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!
No comments:
Post a Comment