Night Prom

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Don’t really know where to start exactly. Things have been great. I’m home, and I have a family here-it’s amazing.
The study is going really well, too. I skyped with Liz the other day to catch up—I’m running low on supplies here, and we are trying to figure out a way to get more down here before the brigade comes in mid-October. Otherwise, I won’t be able to do the study for a bit. Apparently I’ve just about doubled the number of patients that had been recruited before I got here just in the month that I’ve been here. I guess that proves the seasonality of respiratory infections here…or my creepy stalking abilities. Both.

So what has happened in the week or so that I haven’t written… Honduras had it’s Independence Day last week- so there wasn’t work on Wednesday. Tuesday night there was a parade and some music in the plaza, so a few of us went there to check it out. Supposedly there’s another parade and dance in December…how excited I am about that is slightly odd.

I’ve had several moments on the upstairs porch just thinking over and over about my life here. There is something about that porch and view that puts me in such a reflective mood. I hope I never forget the view. And the sounds- the generator (a veces), the roosters, the rain, Spanish, and English. I’ve even pulled a total me and thought about where everyone will be after this. It’s interesting to think—we all came from busy lives, and after this we’ll all be starting new stages in our lives, but right now, for this year, we are here together and have a life here. It’s a very unique experience. What's also interesting to observe is how this place is constantly changing- growing, shrinking, cycling people in and out. Some people stay here for years, others for months, brigades come and go, it's rare for us all to be in the same place at the same time, which makes those days and nights so wonderful.

And while I’m on that topic…I’m beginning to realize more and more how unique of an organization Shoulder to Shoulder is. I have heard so many different perspectives and takes on it all- how it started, the current projects, past projects, the future, etc. A few of us got to talking last night about our motives for coming here—often, there are similarities, but everyone has their own story. Art Ranz (chief operating officer) and Dick Buten (director management systems) have been here since Sunday, and having them around has been a very cool experience. For some reason, seeing them walk around the comedor makes me feel so proud to be a part of this organization- makes me realize just how much people care about this place and how much work goes into keeping it afloat. They have such great attitudes also. Beyond friendly and personable. And they have such a passion for S2S- it’s admirable. Hearing them talk to each other and to the gang makes me realize that I don’t want the end of my stay here to be the complete end of my involvement with S2S.

The study was (for the first time) slow the past two days, so I’ve been doing work in the comedor. It’s been nice to kind of take a break. A few of us are going to Antigua, Guatemala in a week or so and I am so so excited for that! Oh, side story- Doris (pharmacist) has been gone for the past two days. When I went down to the clinic this am, we saw each other, I squealed her name and she gave me a huge hug. Such a small thing, but it made my day. I feel so comfortable in the clinic now. I’ve been hanging out in the lab a lot too with Rahul, Norma, Digna, and Veronica. Digna is a wizard with the lab tests and I’m trying to learn things from her. They all also want to learn English, so we help each other out with languages-it’s a great place to be.

One last thing to note—we have all recently gotten into playing basketball. We had an incredibly intense game yesterday- Me, Yuan, Ashley, Karla, Beth, Alex, Chepe, Juan, Cecilio, and Manuel. I can’t even describe how fun it was. We played straight into the dark then made it home just in time for pupusas for dinner. Played again today with some different people, and it was pouring rain the whole time. Life is good here.

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Conce to hang out with everyone there. There is a hike planned for Agua Salada, another waterfall, on Sunday and I’m pumped- supposed to be pretty intense.

I’m sure I’ll have stories to tell after the weekend :)

side note: I'm writing this post from a keyboard attached to my computer through the USB port because I had the brilliant idea to remove my keys from my keyboard last night and clean the base. After jamming the buttons back on...a select few are stuck and do not work...not what you want.

I love the people here

Quite the morning.

I had to write a post to describe just how incredible the people here are. Although, I should note that due to the nature of my work here, I don't really deal with difficult people or other issues that most of the others face. I guess I'm an outsider in that sense-- at times I really wish I wasn't, but I do love the work I'm doing, so it's all fine.

Anyway, this morning I walked into the lab, said hey to Raul and Digna, and both of them just gave me this look of worry and pointed to the fridge. I look over and the small fridge in which I keep all of the samples, frozen, was cracked open. Legit had a huge wave of panic come over me. I rushed over to it, opened it, and everything was iced over and the samples were liquid. Panic. I was terrified that because the samples had thawed that they were ruined. I couldn't open two of the drawers either. Raul saw me struggling and came over to help me. He got a pair of scissors and began chiseling away at the ice. How incredible is that- he was so so helpful. He didn't just say sorry and go back to his work, he took the time to help me- so amazing. So he keeps doing that while I transfer the samples from the little fridge to the big one. I then ran up to the comador in a panic, and teared up when telling Yuan what happened. She was so sweet and came to the lab with me to try and calm me down. Yuan went above and beyond being amazing and she interviewed a patient while I tried to reach Liz. I had texted Alex and Janell- Alex called right away to make sure everything was ok and helped me out with the freezer issues. Yuan even called and left Liz a voicemail explaining to her that I was having issues with the study. I wish I had a better word to describe how incredible it is that they took the time to help me out. Eventually Liz and I spoke and everything is fine. So overall, nothing is damaged and the 150ish sample I have are good. But it was quite the chaotic morning. I still can't get over how great everyone was. Like I said earlier, it is a support system here. I was struggling big time, and I got help and advice from those around me. Absolutely incredible, I can't believe how lucky I am to work and live with these people. Could not be more appreciative right now. And the help was genuine. No one was obligated to help me out- everyone has their own shit to worry about- but they still took time to tell me it would be fine and to help. Unreal.

Never a dull moment here

La vida buena

My posts are becoming less and less frequent. Good or bad thing? Good because it means I’m becoming more and more used to daily life, but bad because I want you all to know the highlights of what I’m doing. First of all, I want to quickly note how the group here has become a sort of family. We legit do everything together, especially the roomies. Work, cook, eat, work out, lounge, joke around, have serious talks, everything. It’s such a great support system here too- if one person is having a bad day, we try to make it better, if one person is happy about something, we celebrate it. It’s amazing.

First brigade came last week, too. Definitely different to have so many more people here. Though I didn’t see them much because the dental students were in the dental clinic all day, and most of the nursing students went out into the field during the days. Oh, and on Wednesday night, the power went out. Usually that's fine because the generator kicks in, but the connection from the clinic to the living area wasn't working, so we were without power. The amazing and admirable part of the story is that Alex and Chepe quietly left that night to make the 8+ hour drive to San Pedro to get the broken part. It really is incredible how much people care about this place-- though frustrations often run extremely high-- only something you truly care about can upset you so much.

On Friday I took the day off from the study to go to San Antonio with a few students from the brigade, Janell, Yuan, Beth, and Karla. I was seriously concerned about leaving the study for a day- I’m getting paid to do this work down here, and leaving the clinic makes me feel like I’m slacking off on the job. But then there’s the part of me that wants to see as much as I can down here. I “trained” Ashley on the study because she was amazing enough to offer to cover for me. Leaving the frontera was great- Yuan and I rode in the back of the truck the way there for about an hour and a half and (of course) the scenery was incredible. She and I kept talking about how this is our life after college and how much we love that we are here. It’s crazy to think back to the beginning of senior year when I was struggling trying to figure out what I was doing after I graduated. How many times did I say to people “Well, ideally I would find someone doing research somewhere, hopefully relating to medicine, and I would help him or her in the field, but that’s unlikely, so who knows what I’ll do.”, and I’m actually doing exactly that now? Crazy how that stuff works out.

At times I feel like the work I do here is minor and insignificant. It's hard not to feel that way when I do the same thing everyday, and witness others going out into the field, or working on other major projects. But I guess you have to put it all in perspective, realize that what I'm doing here is being done for a reason. Respiratory infections are very common here, and no one knows exactly why. I can't remember if I've written about this yet, but Doctor Ruben and I had a long chat the other day about why this study matters so much. It was so great to hear that, especially from him. He is an amazing physician and the fact that he believes in this study makes me feel so good about doing it.

Anyway, back to Friday. San Antonio wasn’t too crowded and there weren’t any home visits that had to be made, so we left after lunch.

I worked some on Saturday morning to ease my guilt about leaving Friday, and while I was working, there was a birth going on. Yuan came and got me- then we got Ashley to join. Ruben was the physician and Deysi was the nurse- so there were 5 of us in there. The whole scene was pretty surreal. It also was different than what I expected- the woman was so calm, practically sleeping between contractions. There were no high tech monitors and drugs; the baby's heartbeat was monitored by a hand-held device to ensure he was doing ok. It wasn't this huge event, Ruben delivered the (huge) baby, and Deysi proceeded to clean it up. It happened so quickly, hard to believe I was there for it all.

Around noon on Saturday Yuan, Ashley and I joined Janell to go to La Esperanza for the night. Took some effort to get us all on the bus, but we did it. After five hours on the bus, we made it. I have to say, I really do enjoy riding on the bus here. It's kind of an adventure. I like just sitting on the bus and staring out the window at things. Though the buses are often crowded and hot, I find it relaxing to sit there and observe. We met up with Janell's friend, Karla, at the hotel and after resting for a bit we headed to the restaurant El Fagon. Nothing super exciting, but it was so fun to be out in a different place drinking and enjoying each other's company.

Made it back to the frontera last night in time to celebrate Yuan's 22nd birthday. We attempted to make peanut noodles, and after some serious issues in the kitchen, it turned out great. Again, the people here are amazing and even the small things we do together are a blast.
I'm heading down to the clinic now....more to come later.

The trip to Conce...

Never a dull moment here. That is a phrase definitely said multiple times this weekend. I’ve been saying that it still hasn’t hit me that I live here, but as the days go by, the feeling that I’m a visitor subsides- though weekends like this past one still make me realize that this is quite the experience.
I want to note how things with the study are going-very well. I've gotten about 35 patients since I've been here. While it is busy for me on most days, but not so much on others, I always find ways to stay occupied. I'm getting to know the people that work in the lab- we chat (read: they laugh at my attempts to pronounce any word with rr) when I'm in there aliquoting the samples and as of this week, we are working on English words and phrases after work. Two things happened last week that got me excited- one being that a mother of one of the children I saw asked me why I was doing the study, what I was studying, if I was in school, etc. Not only was it great for her to be interested, but the fact that I could actually tell her, and speak without much hesitation was awesome. The other thing that happened was after doing a rapid flu test (for Influenza A and B) on a particularly sick boy, I took the mother aside and told her that I had done the test, and her son didn't have influenza. She genuinely thanked me. Really, she was thanking me? I didn't do much, but it was a small thing, and it made me happy. It really is the little things...
Oh, and we made pina coladas on Thursday night using the pinas Maria bought that day- good times for sure.
Now for this weekend-I’ll start from the beginning.
Saturday morning Ashley and I woke up around 5:30 in order to make the 6am bus to Conce. It stops near the center of town, as well as in front of the clinic, so we decided to walk towards it then hopped on midway between the two points. This bus ride was a blast—serious club music for the first hour, then some slow Mexican tunes at the end. According to my new friend on the bus, Roberto, the person singing was the Michael Jackson of Mexico- good to know. The head rest kept falling on me and Ashley, so naturally I removed it and stuck it in the corner—that did not go over well. Eventually a guy came back and shoved it back in- only to have it continually fall on us for the remainder of the drive. We also were given some pamphlets about the origin of life from a Jehovah’s witness on the bus, who then later refused to talk to us. After roughly an hour and a half (and a serious concern that we had missed our stop) we made it to the clinic in Conce in time for breakfast with the crew that was there:Yuan, Karla, Beth, Alan, and Alex. The view from the porch where you eat is absolutely unreal.It’s just untouched, lush, peaceful greenery (for now) as far as you can see and you could gaze off into it for hours just thinking about everything. The more I take those moments, the more I realize how short my stay is here. I would love to find a way to extend my stay- perhaps take on another project? Vamos a ver.
The clinic in Conce is so much nicer than the one in Santa Lucia. Not that SL’s is bad, just that the one in Conce is newer and layed out differently.

The downside is the living areas- they are much less homey than those in SL and there isn’t really a place where everyone can gather to hang out- but we made it work. After breakfast the girls headed into town to check out the market and buy soda for the night and for the lunch at Delmi’s the following day (more about that later). We stopped at Delmi’s before hitting up the market- she lives in town in a house that is pink giraffe print- it’s awesome. Conce has such a different feel than SL. It has a very friendly vibe and unlike SL, houses are kind of lined up in a row and appear much more welcoming. We told her we would buy drinks and a cake for the lunch party, as well as got ourselves (Ashley and me) an invite. The market was great- tarps set up everywhere with people selling food, CDs, clothes, shoes, and all other sorts of things. Naturally, I had to buy a bracelet and naturally, it took me forever to decide which one.
After the market was lunch (which doesn’t come close to the cooking of the Marias’; I am so spoiled living in SL), and after lunch was the waterfall. We all piled into the S2S truck and made it there in about 20 minutes. After a short hike down to the bottom, we all immediately jumped in to play. It was incredible to just sit in the water and watch the waterfall.
Because it’s rainy season, we weren’t able to swim up to get behind it; the water was too strong. Later, a few of us hiked up farther to see more of the waterfall- so incredibly beautiful.
On another note, it’s amazing to think about the group that’s here- we all decided to take time off from whatever we were doing in the US to come here and work. I’d like to think that we all want more than just a trip to enjoy a foreign country; that we want to experience so much more and learn a ton about life in general. I don’t exactly know how to put into words why I am here. Numerous people have asked me that, and I can never find an answer that really captures my motives for coming here. Yes, I wanted to be exposed to more medicine, yes, I wanted to live abroad, completely away from everything and everyone I know, and yes I wanted to gain experience working for the kind of organization that S2S is, but that still doesn’t explain it. Not sure I ever will be able to, but maybe in time it’ll be easier for me to explain.
We finally decided to head back- this time Beth and I rode in the truck-bed, but I can’t complain, because it’s a great way to take in the sights. The rest of the evening was pretty lazy. We mostly sat on the cottage porch and watched the sunset. Incredible. It was after dinner that we all got together and played corn hole while drinking. Though it may sound tame, we all had a blast. Alan and I were running the game for a while, but then lost the title to Yuan and Alex—not what you want. Stayed up late hanging out and attempting to star-gaze, though they aren’t visible this time of year, so we watched lightening bugs instead…stars soon enough.

Sunday:
After enjoying a lazy Sunday morning, Yuan, Ashley and I headed out to help Delmi prepare lunch for the crew. Seriously, one of the greatest experiences for so many reasons. I’m still not super confident in my Spanish, but it was so much easier to talk with her. We all hung out in her kitchen, helped her cook and clean while just talking about whatever came to mind. Outside her niece was frying the plantains over the fire, while her mother was roasting and drying her coffee beans. She got the beans from a nearby town, dried them, and roasted them with sugar over the fire before she used the machine next to the fire to grind the beans which moments later would become delicious coffee. The outside part of the house where this was going on, of course, had an incredible view and a hammock from which you can enjoy it. The family was so incredibly kind and welcoming and I enjoyed every moment- especially when Delmi kept having us try the food as she was cooking. The rest of the gringo crew came around 12:30 and we all hung around before the lunch feast. It’s incredible that the volunteers/workers here were all so welcomed into her home because we work with S2S. It’s amazing how being here long term really does make you a part of the community here. I really can’t wrap my mind around it all—just the scene of all of us coming together to enjoy each other’s company and share a delicious meal in the house of a friend. Perhaps it’s the complete cheeseball in me, but it was great. After hours of food and fun, we made the trek back to the clinic in the pouring rain. Which didn’t phase any of us; we were excited to enjoy the rainy season. We were also under the impression that the bus was close, so we rushed to pack everything up, only to find out that we actually had about 40 minutes. We were all soaking wet when we finally got on the bus—it was absolutely packed, so we stood in the aisles. Later, people would just hang on to the sides, or climb on the roof- buses here are impressive, especially how they handle the roads here during the rainy season when the roads are mudslides and lakes. Again, it was a blast. I can only imagine the sight- 5 gringas with their packs and soaking wet clothes crammed in the aisle laughing hysterically at each other. We made friends with some of the people around us- Ashley especially because, being that she is nearly 6 ft, she had to hunch over in order to fit. A man was kind enough to give her his seat and the rest of them enjoyed watching us joke around. Definitely had another one of those moments where I thought to myself, “is this my life?” and a huge smile came across my face. I won’t go into the random things that happened, but after 2 or 3 hours we made it back to SL and it was pouring. We jumped off the bus and because it was raining so hard, Karla lost her shoes to the river that had been formed on the side of the road. We made it back into the clinic, and the power went out- like I said, never a dull moment. Generator kicked in, so we all sat down and enjoyed the dinner Janell made; it was great to catch up and share stories.
I could write a ton more about things, but I’ve rambled enough…I’ll post more pictures after the clinic this afternoon. I may be having an English class after clinic hours...should be fun.
Oh and I'm posting a pic of "plato tipico"- which we have for breakfast a lot here, for those of you who ask me about the (delicious) food