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.