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
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