volunteers went to the house for Ninos con Valor to put a second coat on the walls.  It looked a LOT better with that second coat, and it was really nice to feel like we really helped the organization.  Afterwards we went out to dinner at a taco place, which was pretty good but REALLY spicy J.  Then we went to see HARRY POTTER!!! The Cine Center where we saw it was nicer than the theaters back home!

On Thursday I shadowed the cardiologist at Hospitals of Hope with Katie.  He only had one patient, who needed to get an ECG (we call them EKG in the states).  Afterwards we hung out in his office with one of the interns named Juan, and then the cardiologist said he would give us a power point lecture on how ECG’s work.  (he is also a professor).  The entire thing was in Spanish, but I actually think I got some things out of it!

On Friday I went to CBA and shadowed the Tramatologist (a tramatologist is similar to orthopedics).  It was really interesting!!  Dr. Mancilla is really nice, and even though he doesn’t speak English, he is great to shadow because he explains everything to us!  After that we went to La Concha to find presents for “la dia de Amistad” (friendship day).  La dia de Amistad is a national holiday in Bolivia.  All the volunteers put their names in a hat and similar to secret santa picked someone to get a gift for.  I drew one of the house moms, and ended up getting her a fuzzy llama statue J.  After shopping we decided to go out for Chinese!  I know what you may be thinking, Chinese in Bolivia is probably horrible, but it was actually some of the best Chinese food I have ever had J. 

In the morning on Saturday a few of the volunteers and I went on a tour of the mansion that’s behind our guesthouse.  The mansion was built in the early 1800s by a man who made it BIG in tin.  Apparently he only lived there for 3 days, but the house is kept up for tours.  It was BEAUTIFUL!!  Katie has a skype date with her parents… will continue later!

Chau!

Salt Flats!!!

I'm Back!!  So the island was BEAUTIFUL.  We were surrounded by salt flats, which look like a flat plain covered with snow.  Driving to the island over the flats was definitely an adventure!  I have no idea how fast our guide was going because his gas gauge and speedometer were both broken..... but we were definitely going fast :).  The salt kept covering our windshield so the driver was constantly sticking a wash cloth out the window to wipe it down or just sticking his head out the side of the window so he could see.  The flats were also covered by a thin layer of water, so occasionally water would splash up the sides of the car as well.  I've never experienced anything like them.  After the tour was over we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant close to the bus station that had live music.  It was actually some of the best italian food I've had!!  The pizza and pasta a few of us split was delicious!  We then headed to the bus station and huddled together under our blankets while we waited for our 11:55 train.  This train was heated AND had bathrooms, so it was a luxury ride compared to our previous bus experiences!  We arrived in Auro around 7:00 and found a bus that would take us back to Quillocollo at 8:00.  That bus ride was a little chilly, but for the most part was nice.  We got back to the guest house around 12:00, smelly and tired.  Although the trip was exhausting, it was definitely worth it!

Later that night we went into Cochabamba in search of a gluten-free empanada place one of the volunteers had heard about but when we got to the restaurant we found out it was closed on sundays.  We ended up going out for salponchos, which are always good :), and then out for ice cream.  Ice cream here is less creamy than in the states, and they have a HUGE range of flavors!

On Monday I went to CBA with Teddy and Katie and got to see THREE surgeries.  One was a nose job, which was even more bloody than the previous one I had seen.  The other was a laproscopic gall bladder removal, and the last was a C-Section.  The c-section was AWSOME.  The baby was out within 15 minutes of the first cut.  It was a BIG baby, even the doctor made a comment as he pulled him out.  It then took about 40 minutes to stitch the mom back up.  Something interesting is that here they do a vertical cut under the belly button whereas in the states they do a horizontal cut.  I was also on dinner duty, and may I say it tasted delicious :)

Today I went to Movimiento Sonrisas and played with babies in the malnourished ward.  I got to hold one of the babies named William, who was almost a year old but looked like he was barely a month.  It was really fun, but I got peed on TWICE.  If the parents don't bring diapers for their kids, then the nurses just use cloth diapers, which leak a LOT more apparently.  This afternoon all the volunteerss from Westmont and Point Loma are leaving so we are having a big dinner before they go.  The house is going to feel REALLY empty with all of them gone.  I still can't believe three weeks have gone by and that I only have a few more left!

Hasta Luego!
Emily

Buenas Tardes!

Hope all is well with everyone back home :)  The past few days have been very eventful!

Thursday afternoon I went to a facility that houses severally mentally disabled kids.  There are about 72 kids at the facility, and only a few of them were able to talk. We took a lot of them on walks, most were in wheelchairs, played with them, and helped feed them.  It was really hard to see, but the kids seemed to be really happy there.

On Friday I went to an orphanage called "Casa de Amor" with Joy and Kelly.  I got to feed one ADORABLE boy a banana and then held/walked around with a little boy named Christopher.  All the volunteers/workers there were really nice and welcoming.  At around three in the afternoon 14 of us packed up our backpacks and headed to the bus station to begin our adventure to the salt flats... and let me tell you, it was by God's grace that we made it there :).  So we get to the bus station and find out that because it is vacation season here, all the buses before five are sold out, which is a problem because all the buses to get from Oruo to Uyuni leave before nine.  The women at the bus station tells us that if we put a deposit down on our tickets from Oruo to Uyuni they can hold the bus to make sure we will make it.  So we do that, and all climb on the bus that will take us from Quillocollo to Oruo.  Everything is going great until the bus pulls to the side of the road.  After about 45 minutes the driver informs us that this bus is not authorized to go any farther and that we should all get off and try to find a Truffi back to Quillocollo.  Some of the passengers get up and talk to the driver and within about 15 minutes we are back on the road.  This is great, except that we end up in Oruo at 10:00, and our bus is long gone.  Two native Bolivians that we know came with us, and boy am I happy they did.  Claudia had gotten the phone number of the bus driver and asked him to wait for us at a rest stop.  We then found two taxis, who charged us 40 bolivianos (more then our bus ticket cost!) and headed to the rest stop.  We kept asking our driver to go faster, and eventually he turned up his music to tune us out.  We got to the bus stop at around 11:00 p.m., and the bus was there waiting for us!!  The bus ride was 7 hours long, FREEZING, and EXTREMELY bumpy.  It felt like someone was shaking the bus the entire way there, needless to say a lot of people couldn't sleep.  I, however, was next to a volunteer named Jennifer who was kind enough to share her blanket with me, and actually got some sleep!

We arrived in Oruo at around 4:00 A.M. and were told we had to get off the bus.  Claudia and Adrianna (the native bolivians) asked the driver if we could stay on and sleep till 7:00 because we had no where to go and it was FREEZING outside.  He grumpily agreed and we got a little extra shut eye.  At 7:00 we were greeted by a travel agent who was trying to get us to go with here tour company.  After she mentioned that she had a bathroom (we all hadn't gone for 17 hours... but who was counting :) )and a heater we were sold :)

The tour was AMAZING.  We were divided into groups of 7 and each group got a land crusier.  We visited a train graveyard first, which was very interesting.  We stopped on our way to the trains to take a picture with the llamas.  I enjoyed that :)  Then we headed to the salt hotel.  It was more like a house but it was really cool because the house, and all the furniture inside of it, were made out of salt. The tour provided lunch, and this is were we ate it.  For lunch we had Quinua, tomatoes, cucumbers, llama (I didn't have any of this), and oranges.  It was very tasty.  After lunch we headed for the Island of fish.  Our guide has no idea why it is called this because it is an island full of cactuses!   I have to go help make dinner, I'll try to write more later :)

Chau!

Bolivia!

Hola!  Buen dia!

I can't believe I've been here for three weeks! The weather has continued to be around 70 in the day and 40 at night, so I am still sleeping with three blankets, sweat pants, a sweat shirt, and fuzzy socks :)

On Monday I went to CBA with Katie and Teddy and got to see a nose job.  That was interesting.  It was extremely violent and had a lot of blood.  I have a new fondness for my nose just the way it is :).  After the surgery Katie and I got to shadow the Ultrasound doctor, Doctor Tim, who I have shadowed before.  One woman who came in had a LOT of gall stones in her gall bladder which was really interesting to see on the ultra sound.  We also got to see lots of ultra sounds of babies and this time I could identify the different parts of the baby much better than the last time I was observing him.  In the afternoon I went for a run with a few other volunteers, which up here because of the altitude is more like a fast walk.  Then I had a spanish lesson with an undergrad student from a nearby university which was very helpful!

On Tuesday I went to Casa de Alegria and gave a presentation on diet and exercise.  I gave the presentation in English, and Katie translated it into spanish.  The girls were very attentive and seemed to enjoy the presentation which was good!  Afterwards we played volleyball with them which was very entertaining.  In the afternoon all the volunteers in the house went to help paint/ fix up a house that an organization called "Ninos con valor" are going to use.  The organization provides a daycare service and housing for children who have chronic illnesses such as HIV or AIDS as well children who are abused or whose families don't have the resources to provide for them.

On Wednesday we held a clinic at the same place we gave the breast cancer presentation at.  We saw mostly older kids.  For the first part I was in charge of measuring and weighing the patients.  For the second part of the clinic I got to watch one of the med students give the actual examinations and would occasionally get to help out which was really cool.  In the afternoon Katie, Joy and I went into La Concha, which is the HUGE open air market in Cochabamba, and did some shopping :)  We got a ton of DVDs, including Never say Never, and some souvenirs.  We then went in search of an ice cream place one of the other volunteers recommended.  We didn't find the one she had described, but we found a really good one nearby.  I got coffee ice cream, but it had raisins in it!!  It was actually surprisingly really good :).

Today I went to the hospital and shadowed the gynecologist.  He's really nice, and today he said we could do pap smears!  Unfortunately, we only had four patients, and only one needed a pap smear, so only Katie got to do one.  But I'm going to shadow him again next week so hopefully I can do one then!

I am getting much better at understanding spanish, but my speaking skills are still lacking.  This weekend we are taking a trip to the Salt Flats, I'm still not really sure what they are but I'm excited!!  A lot of volunteers are leaving this coming week so the house is going to feel empty!  Other than that, nothing else is really new.  Continuing to have great experiences!!

Chau!

Emily

I thought I would die on Inca Ricai

Hello all!!  It’s been awhile… sorry I haven’t written J  I'll start with what I did on last wednesday...

On Wednesday Joy, Stephan and I went to Monumentos Son Risas and helped out in the malnourished ward. We each got to help feed a kid and then just played with them for two hours.  The kids were really sweet, and looked like they were gaining weight but were REALLY hungry.  One little girl I played with named vannia was all smiles, and kept trying to take the spoon from our hands so she could get the food in her mouth faster.  In the afternoon we had a clinic in a nearby neighborhood.  It was held in a community center and we were offering physicals to the kids of the families who belonged there.  There was one doctor and three med students who each had a table, and then the rest of the volunteers got to help/watch them give the physicals.  It was really interesting to watch the med students interact with the kids and see how to check for swollen lymph nodes, listen to the heart and lungs, and see how much of an impact they had on each child's life/health.  

On Thursday Katie and I shadowed the gynecologist at our hospital.  He taught us how to do a pap smear and told us the next time we shadowed him we could perform it ourselves!!  One of the patients we saw was a women in her 50's and had a huge hernia, which the gynecologist said was probably the result of having eight children at home, and never really exercising.  After the gynecologist ran out of patients we went and shadowed the dentist.  We got to see the end of a root canal and see the nerve of the tooth that she had removed.  Then the patients sister got in the chair and started to lean back when the doctor told her to sit up and put her feet over the side of the chair. Then the doctor told the patient to take of her shoes and she stared to look at her foot!  I was so confused.... I thought I was shadowing the dentist!!  The patient had lacerations on her foot that were caused by some type of fungus, and the dentist /dermatologist let us help her clean them out.  We asked her if she was also the dermatologist and she told us that a lot of viruses in the mouth can affect different areas of the skin so as a dentist you need to know about the skin and how to care for it.  In the afternoon I went to help out at a breast cancer awareness clinic one of the Med students named Gillian was putting on at the same community center we gave the physicals at.  The women had a lot of questions and seemed very happy to learn about breast cancer and how to give themselves exams.  I helped with dinner that night and we made fried plantains, and I discovered that I was NOT a fan :) After dinner we played wally ball which was fun, but I got a serve straight in the face!

On Friday Joy, Katie and I got to watch a Hernia surgery and good news... I didn't pass out :).  It was really interesting to see.  They only gave the man an epidural before beginning the procedure, so he was awake the entire time!  At one point the doctor asked him to push and then cough to make sure the stomach wall would hold and another hernia wouldn't occur after they sutured him back up.  They put a sheet up though so he can't see what is going on.  The surgeon made a big incision and then carefully cut each layer of the stomach wall until he reached the small intestine.  We all went bug-eyed when we saw the small intestine just laying on top of his abdomen!  Then the surgeon used his fingers to push the intestine back into place, cut out the extra skin, put in some mesh to reinforce the stomach wall, and then stitched him back up.  It took about 2 hours.  

In the afternoon we went to casa de alegria to just hang out with the girls.  I had a blast again!  We played vollyball, watched a Selinia Gomez movie in spanish while decorating cardboard butterflys, and painted nails.  After we had painted a few of the girls nails they offered to do ours and they put us to shame!  They used a piece of hair and made really cool designs on our nails that kind of look like fireworks.. I took pictures :)  I was also told that I look like an actress named Victoria on channel Five so If you think you see me in a Tabloid thats why ;).

On Saturday my team from Wheaton and two other volunteers decided we wanted to go on the Inca Ricai Hike that some other volunteers had gone on before we had arrived.  We were warned that it was really hard and that it took about four hours but we were determined to do it.  So we get in a Truffi and ask him to take us to Inca Ricai.  We start to get a little confused when 20 minutes later we are still in the Truffi and headed up the mountain.  We finally ask the Truffi driver how much father it will be till we get to the path to hike and he tells us we passed it a long time ago.  He then tells us that he'll let us off about 3 km from the Inca ruins and we can take the path down.  We reach the ruins in about 20 minutes but don't see a path anywhere.  For some reason we decide that maybe what we are looking at aren't the ruins that the driver was talking about and head up the road.  After about an hour and a half of walking we decide to flag down the next taxi or truffi and see where the path is.  The first truffi we tried to flag down slowed down long enough to shout "No tengo tiempo!" which means "I don't have time!".  We decided to keep climbing and then we saw the truffi that dropped us off.  This time, we formed a blockade like line in the middle of the road so he would have to stop.  When we asked him how much farther to the path and he looked at us like we were crazy.  Then he told us that the path was at the ruins he dropped us off by, and then told us we had walked a really long way.  All the passengers in Truffi probably thought we were the biggest bunch of idiot gringos they had ever seen :)  So we started our descent and found the ruins again.  We spotted a path and followed it but then it seemed to end after about 10 minutes.  Once the path ran out we wandered down a bit farther in hopes of seeing a clearer path again but had no luck.  We were lost on the mountain with no sign of life around us, and we had no idea how to get back to where we had come from.  We decided the best option would to just try to get to the bottom of the mountain and find a village and try to catch a Truffi from there.  As we were scaling down the gravel coated mountain I was sure we were lost and that we were all going to freeze to death that night! Then, Stephan spotted a rock-lined path in the distance and it turned out to be the rest of the trail!!  When we reached the bottom a few of us kissed the ground :).  After our hike we tried to find a restaurant that one of the past Wheaton volunteers had told stephan to go to, but when we got to the area and asked around people said it was closed.  We ended up eating a random restaurant that was actually quite good and got to watch a soccer game on TV while eating.

Today we went to a Presbyterian Church in the city.  It was really small but extremely welcoming.  It was all in Spanish so I only got parts of the message but what I understood was really good!  After Church we went out for Saltanas.  They only come in the meat variety so I didn't get one, but I did get a "Frutia con leche" which is a drink very similar to a strawberry milkshake!  After lunch Katie, Joy and I were assigned to get the snacks for the week at Quioquillo on our way home.  It has been a relaxing day which is much needed after yesterdays hike :).  Our house parents went to buy a puppy today after lunch, so I am excited for him to arrive!!

Again, so sorry these are so long!

Chau!

Two Truffis and a funeral

Hello!! Sorry it has been so long... the internet wasn't working all weekend!!

On Saturday my team from wheaton along with the team from Florida here woke up and made scrambled eggs with cinnamon biscuits for breakfast... the cinnamon biscuits were DELICIOUS :)  Then we went into Cochabamba and climbed the Cristo, which is a HUMONGOUS Christ statue on top of a mountain.  The view was SPECTACULAR!  After climbing we went to la Concha and shopped around for about 2 hours.  After that we headed to kid washing but there were hardly any kids because it was really cold out.  After that we went out to dinner and had salponchos.  Salponchos consist of a bottom layer of rice and fried potatoes, then a layer of thin fried meat (which I took off), a fried egg on top of that, and salsa on the side.... they were really good!

On Sunday we went to an international church, so most of the service was in English which was nice :)  After church we went to an empanada place for lunch.  I had two cheese empanadas (baked or fried bread with cheese inside) and a peach/milk drink that tasted very similar to a milk shake.  After that we went to the Grocery store in Cochabamba to buy our groceries for the week.  Chocolate and cereal over here are SOOOOOO expensive.  Two bags of mini sized candy bars cost about 15 dollars and a box of cereal costs about 8 dollars.  We started our laundry at at 2 P.M and didn't finish until 10 P.M.!  We only have a washer here, and it takes about 1 hr and 50 minutes to wash one load, then you have to hang it out to dry.  It was an adventure.

On the fourth of July I went to CBA in the morning and go to shadow an Ultra Sound doctor who was American!!  Him and his wife (who is Bolivian) founded the hospital   There were a few pregnant women who came in to check on their babies, two women who were seeing if their birth control was in the correct place, a few women who were complaining of abdominal pain, and one man who was complaining of abdominal pain  turned out to have cirrosis of the liver :/  It was amazing how he could pick out all the organs within seconds of looking at the ultra sound picture when all I could see were different pockets of lighter or darker colors.  After CBA Dr. Tim took my teammate Teddy and I to see the rehab center that him and his wife also founded.  There aren't many rehab centers for drug addicts in Bolivia, and I think this center has a lot of potential to help these people turn their lives around.  After that, five other girl volunteers and I headed to Casa de Alegria, the orphanage of girls that we helped put on the English camp for, to give them lice treatments.  This is where the title of my entry comes in.  As we were headed to the house our truffi stopped and told us it wouldn't go any father because there was a huge line of cars ahead.  We heard trumpets and a tuba and assumed some kind of parade or party was going on... we discovered we were very wrong.  As we got past the line of cars we came upon a huge mob of people and realized a funeral was taking place!!  We thought the house was past the people, but we didn't want to be rude and walk around them, so we walked with them all the way to the graveyard!  To make matters worse we were all wearing scrubs and a few of us were carrying bags of mayonaise (here, it comes in bags instead of in jars) for the lice treatment so we definitely stuck out!  What makes this story even funnier is that the house was actually in the opposite direction of the funeral, and so we ended up participating in the funeral for no reason!  The de-licing went very well and was actually really fun.  The girls were really excited to see us and showed us all around their house, which was pretty run down.  They don't have a shower, and have to wash their hair and bodies with a hose in the backyard.  Their bedrooms were nice though, and they were really excited to give us tours.  After the girls had their mayonaised hair covered with plastic bags we had a dance party in their living room to Jennifer Lopez, it was a blast :)

Later that night we had a BBQ, s'mores, and fireworks and sang the star spangled banner in honor of the fourth of July.  It was a lot of fun, and the fireworks were really impressive!

Today I went to our Hospital and went on rounds and then shadowed the pediatrician again.  She only had two patients though today so I spent the rest of the morning helping take inventory of the pharmacy. In the afternoon Joy, Stephan, and I went to CBA.  It was really slow again, but I got to shadow the gynecologist again with Joy for about an hour which was interesting.

The Florida team went home on Saturday night, which was really sad, but other than that things have been great!!  Sorry this is so long :)

Con Amor,
Emily