So I had no internet last night, and I wanted to write what went on during my arrival- so I did it in word and I'm pasting it below. Then I'll get into my first day here! I don't think I'll write every day, but so far, that's what I'm doing...enjoy :)
Thursday:
I arrived in Santa Lucia tonight around 7:30 (9:30 back in NC). I don’t even know where to begin talking about today. I met Liz- my boss who’s the principal investigator on the study, Ben- a guy who has been working with S2S for about a year, did the peace corps in Bolivia and now takes care of a lot of things here, and Kerri- a graduate of UNC undergrad and UNC SPH. They all are so great already and it’s going to be a blast getting to know them. It’s slightly intimidating because they’ve been here for a while, and they mentioned that no one really told them volunteers were coming until recently. Though that wasn’t the case for me, because they’ve all known for a while that I was taking over the study, which is good. Not too sure what the other new people will be doing… They missed their connecting flight today, so they’re getting picked up by someone else tomorrow. As soon as I found the crew of three waiting for me, they ask me how I feel about fish, because we are going to stop at a place on the lake where we can get great fresh fish-naturally, I got extremely excited. So we pack all of our stuff into the back of the truck, and set off. I don’t want to narrate the entire car ride, but I have to talk about the sights. Unreal. I really don’t even know how to describe everything and the pictures I took are almost insulting to what I was trying to capture. The roads were pretty rough and the ride was bumpy a lot of the time, but I loved it all. I was amazed as Ben maneuvered the car over, around, and through mud, water, rocks, and mountains. Extreme four-wheeling for sure.
Back to the sights.
Some of the areas are so incredibly run down; garbage all over the streets, broken windows, missing doors, and sinking roofs. At the same time, though, there’s almost a beauty in the mess. When you look at it, it all seems so calm, so in place. There is no background noise of streets or cars, just a picturesque quiet. But the second I think or say this I quickly question what exactly I’m thinking. By just saying that the scene is beautiful and calm I’m highlighting the fact that I am so unfamiliar with the place, that I have no idea what life here is like. It seems like such a cliché- a Westerner going into the third world wide eyed and excited. Can I really say that things are run down, undeveloped, or lacking? Do I have any idea how Hondurans feel about their daily lives? No. Things seem legit fine. Now where that plays into "helping" another country is another issue. Kind of goes back to the whole philosophy behind working in another country; you can’t do anything without them, they have to be the ones doing it, and they have to be the ones to decide what is best and how to do it. That's what I really like about Shoulder to Shoulder-- it's been here for 20 years- it's the city's clinic, and they are the ones that decide what's best for it. Those of us that come to work here are just that, workers. It's amazing. I love that I have an actual project to work on; a sort of purpose here.
I could go on about the rest of the drive (all 7 hours of it), and how everything, and by everything I mean the handful of sights I took in today, is so untouched, but I want to quickly describe the clinic before I end the post. Granted I only saw it in the dark and pouring rain, but I an at least describe the inside. Walking in the main entrance you enter into the common area, there is a couch, an old tv, and the table where everyone eats. There is a fridge and some other stuff around as well. Off of that room is the kitchen, and further into that is the dishes room. There is an interesting system to washing the dishes- you have to scrub them, then rinse them with water from this huge tub, then put the dishes in bleach water to be later rinsed and used. This room also connects to outside…I can probably give a better description when I see the place in the day time. If you go through the main eating room area, you are faced with a few stairs that lead up to the “apartments”.
That place is awesome- there is a common area, kitchen, and office right when you walk in. Beyond that there are about four or five bedrooms- most of them doubles. Come October, one of the rooms will be mine and I cannot wait. Currently, I’m living downstairs in the “dorms”. The room is legit like summer camp. There are five bunkbeds in the two rooms- I am on the bottom bunk in one of the rooms with another girl working here for a year- Ashley. When the other new people come tomorrow I’m sure it’ll be just like summer camp.Tomorrow Liz is going to show me around the clinic and hopefully we’ll have some patients to recruit together. Saturday everyone is planning on doing some Skyline Chili cook off thing….whatever that is, and they know it’s my birthday then so they have deemed it my birthday celebration as well. We are also talking about going to see the sunrise somewhere on Sunday to continue the celebration.
Ah there is so much I want to do and see here. We drove through Concepcion and Magdelena- both of which have clinics of S2S’s, so hopefully I’ll be able to visit and work there! Apparently the buses are the way to go, so I’m sure I’ll be riding those in no time. I’ll end the post here and will wait to post until the end of the weekend or early next week. Below is a pic of the front of the clinic.
TODAY-- Friday
First real day of "work". Legit amazing. I am so glad to be here. Although, once Liz (my boss) is gone...I may be struggling. I'll be on my own, and while others can help me- it'll be my project. Exciting! This morning I went over all of the forms with Liz and organized my little "station" in the pharmacy. Doris is the pharmacist and she is so great. She only speaks Spanish, so our communication is limited, but that will (hopefully) change soon. After lunch--which, for the record, was chesseburgers--was when I got to work with patients for the study. To briefly sum it up- the clinic opens around 8 or 8:30, and at that time most of the people who will be seen during the day arrive. I go look at the charts and see what triage has seen. If there is someone that meets criteria- a fever with any other respiratory symptom (cough, sore throat, difficulty breathing, etc)- then I go find them to work with while they wait to see the physicians. It's incredible, I have to speak entirely in Spanish. I ask the child's guardian if they would like to participate in the study, they agree, and then I proceed to read them the consent form...which is complicated enough in English, let alone in Spanish. So once that's done, I ask them the questions from the questionnaire, which, again, is easier said than done- though I have to say, I'm making due with the Spanish I know, and I really want to work to improve. So then after that's done, I take the little swabs from the baggies and swab the kid's nose twice, three times if the doc thinks they have the flu--and that swab is used in a rapid influenza test that is kind of an addendum to the study.So I had my first patient! She cried a bit for the swabs, and I was so nervous trying to communicate, but it went well!. After the patient visit, I go to the lab and aliquot the samples into vials-- some are frozen, and some are going to be stored in this new type of buffer system that doesn't n
eed to be frozen for shipment back to the U.S. As soon as I finished working in the lab, another kid qualified, so I went through the whole process again, feeling much more comfortable. I'm sure I'm repeating myself but it's so great that this place is so established. The area is not touristy at all. It's legit another world here, it's unreal..In the afternoon some of us went on a walk around our town. I tried to take pictures but they don't come close to what I'm seeing. It is so different...every door is open- or maybe they don't even have doors. Some places just seem so dirty and falling apart, but that doesn't seem to phase anyone. Kids are playing in the streets and jump roping just beaming with joy- it's incredible.
I want to just sit there and observe for hours. I want to know what is in the houses, what they talk about, what they do throughout the dayand night. There are shops scattered around too, though you would never know they were shops unless you peaked your head in. I don't like to read what I'm writing because I wish I was more eloquent or able to capture the feeling I get when I look around, but I can't.
The new volunteers arrived tonight, so we are all sitting upstairs right now in the more permanent living quarters hanging out. Enough writing for now- I will try and post pictures either tonight in bed or later this weekend at some point.
peacee
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