yesterday one of the people that kristyn talked to was this older couple with children about our age - they looked older than our parents though. they were traveling around peru and volunteering on medical missions as well and then doing tourist thingys. anyway, kristyn chatted with them for awhile and talked about what we were doing. as we walked away, kristyn overhead (i didn´t because i am deaf, thankfully my travel companion has the hearing of a bat) the women say,
"it must be so much fun being them right now!"
she is right, it is a lot of fun to be us, i don´t think that we appreciate that every moment. we have this really great opportunity that a lot of people don´t have. the majority of our friends in iquitos have never seen machu picchu and many never will because of the expense. we really have been blessed in our lives and on this trip.
beyond this trip i need to remember how fortunate i am. the next few weeks will be some of the best of my life and i plan to enjoy them!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
answered prayers
kristyn and i started a list of answered prayers and i wanted to at least start a post of them while they were still fresh. this list is not comprehensive, but serves as a good reminder of who has kept us safe throughout our trip!
1) safe flights that lined up well and entertaining travel companions
2) picking up spanish somewhat quickly, thanks to Dr Luna Victoria´s NO ENGLISH edict to the staff
3) friends who kidnap us and take us places, especially when they take us places not in the guidebook
4) Docs who visit from the US and give us credibility when we can answer their questions in English
5) friends who speak English and can help us learn and understand more
6) patients that need us (mostly English speaking ones)
7) a good apple pie
8) edible food
9) no choleric/bedridden sickness
10) being able to have meaningful conversations with people in spanish
11) surviving our jungle trek, getting a boat ride home late at night and not having to sleep in the jungle
12) getting into machu picchu and having plenty of time to enjoy it
13) not dying in a bus coming down from machu picchu
1) safe flights that lined up well and entertaining travel companions
2) picking up spanish somewhat quickly, thanks to Dr Luna Victoria´s NO ENGLISH edict to the staff
3) friends who kidnap us and take us places, especially when they take us places not in the guidebook
4) Docs who visit from the US and give us credibility when we can answer their questions in English
5) friends who speak English and can help us learn and understand more
6) patients that need us (mostly English speaking ones)
7) a good apple pie
8) edible food
9) no choleric/bedridden sickness
10) being able to have meaningful conversations with people in spanish
11) surviving our jungle trek, getting a boat ride home late at night and not having to sleep in the jungle
12) getting into machu picchu and having plenty of time to enjoy it
13) not dying in a bus coming down from machu picchu
it takes a lot to scare me....usually
so we left machu picchu at 5 and napped for the train ride back to the bus station which i think was about 2 hours. when we changed to the bus, i did not feel like sitting for another 2 hours (my butt was also sore)! i was a bit grumpy, i won´t lie. there were about 20 buses or more filled with people and since i was anxious to get home, i was happy when our driver was agressive getting out of the parking lot and cut off other drivers.
the rest of the ride, this aggressiveness was a lot less appreciated by kristyn and i. it was dark and the roads are steep and windy! there were times when i was so freaked out that i had to close my eyes, okay to be honest, my eyes were closed over half the time because i was scared. you know those yellow signs warning you of a sharp curve ahead?? well those were EVERYWHERE and he ignored them, there was even one that looked like a U-turn which to me says (come to nearly a complete stop before encountering), i am pretty sure we hit that at 60 kph!! most people know that i can drive a little fast and even on curvy roads, but this was ridiculous. i have never felt so unsafe in my life - i think - maybe i shouldn´t be writing this for parental eyes, but in the end we were safe and nearly kissed the ground when we got off the bus. we cataloged the face of the bus driver along with the face of the boat driver to monkey island under the category, never let him drive you anywhere ever again.
no more buses for us thankfully, we are just going to walk and wander and prolly take taxis from now on!!
the rest of the ride, this aggressiveness was a lot less appreciated by kristyn and i. it was dark and the roads are steep and windy! there were times when i was so freaked out that i had to close my eyes, okay to be honest, my eyes were closed over half the time because i was scared. you know those yellow signs warning you of a sharp curve ahead?? well those were EVERYWHERE and he ignored them, there was even one that looked like a U-turn which to me says (come to nearly a complete stop before encountering), i am pretty sure we hit that at 60 kph!! most people know that i can drive a little fast and even on curvy roads, but this was ridiculous. i have never felt so unsafe in my life - i think - maybe i shouldn´t be writing this for parental eyes, but in the end we were safe and nearly kissed the ground when we got off the bus. we cataloged the face of the bus driver along with the face of the boat driver to monkey island under the category, never let him drive you anywhere ever again.
no more buses for us thankfully, we are just going to walk and wander and prolly take taxis from now on!!
machu picchu for reals
words can´t describe and neither can pictures what i saw yesterday. now don´t worry, we attempted to capture this place in pictures as the 400 plus photos on my camera can attest (sidenote to Al: for the first time in the history of my camera/memory card that little number in the corner is under 9999!! i guess you only need to take 2000 or more photos plus video to get there).
we both decided that not only to we have to go back, but we need to take our families with us. both of us thought of our parents and how much they would enjoy those peaks, i decided that my sister would love to make the 5 day hike with me to machu picchu along the incan trail. we both decided that we could sit there for ever and just stare, which we did for some time.
we walked and snapped hundreds of photos and even did some funny shots around the ruins, we met other tourists (who kristyn struck up conversations with, and she says that i´m the extrovert) and in general just enjoyed the place. we didn´t take a guide, we just decided to wander and soak it all in...there was a lot to soak!!
i find myself running out of words to talk about this place and it makes me sad, so all of you will just have to go and see it for yourself!! it truly was worth the effort and expense!
we both decided that not only to we have to go back, but we need to take our families with us. both of us thought of our parents and how much they would enjoy those peaks, i decided that my sister would love to make the 5 day hike with me to machu picchu along the incan trail. we both decided that we could sit there for ever and just stare, which we did for some time.
we walked and snapped hundreds of photos and even did some funny shots around the ruins, we met other tourists (who kristyn struck up conversations with, and she says that i´m the extrovert) and in general just enjoyed the place. we didn´t take a guide, we just decided to wander and soak it all in...there was a lot to soak!!
i find myself running out of words to talk about this place and it makes me sad, so all of you will just have to go and see it for yourself!! it truly was worth the effort and expense!
a prelude to machu picchu
okay, so i have decided that kristyn and i can do nothing without drama...not drama between us or created by us but drama nonetheless. we get into these situations and have no idea how they happened, like our adventure on the river trekking through the jungle. all of these moments have turned out to be the best examples of God´s watching over us and protecting us during our travels. despite the stress, we have come to appreciate the opportunities to see God´s hand and also to have adventures, because basically, when things don´t go the way you plan and you are stranded in a foreign country, that is when you have an adventure. and machu picchu became an adventure, although an unintentional one.
so early yesterday morning we made our way to the train station to catch a bus. the only way to get to machu picchu is by train but due to recent flooding and damage to the tracks, it is now necessary to take a bus up to a temporary train station near ollantayumbo and from there take the train. our bus ride was uneventful and we got to the train half an hour before departure. we had left too early to get breakfast at the hostel, so we shared pastries and coffee at a roadside stand. the coffee was heavenly and quite necessary as we each got less than 4 hours of sleep the night before.
so we got on the train and didn´t have seats next to each other, so we each got to meet some new people. kristyn met a couple from colorado and i some friends from wisconsin. the train ride was quite long because the train is kinda slow, it goes right along a winding river and at times i couldn´t see any bank between the train side and the drop off to the river. it was a beautiful view.
we got off the train and rushed to the bus that we read would take us to machu picchu. i had forgotten that i read something about buying your tickets by the bus station and so we boarded the bus and headed to the top. when we got there our adventure began....
i say we, because two guys we had met earlier on the buses were the only other 2 people who didn´t have a tour guide and so they followed us. getting to machu picchu is expensive enough and we didn´t want to add the expense of a guide. kristyn and i are pretty good at getting around and so they followed us, we just missed the ticket part and we discovered upon reaching the top (a half hour bus ride costing $7 a person) that you can´t buy tickets at the top, only in the town below. the people working at machu picchu said the bus people should have told us, but nobody did.
this part won´t surprise anyone who knows me well, but i almost started bawling, like my face and mind went into that irrational panic mode that i go into in crisis´ - and this is one of the most amazing things to me, that kristyn always sees that panic and stops it immediately (gently of course which i appreciate). there are times when i have it all together, but when i don´t, i can always count on kristyn to keep me together - so as a side note, i have to say that God blessed me with kristyn as a travel companion - so anyway, kristyn wouldn´t let me panic, the boys she had less control over and they started arguing with the people working there and doing other non-productive things. kristyn and i prepared to pay $14 roundtrip to go back down and buy tickets but then decided to ask one of the guides for help.
her name was ruth and if you ask me she looked a little bit like an angel. she arranged for a guy to go down and buy all the tickets for us (he worked there so he could go down for free), they would only charge us the cost of one round trip ticket (what we would have paid if only one of us went down to get the tickets) for their trouble. the freakin´ guys were upset that she would charge us even that (by this point kristyn and i were ready to lose them), she really saved us though because it was so much easier for a peruvian to go down and do the arrangements and it only cost us an extra $3 each. she even arranged for us to go in the park before the guy returned with our tickets, we only needed to sacrifice our passports until we exited! i was a little nervous about giving up my passport, but it would be held in the office until we exited (long story short, when we left our passports were there as well as the tickets, we got our ticket stub and passport and thanked God for his angels who saved us time and money).
so anyway, i don´t want this adventure to detract from machu picchu, so it gets it´s own post!!
so early yesterday morning we made our way to the train station to catch a bus. the only way to get to machu picchu is by train but due to recent flooding and damage to the tracks, it is now necessary to take a bus up to a temporary train station near ollantayumbo and from there take the train. our bus ride was uneventful and we got to the train half an hour before departure. we had left too early to get breakfast at the hostel, so we shared pastries and coffee at a roadside stand. the coffee was heavenly and quite necessary as we each got less than 4 hours of sleep the night before.
so we got on the train and didn´t have seats next to each other, so we each got to meet some new people. kristyn met a couple from colorado and i some friends from wisconsin. the train ride was quite long because the train is kinda slow, it goes right along a winding river and at times i couldn´t see any bank between the train side and the drop off to the river. it was a beautiful view.
we got off the train and rushed to the bus that we read would take us to machu picchu. i had forgotten that i read something about buying your tickets by the bus station and so we boarded the bus and headed to the top. when we got there our adventure began....
i say we, because two guys we had met earlier on the buses were the only other 2 people who didn´t have a tour guide and so they followed us. getting to machu picchu is expensive enough and we didn´t want to add the expense of a guide. kristyn and i are pretty good at getting around and so they followed us, we just missed the ticket part and we discovered upon reaching the top (a half hour bus ride costing $7 a person) that you can´t buy tickets at the top, only in the town below. the people working at machu picchu said the bus people should have told us, but nobody did.
this part won´t surprise anyone who knows me well, but i almost started bawling, like my face and mind went into that irrational panic mode that i go into in crisis´ - and this is one of the most amazing things to me, that kristyn always sees that panic and stops it immediately (gently of course which i appreciate). there are times when i have it all together, but when i don´t, i can always count on kristyn to keep me together - so as a side note, i have to say that God blessed me with kristyn as a travel companion - so anyway, kristyn wouldn´t let me panic, the boys she had less control over and they started arguing with the people working there and doing other non-productive things. kristyn and i prepared to pay $14 roundtrip to go back down and buy tickets but then decided to ask one of the guides for help.
her name was ruth and if you ask me she looked a little bit like an angel. she arranged for a guy to go down and buy all the tickets for us (he worked there so he could go down for free), they would only charge us the cost of one round trip ticket (what we would have paid if only one of us went down to get the tickets) for their trouble. the freakin´ guys were upset that she would charge us even that (by this point kristyn and i were ready to lose them), she really saved us though because it was so much easier for a peruvian to go down and do the arrangements and it only cost us an extra $3 each. she even arranged for us to go in the park before the guy returned with our tickets, we only needed to sacrifice our passports until we exited! i was a little nervous about giving up my passport, but it would be held in the office until we exited (long story short, when we left our passports were there as well as the tickets, we got our ticket stub and passport and thanked God for his angels who saved us time and money).
so anyway, i don´t want this adventure to detract from machu picchu, so it gets it´s own post!!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Two days in Cusco
so we have now been in cusco for 2 days and have really seen a lot in those two days. yesterday was the day to see all of the incan worship places close to the city (koricancha, sacsayhuaman, qénqo, pukapukara, and tambomachay). other than that, it was just a day to get familiar with the city, relax and catch up on our sleep.
this morning, we headed out for the sacred valley tour. we hit the pisac mercado and ruins, uruamba where we had a yummy buffet lunch, ollantaytambo, chinchero mercado and ruins, before we headed home. the trip took all day, but it was worth it! we met some fun guys from brazil who taught us a few portugese words, some girls from lima who were lost with us for a few minutes, and a friend from switzerland who is like an exchange student of sorts! it was a fun group and we enjoyed hiking around all the ruins. there were some moments in the bus where the edge of the road felt a tad too close for my liking, especially where flooding or rock slides had taken out part of the road and all of the guard rail. we did come upon a bus vs. car accident in the night, but the ambulance arrived as we were passing so we hoped we were not needed, a rumor wafted by that the driver of the car was already dead, but we hope not.
tomorrow is machu pichu and we are really looking forward to it. the train usually takes you all the way there, but because of flooding, we have to take a bus part of the way and then catch a train. it should be an experience of a lifetime!!
this morning, we headed out for the sacred valley tour. we hit the pisac mercado and ruins, uruamba where we had a yummy buffet lunch, ollantaytambo, chinchero mercado and ruins, before we headed home. the trip took all day, but it was worth it! we met some fun guys from brazil who taught us a few portugese words, some girls from lima who were lost with us for a few minutes, and a friend from switzerland who is like an exchange student of sorts! it was a fun group and we enjoyed hiking around all the ruins. there were some moments in the bus where the edge of the road felt a tad too close for my liking, especially where flooding or rock slides had taken out part of the road and all of the guard rail. we did come upon a bus vs. car accident in the night, but the ambulance arrived as we were passing so we hoped we were not needed, a rumor wafted by that the driver of the car was already dead, but we hope not.
tomorrow is machu pichu and we are really looking forward to it. the train usually takes you all the way there, but because of flooding, we have to take a bus part of the way and then catch a train. it should be an experience of a lifetime!!
our last few days in iquitos, and a doosey of an adventure
well time is flying by and i feel like there are so many memories to log and so little time. i am not even sure where i stopped talking last....i think it was sunday or monday
so monday night, we went out for burgers with christian and cynthia again at this cute little place near cynthia´s mom´s house, it was AMAZING, like life changing! then we went back and watched a movie with them, now i realize i already said this i think, but it definitely was noteworthy...
so tuesday, cynthia had a ceremony in lima to go to for her nursing graduation and so she was gone, so we talked christian into taking us to another burger place which was pretty good too. it really entertained us that we all had burgers and pops for like $3 total. during the day i don´t think we did too much noteworthy, except maybe work in the ER and buy souvenirs...before dinner we worked in the ER with christian for awhile too and diagnosed a case of dengue.
wednesday was a day of adventures...we had heard from friends about this monkey island, but nobody around the hospital really knew much about it so we had to ask our friend Jimmy (a local tour guide/translator), he took me to the port that morning and talked with some drivers and gave me our options, we could go to the island for about $5 each on a public boat and then catch one to come back (but not one specifically for us) so there was risk involved. or we could pay $60 total and have a private boat take us there and back. we talked and decided to save money and take a risk.
cynthia had agreed to go with us since she had the day off (she had no idea what she was in for). jimmy had arranged for the driver to take us to the entrance of monkey island, but he was either a fool or dishonest because he dropped us off at this island in the middle of nowhere and said that the island was a 10 minute walk through the jungle, some people on the boat yelled at him and said the entrance was on the other side and that he shouldn´t leave 3 girls alone off in the middle of the jungle. cynthia talked with him but he insisted that it was a short walk and that everyone did it, so we watched the bus pull away and started along the path for our little trek, we were a bit nervous but okay until the path ended...so that´s when i announced that i was a pathfinder (conquistador) and had an excellent sense of direction so i took the lead--- basically all i did was follow the shoreline through the jungle. we walked and walked for 10, 15, 20 minutes and no sign of civilization. there were beautiful flowers, and GIGANTIC bugs, mostly mosquitos but also some other spiders and wierd other crazy UFOs...i at one point saw a giant lizard (like the size of a pet iguana) that was bright green and blue run across the path (when cynthia asked the guy at the island about this, he said that i must have seen a mystical jungle creature because he didn´t know of any such animal)...there were seriously swarms of mosquitos and my back was covered in ugly red bites, but we trekked on...there were lots of prayers sent up because we were seriously on an island in the amazon trekking through the jungle with just our clothes and my trusty camera. cynthia was born in iquitos but lived in arequippa and lima most of her life so she wasnt any more jungle savvy than us. we kept asking her if she would ever go anywhere with us again.
so, after 30 minutes of walking, we came into a clearing with buidlings and were attacked by monkeys. one, named jorge, immediately jumped on cynthia and started playfully biting her. they were everywhere and very curious. the guides of the island came over and welcomed us, wondering where we were coming from. when they heard what the boat driver did, they were pretty upset and said that nobody had come that way for months and that he shouldn´t have left us there. anyway, we were there safe and enjoyed walking around and seeing all the different types of monkeys, playing with them, and feeding them bananas.
when it was time to leave, the owners had a friend with a canoe pick us up and take us to where we could catch a speedboat, the sun was low in the sky and it was a perfect ride to the port. when we left, the guides told us to come earlier in the day next time when we would have time to walk through the jungle, i didn´t have the heart to remind him that we already had!!
so anyway, we get to this port and there are tons of people waiting for a boat to iquitos with tons of stuff, one rapido came and people like rushed it, so many got on that we thought the boat would sink. we couldn´t get on and we heard someone say that the crew on the boat was drunk, so we were glad we didn´t get it, but it was getting dark and we had to get home. thankfully, our angels were watching over us and one more boat came and took us safely home to iquitos. it was a great ride back in the cool air with lightning flashing all around us (only lightning, no thunder oddly enough). it was a great adventure but we did get back late and we were worried that christian wouldn´t let cynthia hang out with us anymore since we were obviously bad influences, but he did and so we were happy.
we were really dirty from the monkeys crawling all over us and the jungle trek and so we went home and showered before going out dancing with some friends! it was a lot of fun and they taught us some traditional dances, i am not so good at dancing because i am white and adventist, but it was still fun. kristyn showed them her favorite moves too!
thursday was a day of packing, a little bit of ER, and some last minute goodbyes before the afternoon came. we had planned to cook for our friends from the nauta trip (jose, silvia, jackie, and maria). we decided to make chinese, so we descended on silvia´s little kitchen and made rice and stirfry vegetables with a peanut sauce. it turned out pretty good and they liked it. jackie made a big orange cake in this oven looking thing which was pretty yummy. it was nice to spend time with friends our last night. we played our ipod and they played some peruvian music for us! it was a good night.
after dinner we went back and finished packing and writing thank you notes. it was a really good last night. in the morning, we said some last goodbyes and cynthia and christian walked us to the ambulance. we hugged goodbye and took one last picture - i of course burst into tears, all of us girls were crying. the ride to the airport was pretty quiet. we caught our flight and said goodbye to iquitos, for now at least!
so monday night, we went out for burgers with christian and cynthia again at this cute little place near cynthia´s mom´s house, it was AMAZING, like life changing! then we went back and watched a movie with them, now i realize i already said this i think, but it definitely was noteworthy...
so tuesday, cynthia had a ceremony in lima to go to for her nursing graduation and so she was gone, so we talked christian into taking us to another burger place which was pretty good too. it really entertained us that we all had burgers and pops for like $3 total. during the day i don´t think we did too much noteworthy, except maybe work in the ER and buy souvenirs...before dinner we worked in the ER with christian for awhile too and diagnosed a case of dengue.
wednesday was a day of adventures...we had heard from friends about this monkey island, but nobody around the hospital really knew much about it so we had to ask our friend Jimmy (a local tour guide/translator), he took me to the port that morning and talked with some drivers and gave me our options, we could go to the island for about $5 each on a public boat and then catch one to come back (but not one specifically for us) so there was risk involved. or we could pay $60 total and have a private boat take us there and back. we talked and decided to save money and take a risk.
cynthia had agreed to go with us since she had the day off (she had no idea what she was in for). jimmy had arranged for the driver to take us to the entrance of monkey island, but he was either a fool or dishonest because he dropped us off at this island in the middle of nowhere and said that the island was a 10 minute walk through the jungle, some people on the boat yelled at him and said the entrance was on the other side and that he shouldn´t leave 3 girls alone off in the middle of the jungle. cynthia talked with him but he insisted that it was a short walk and that everyone did it, so we watched the bus pull away and started along the path for our little trek, we were a bit nervous but okay until the path ended...so that´s when i announced that i was a pathfinder (conquistador) and had an excellent sense of direction so i took the lead--- basically all i did was follow the shoreline through the jungle. we walked and walked for 10, 15, 20 minutes and no sign of civilization. there were beautiful flowers, and GIGANTIC bugs, mostly mosquitos but also some other spiders and wierd other crazy UFOs...i at one point saw a giant lizard (like the size of a pet iguana) that was bright green and blue run across the path (when cynthia asked the guy at the island about this, he said that i must have seen a mystical jungle creature because he didn´t know of any such animal)...there were seriously swarms of mosquitos and my back was covered in ugly red bites, but we trekked on...there were lots of prayers sent up because we were seriously on an island in the amazon trekking through the jungle with just our clothes and my trusty camera. cynthia was born in iquitos but lived in arequippa and lima most of her life so she wasnt any more jungle savvy than us. we kept asking her if she would ever go anywhere with us again.
so, after 30 minutes of walking, we came into a clearing with buidlings and were attacked by monkeys. one, named jorge, immediately jumped on cynthia and started playfully biting her. they were everywhere and very curious. the guides of the island came over and welcomed us, wondering where we were coming from. when they heard what the boat driver did, they were pretty upset and said that nobody had come that way for months and that he shouldn´t have left us there. anyway, we were there safe and enjoyed walking around and seeing all the different types of monkeys, playing with them, and feeding them bananas.
when it was time to leave, the owners had a friend with a canoe pick us up and take us to where we could catch a speedboat, the sun was low in the sky and it was a perfect ride to the port. when we left, the guides told us to come earlier in the day next time when we would have time to walk through the jungle, i didn´t have the heart to remind him that we already had!!
so anyway, we get to this port and there are tons of people waiting for a boat to iquitos with tons of stuff, one rapido came and people like rushed it, so many got on that we thought the boat would sink. we couldn´t get on and we heard someone say that the crew on the boat was drunk, so we were glad we didn´t get it, but it was getting dark and we had to get home. thankfully, our angels were watching over us and one more boat came and took us safely home to iquitos. it was a great ride back in the cool air with lightning flashing all around us (only lightning, no thunder oddly enough). it was a great adventure but we did get back late and we were worried that christian wouldn´t let cynthia hang out with us anymore since we were obviously bad influences, but he did and so we were happy.
we were really dirty from the monkeys crawling all over us and the jungle trek and so we went home and showered before going out dancing with some friends! it was a lot of fun and they taught us some traditional dances, i am not so good at dancing because i am white and adventist, but it was still fun. kristyn showed them her favorite moves too!
thursday was a day of packing, a little bit of ER, and some last minute goodbyes before the afternoon came. we had planned to cook for our friends from the nauta trip (jose, silvia, jackie, and maria). we decided to make chinese, so we descended on silvia´s little kitchen and made rice and stirfry vegetables with a peanut sauce. it turned out pretty good and they liked it. jackie made a big orange cake in this oven looking thing which was pretty yummy. it was nice to spend time with friends our last night. we played our ipod and they played some peruvian music for us! it was a good night.
after dinner we went back and finished packing and writing thank you notes. it was a really good last night. in the morning, we said some last goodbyes and cynthia and christian walked us to the ambulance. we hugged goodbye and took one last picture - i of course burst into tears, all of us girls were crying. the ride to the airport was pretty quiet. we caught our flight and said goodbye to iquitos, for now at least!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
a day in lima
so we had a quick day in lima before we headed to cusco and i guess i will talk about that before i talk about our last few days in iquitos, i want to save those memories for another time when i am less tired and dont have people breathing down my neck to use the computers!
anyway, we arrived in lima and were supposed to be picked up by our hostel. i hadnt had a chance to check my email that morning and didnt get the email that they needed reconfirmation from me so they didnt send anyway...we obtained this info by calling kristyns daddy who saved the day by going into my email and reading to us that ¨the matrimonial suite we had requested was not available but they could book us a dorm room¨for the record, i did not ask for the matrimonial suite, just a dorm room.
anyway in our stress we were helped by a cab driver who took us to the address we indicated but turned out to be a different hostel, but he was super nice and arranged to have us picked up at 330 the next morning and taken to the airport. the hostel turned out to be lots of fun and still be serving breakfast so we got some yummy coffee which we didnt realize how much we missed.
we decided to go to the Museo de Oro and went out to catch a taxi. the museum is full of golden pieces from ancient peruvian civilizations including the incas and then has a whole floor of instruments of war. it was interesting. afterward we took another cab to the plaza de armas to walk around. we were most impressed with our day that we could have good conversations with all of our spanish speaking cab drivers.
the cab back to our hotel got stuck in traffic and we missed meeting up with friends of our friend Cynthia who work at the adventist clinic. we decided to have dinner and then just hung out on the patio of the hostel and got to know some nice israeli travelers staying there. it was a really good night, but my sleep was interupted by my alarm at 230 am before coming here.
we decided we didnt like how huge and expensive and unknown lima is - cusco has been a lot better though, i will tell you more about that later, but God continues to watch over us!
anyway, we arrived in lima and were supposed to be picked up by our hostel. i hadnt had a chance to check my email that morning and didnt get the email that they needed reconfirmation from me so they didnt send anyway...we obtained this info by calling kristyns daddy who saved the day by going into my email and reading to us that ¨the matrimonial suite we had requested was not available but they could book us a dorm room¨for the record, i did not ask for the matrimonial suite, just a dorm room.
anyway in our stress we were helped by a cab driver who took us to the address we indicated but turned out to be a different hostel, but he was super nice and arranged to have us picked up at 330 the next morning and taken to the airport. the hostel turned out to be lots of fun and still be serving breakfast so we got some yummy coffee which we didnt realize how much we missed.
we decided to go to the Museo de Oro and went out to catch a taxi. the museum is full of golden pieces from ancient peruvian civilizations including the incas and then has a whole floor of instruments of war. it was interesting. afterward we took another cab to the plaza de armas to walk around. we were most impressed with our day that we could have good conversations with all of our spanish speaking cab drivers.
the cab back to our hotel got stuck in traffic and we missed meeting up with friends of our friend Cynthia who work at the adventist clinic. we decided to have dinner and then just hung out on the patio of the hostel and got to know some nice israeli travelers staying there. it was a really good night, but my sleep was interupted by my alarm at 230 am before coming here.
we decided we didnt like how huge and expensive and unknown lima is - cusco has been a lot better though, i will tell you more about that later, but God continues to watch over us!
Pariwana
so i had to quickly run off because i had a bathroom emergency/urgency. don´t worry though, it wasn´t the kind caused by an intestinal guest, but the kind caused by overconsumption of coffee this morning (secondary to our early flight which required us to leave our hostel at 330 am).so we are staying in the same hostel here as in lima. we liked the one in lima and decided to stay in the sister hotel in iquitos. it´s the pariwana hostel (pariwana is a quechua word for a type of bird that has a legend that i should know but don´t remember,[i looked it up, it´s the name of the bird that gives the coulors to the peruvian flag, it is also the name of the andean flamingo that hngs around the shore mountains and the jungle of peru] oh and quechua is the native language of cusco), so the hostel is nice. we could have had a private room in a hotel for about the same price (Supposedly) but we opted to stay in the dorm style hostel instead for the social aspect. last night it was nice to hang out with other travelers and it seems to be a part of the experience. they also have hot showers which is a gift from God after a long month of cold showers. most amazing of all are the beds, seriously, they are like heaven...i have a pretty nice mattress at home because my mommy bought it for me (and she greatly values a good night´s sleep) and this mattress rivals that one for comfort, the pillow and comforter are down with a brightly covered duvet cover. it gets cold here at night which i love and i cuddle down into my heavenly bed, the sleep is AMAZING. getting to our room is a little difficult, the hostel is around a central courtyard, but the hallways to our room are a little winding and if my sense of direction was a little less sharply honed, i would definitely get lost. there is free breakfast everyday and then movie nights and live music most nights. the best part is free internet, but there are only 3 computers so sometimes you have to wait for awhile. the place is really colorful, maybe a bit hippy, but that´s to be expected. it´s safe tho which is important to us and has places to lock up our stuff, and it´s less than $10 a night which u can´t beat!!
oh and it´s real cold in cusco which i like, but kristyn is not happy, so prayers for a little more warmth would be appreciated by kristyn! :) during the day it really isn´t too bad, we both have even gotten some sun which we can´t complain about!
oh and it´s real cold in cusco which i like, but kristyn is not happy, so prayers for a little more warmth would be appreciated by kristyn! :) during the day it really isn´t too bad, we both have even gotten some sun which we can´t complain about!
long time coming
well there have been no posts lately because we have been sooooo busy! we just had too much fun with our iquitos friends and had no time to update. i will have to fill you all in on our adventures another time when i have more energy.
right now we are in cusco, we flew to lima early yesterday morning, spent the day there and flew to cusco early this morning. we will be here 4 days before flying back to lima.
more posts are coming but for now, chao!
right now we are in cusco, we flew to lima early yesterday morning, spent the day there and flew to cusco early this morning. we will be here 4 days before flying back to lima.
more posts are coming but for now, chao!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
our tarea (homework)
so i mentioned before that our friend cynthia learned english through movies and music...she said that we could do the same so at first we watched an hour of telanovelas a day....we soon got bored because we had trouble following the story line and since then have not been as diligent about doing our homework!
but saturday night, we decided to be good students and go to the movie theatre to watch Clash of the Titans in Spanish. when we got to the ticket window, the girl selling the tickets made sure to confirm that it was all in Spanish! we laughed and said we knew that and were okay with it. it actually turned out to be a good movie to watch in Spanish as it has more action and less dialogue and is thus a bit easier to follow than other movies are. i am sure i missed a few of the finer details but for the most part we laughed at appropriate moments (however i did not cry at all, nobody else did, but a movie without tears is probably a movie not fully understood).
anyway, it was a good experience to say we did and was a fun saturday night activity! hopefully we will keep doing our homework and getting better at this Spanish thing...
but saturday night, we decided to be good students and go to the movie theatre to watch Clash of the Titans in Spanish. when we got to the ticket window, the girl selling the tickets made sure to confirm that it was all in Spanish! we laughed and said we knew that and were okay with it. it actually turned out to be a good movie to watch in Spanish as it has more action and less dialogue and is thus a bit easier to follow than other movies are. i am sure i missed a few of the finer details but for the most part we laughed at appropriate moments (however i did not cry at all, nobody else did, but a movie without tears is probably a movie not fully understood).
anyway, it was a good experience to say we did and was a fun saturday night activity! hopefully we will keep doing our homework and getting better at this Spanish thing...
pie de manzanas
so the apple pie, what an experience. kristyn and i both like to cook a lot and we wanted to cook for our friends. we wanted to make something uber american and apple pie came to mind. finding an oven was a little technically difficult, but our friend christian hooked us up with his mother-in-law´s oven. so we had plans to make the pie on sunday.
so friday we went shopping for supplies for the pie and i was disturbed when i couldn´t find shortening, butter, or ground cinnamon. we found out from a friend that Pyramid was the better supermarket so we took the long motorcar ride there and found everything but the cinnamon, we went back to our local market and thankfully found some ground cinnamon. i double checked the recipe in my head with me mom and the baking info...mom said i was brave for the attempt, which i must admit added to my nervousness. pies are hard to do, my mom makes it look easy and hers always turn out perfect, mine are getting better, but they still give me a hard time.
so sunday rolls around and we got to cynthia´s house a little late, so we were a bit rushed. kristyn was working on the filling and i did the crust. cynthia´s cousin david is a chef and his watchful eye made me a tad bit more nervous! anyway, they didn´t have a rolling pin so i improvised with kristyn´s nalgene (which still has some flour in the threads, oops) and no wax paper made the transfer to the pie dish impossible, so it became a patchwork crust - we finally got it all together and it didn´t look too bad. i put a big M on the top (for manzana) and as i put it in the oven, cynthia´s mom asked me if it was hot enough - they don´t have temperature settings so i had to stick my hand in and see if it felt hot enough....it did.
anyway, so we ate lunch and everyone was too full for pie so we were gonna save it for after swimming. the whole time we were swimming i was nervous that it wasn´t gonna turn out well because we had talked up this pie for quite a while. i seriously prayed a lot that it would turn out okay (because Jesus hears every care of our heart!) .
when we finally cut the pie and it looked okay, i felt a bit better and as it turns out it was pretty good after all. the cinnamon here is a bit different, but it still was something mom could eat (and she is pretty snobby when it comes to apple pie, which she should be since hers is amazing).
anyway, it was an adventure, but we made it work. the hardest part was the next day when cynthia told all the nurses that we made pie de manzanas and then i had to explain to all of them how u make an apple pie in spanish...it may have been the worse explanation ever, complete with hand motions and cynthia yelling translations from the other room where she was working...hopefully none of the nurses try to do it with just those instructions!! danger!!
so friday we went shopping for supplies for the pie and i was disturbed when i couldn´t find shortening, butter, or ground cinnamon. we found out from a friend that Pyramid was the better supermarket so we took the long motorcar ride there and found everything but the cinnamon, we went back to our local market and thankfully found some ground cinnamon. i double checked the recipe in my head with me mom and the baking info...mom said i was brave for the attempt, which i must admit added to my nervousness. pies are hard to do, my mom makes it look easy and hers always turn out perfect, mine are getting better, but they still give me a hard time.
so sunday rolls around and we got to cynthia´s house a little late, so we were a bit rushed. kristyn was working on the filling and i did the crust. cynthia´s cousin david is a chef and his watchful eye made me a tad bit more nervous! anyway, they didn´t have a rolling pin so i improvised with kristyn´s nalgene (which still has some flour in the threads, oops) and no wax paper made the transfer to the pie dish impossible, so it became a patchwork crust - we finally got it all together and it didn´t look too bad. i put a big M on the top (for manzana) and as i put it in the oven, cynthia´s mom asked me if it was hot enough - they don´t have temperature settings so i had to stick my hand in and see if it felt hot enough....it did.
anyway, so we ate lunch and everyone was too full for pie so we were gonna save it for after swimming. the whole time we were swimming i was nervous that it wasn´t gonna turn out well because we had talked up this pie for quite a while. i seriously prayed a lot that it would turn out okay (because Jesus hears every care of our heart!) .
when we finally cut the pie and it looked okay, i felt a bit better and as it turns out it was pretty good after all. the cinnamon here is a bit different, but it still was something mom could eat (and she is pretty snobby when it comes to apple pie, which she should be since hers is amazing).
anyway, it was an adventure, but we made it work. the hardest part was the next day when cynthia told all the nurses that we made pie de manzanas and then i had to explain to all of them how u make an apple pie in spanish...it may have been the worse explanation ever, complete with hand motions and cynthia yelling translations from the other room where she was working...hopefully none of the nurses try to do it with just those instructions!! danger!!
jesus loves us
okay, so there will be a post soon listing all of the answers to prayers that kristyn and i have had on this trip, we are still in the process of compiling all of the amazing things that have happened.
today though i wanted to talk about one of the greatest answers to prayers:friendship. kristyn and i prayed a lot for friends. i remembered how one of the greatest things about nepal was the PT Yvonne and how she had taught me so much about the area and the people and the culture. that´s what i wanted here, and we have been blessed beyond belief with amazing friends here, such great ones that we are really sad to be leaving in a few days, like really really sad, like kristyn has given me puppy dog eyes when i say we can´t change our flight sad!!!
this past weekend was a lot of fun because we spent a lot of time with christian and cynthia, he´s a doctor we work with a lot and she is one of the nurses...they got married the first weekend we were here and they have proved to be very dear friends. cynthia taught herself english by watching english television and movies and listening to music (i think she´s somewhat a genius because she makes it sound easy and it definitely is not) and christian likes to pretend he doesn´t know english when he basically understands everything we say. cynthia is really helpful at explaining things and teaching, christian helps us learn to listen to fast talking!! sabbath was christian´s birthday and so sunday they were going to his in-laws for a nice lunch and they invited kristyn and i to come. we had been talking about wanting to make an apple pie (as it is super american) and they had an oven we could use...the apple pie will be in the next post. anyway, we had a lovely lunch of fettucini alfredo (with lots of garlic so you know it was good) and afterwards we went to the Sol'Orient hotel where Cynthia´s cousin David works and swam in the pool - it was a hot day and the pool felt so good. We taught christian and cynthia how to play marco polo, but both christian and i cheated. the hotel used to be an old dairy and now it is hecka nice, they even had a zoo with jungle animals...i tried to steal an anteater/elephant looking thing that liked to suck me leg.
anyway, then we went back to the house and had dessert before going to some meetings that christian and cynthia needed to attend...this is also when i discovered that my language comprehension is inversely related to the number of people speaking. that night, david came and we all went to Chato´s for buergers (pollo for cynthia and i, carne for the rest) followed by shambos (popsicles), everyone got aguaje except kristyn and i who got mango and coco respectively.
last night we were supposed to meet up with another friend, but he didn´t show so thankfully christian and cynthia asked us to go to dinner and took us to the nicest little hole in the wall place with super yummy hamburgers...i seriously want more!! then we came back to their house and watched El Clavo Negro - a movie about the revolution in Chile (in English with Spanish subtitles) - it was sad, but super interesting especially since christian´s parents lived through it...
so anyway, as you can see, we have been keeping busy and just generally been really blessed by amazing friends here...this is gonna sound super Adventist, but that´s okay - i´m really looking forward to the day when i don´t have to say goodbye to people anymore, where all my friends and i will be together once again. for now i have to be content in the moment though and appreciate the fact that Jesus loves us!
today though i wanted to talk about one of the greatest answers to prayers:friendship. kristyn and i prayed a lot for friends. i remembered how one of the greatest things about nepal was the PT Yvonne and how she had taught me so much about the area and the people and the culture. that´s what i wanted here, and we have been blessed beyond belief with amazing friends here, such great ones that we are really sad to be leaving in a few days, like really really sad, like kristyn has given me puppy dog eyes when i say we can´t change our flight sad!!!
this past weekend was a lot of fun because we spent a lot of time with christian and cynthia, he´s a doctor we work with a lot and she is one of the nurses...they got married the first weekend we were here and they have proved to be very dear friends. cynthia taught herself english by watching english television and movies and listening to music (i think she´s somewhat a genius because she makes it sound easy and it definitely is not) and christian likes to pretend he doesn´t know english when he basically understands everything we say. cynthia is really helpful at explaining things and teaching, christian helps us learn to listen to fast talking!! sabbath was christian´s birthday and so sunday they were going to his in-laws for a nice lunch and they invited kristyn and i to come. we had been talking about wanting to make an apple pie (as it is super american) and they had an oven we could use...the apple pie will be in the next post. anyway, we had a lovely lunch of fettucini alfredo (with lots of garlic so you know it was good) and afterwards we went to the Sol'Orient hotel where Cynthia´s cousin David works and swam in the pool - it was a hot day and the pool felt so good. We taught christian and cynthia how to play marco polo, but both christian and i cheated. the hotel used to be an old dairy and now it is hecka nice, they even had a zoo with jungle animals...i tried to steal an anteater/elephant looking thing that liked to suck me leg.
anyway, then we went back to the house and had dessert before going to some meetings that christian and cynthia needed to attend...this is also when i discovered that my language comprehension is inversely related to the number of people speaking. that night, david came and we all went to Chato´s for buergers (pollo for cynthia and i, carne for the rest) followed by shambos (popsicles), everyone got aguaje except kristyn and i who got mango and coco respectively.
last night we were supposed to meet up with another friend, but he didn´t show so thankfully christian and cynthia asked us to go to dinner and took us to the nicest little hole in the wall place with super yummy hamburgers...i seriously want more!! then we came back to their house and watched El Clavo Negro - a movie about the revolution in Chile (in English with Spanish subtitles) - it was sad, but super interesting especially since christian´s parents lived through it...
so anyway, as you can see, we have been keeping busy and just generally been really blessed by amazing friends here...this is gonna sound super Adventist, but that´s okay - i´m really looking forward to the day when i don´t have to say goodbye to people anymore, where all my friends and i will be together once again. for now i have to be content in the moment though and appreciate the fact that Jesus loves us!
did i tell you about the chicken??
i probably already have, but i need to tell you that the chicken here is amazing...i have only been eating chicken for a little over a year, but until coming here i had never experienced how amazing it could be. they say it is best in the jungle because they don´t give the chickens hormones here like they do in the coastal regions and in the states. i never really believed that hormones made a difference before. i am considering raising my own chickens, hormone free, in the states...of course chickens smell and then i´d have to kill them myself which could get messy...so maybe i´ll just have to come back to peru to eat hormone free chicken sometime soon.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Discovering new ones every day... (Kristyn)
So Andi and I have become connoisseurs. Not of chicken a la brasa, although its really really good at Ari´s. Nor of Crystal Light flavors, but we each have clear favorites. Not even of motocars, though maybe we should be a little more discriminating given that our last one maybe bumped a bus just a little. No, Andi and I are now card carrying members of the Kissy Kissy Club.
Before you let your imagination run away with you, let me clarify: we are both very aware of the diseases that can be passed by personal contact and have no intentions of getting anywhere near exposed. Rather, we have devoted several minutes, mostly on the way to and from the Plaza, developing a classification system for the noises that are made as we walk by.
Classic catcall: A perennial favorite.
Horn catcall: A variation of the catcall using a motocar horn instead of the traditional pursed lips.
Harmonic catcall: A version mostly found in bus horns that incorporates two and three part harmonies.
* We´re not lying. An actual bushorn configured in the tune of a catcall and used solely for that purpose.
Half catcall: Usually when the caller is surprised by our appearance and didn´t have time to wet his lips properly.
As evidenced by the name of our club, we´ve encountered far more from the following genus of sounds.
Classic kissy: Just what it sounds like.
Wet kissy: extra juicy
Protracted kissy: takes extra practice; must last at least 1 full second
Drive-by kissy: One of the most dangerous as the driver must swivel his head at least 120º
Occult kissy: somewhat unsettling as it has no obvious source
Group kissy: occasionally audibly coordinated between kissers
Full facial kissy: involving eyebrows as well as lips
Staccato kissy: multiple in short succession
While most people seem to pull from the same bag of tricks, two have been particularly creative. One was sitting on a stool on a street corner and saw us coming. He stayed seated and just stared, mouth open, chin up and eyes wide as we walked by. Andi called it sheer awe.
The other is hands down the winner thus far. As we walked by a man said, in sing-song Spanish: Hola! Baby! Reina de mi corazon! We wanted to stop and talk to this obviously creative and well read citizen, but thought better of it and kept walking.
What we have yet to decide on is an appropriate response on our part, although we are working on another classification system...
Before you let your imagination run away with you, let me clarify: we are both very aware of the diseases that can be passed by personal contact and have no intentions of getting anywhere near exposed. Rather, we have devoted several minutes, mostly on the way to and from the Plaza, developing a classification system for the noises that are made as we walk by.
Classic catcall: A perennial favorite.
Horn catcall: A variation of the catcall using a motocar horn instead of the traditional pursed lips.
Harmonic catcall: A version mostly found in bus horns that incorporates two and three part harmonies.
* We´re not lying. An actual bushorn configured in the tune of a catcall and used solely for that purpose.
Half catcall: Usually when the caller is surprised by our appearance and didn´t have time to wet his lips properly.
As evidenced by the name of our club, we´ve encountered far more from the following genus of sounds.
Classic kissy: Just what it sounds like.
Wet kissy: extra juicy
Protracted kissy: takes extra practice; must last at least 1 full second
Drive-by kissy: One of the most dangerous as the driver must swivel his head at least 120º
Occult kissy: somewhat unsettling as it has no obvious source
Group kissy: occasionally audibly coordinated between kissers
Full facial kissy: involving eyebrows as well as lips
Staccato kissy: multiple in short succession
While most people seem to pull from the same bag of tricks, two have been particularly creative. One was sitting on a stool on a street corner and saw us coming. He stayed seated and just stared, mouth open, chin up and eyes wide as we walked by. Andi called it sheer awe.
The other is hands down the winner thus far. As we walked by a man said, in sing-song Spanish: Hola! Baby! Reina de mi corazon! We wanted to stop and talk to this obviously creative and well read citizen, but thought better of it and kept walking.
What we have yet to decide on is an appropriate response on our part, although we are working on another classification system...
Scientific Method (Kristyn)
I´m pretty sure the bites all over my body are chigger bites. I havent had them since I was 6, but they apparently have them here a lot. I havent been in any grass, but we have been in the jungle for the last four days. They itch more than anything I´ve ever felt in my life. Like an intense, I cant think about anything else except how much I want to run a cheese grater over my thighs itch. I think one (or several) got in my scrub pants at one point cause I have big red blotches all up and down the back of my thighs and places I cant scratch in public.
After much consideration and passionate itching (which only led to a pretty gnarly scab on my calf) I decided to deal with it the way I usually do. Or at least I like to think I usually do. Scientifically. Several people had told me their remedies for bug bites, so I did one on each limb. I washed my left arm with laundry detergent, put Benadryl on my right arm, rubbed lime juice over my left leg and painted nailpolish all over my right leg. I slept almost naked in a new pair of sheets to make sure it wasnt my clothes and prayed myself to sleep. This morning, I woke up with hope, and I think I have a clear winner: nail polish. The bites on my other extremities are the same, and I think the laundry detergent even made it worse. But the sheer Ballet Pink nail polish made the red spots much lighter and I dont feel itchy there. I painted the rest of myself as quick as I could, and looking nice for church went out the window. Thank goodness I brought two colors, otherwise I would´ve had to use my British Red or Andi´s sparkly purple.
On the downside, I can now distinguish chigger bites from mosquito bites and bloodsucking fly bites.
After much consideration and passionate itching (which only led to a pretty gnarly scab on my calf) I decided to deal with it the way I usually do. Or at least I like to think I usually do. Scientifically. Several people had told me their remedies for bug bites, so I did one on each limb. I washed my left arm with laundry detergent, put Benadryl on my right arm, rubbed lime juice over my left leg and painted nailpolish all over my right leg. I slept almost naked in a new pair of sheets to make sure it wasnt my clothes and prayed myself to sleep. This morning, I woke up with hope, and I think I have a clear winner: nail polish. The bites on my other extremities are the same, and I think the laundry detergent even made it worse. But the sheer Ballet Pink nail polish made the red spots much lighter and I dont feel itchy there. I painted the rest of myself as quick as I could, and looking nice for church went out the window. Thank goodness I brought two colors, otherwise I would´ve had to use my British Red or Andi´s sparkly purple.
On the downside, I can now distinguish chigger bites from mosquito bites and bloodsucking fly bites.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Unabridged
So to expand on the cliff notes for those of you with a greater amount of excess time than a med student :)
After finished up my blogging Wednesday night, we met some friends in the Plaza...they are the peeps from Colorado that we had dinner with the night before and they have a Peruvian friend who was going to take us dancing. We went to this nice place with pretty good music (although later in the night, we were forced to hand the DJ a request list because he was getting a little too liberal with the techno). As I mentioned before, Kristyn tripped off a curb. We had taken separate motocars and were waiting for the guys to get there and I was standing on the sidewalk when I heard a yelp and a crash. I turned around to see Kristyn sprawled on top of a motobike parked on the side of the road. She had tripped off the curb (I have a suspicion she was dancing) and landed on the bike which didn´t fall over but shot backward a bit. I died laughing a little bit while one of the guys working at the club came over to help her and put the bike back where it belonged. The boys eventually came along after getting lost, I guess their driver got confused on the location and took them to a strip club before finding the right place. It was a lot of fun to see all the people and listen to music - the girls here are good dancers, but the guys are amazing, we spent at least the first hour just sitting and watching!! We definitely danced plenty and were exhausted when we got to bed!
The past couple of days have continued to be busy. We went on the river again yesterday. We went to a little town called San Luis which is up the river about an hour by speedboat. Some of the nurses wanted to work in the pharmacy for the day which freed up Kristyn to work with me. Together we saw 44 patients in under 4 hours. It was crazy!!! The other American docs all had translators, but we did fine without one. The only time we had trouble was when our patient had a ventral hernia and we were trying to explain the concept of a strangulated hernia to him. At the end of the day, some women from the village brought us handmade necklaces to thank us for coming to their village. It started to rain as we packed up everything and had to wait out the rain before loading the boat and heading home...when we got to the dock, it was raining super hard again and wouldn´t let up, so we grabbed the bags of supplies and made a run for the clinic, needless to say, after that I didn´t need another shower.
After resting up a little bit (because we were planning to work in the ER that night), we went to dinner and found the dining hall all decorated for a banquet...we found out that there was a big fancy reunion dinner for all the Grinkgos that came down on the short term mission trip and that we were invited since we helped them. So we went back to our room and changed out of our scurbs into dresses, everyone was surprised that we could look nice! It was fun with lots of really good food. They had a small local band play music for the event which was pretty entertaining. They even sang a song about Aguaje Shambos!!!
After dinner, we changed back into scrubs and headed to the ED which was packed prior to our dinner, but pretty slow after. We helped with a 2 yr old who fell and had a lac on his head and a few other patients. It was still fun even though it was slow because one of our favorite docs, Christian, was working and his wife Cynthia who is also super fun had come in to help as well so it was fun.
Today, we just went into post-op clinic for the cataract patients that were operated on yesterday. We just helped with the charting. After clinic we went to the ER and a young girl with a lac on her chin came in. It was pretty deep and required deep suturing as well as SubQ sutures. Kristyn assisted the doc and then finished up the SubQ stitches. As we headed back to our room, the ortho doc (who loves to practice his English, which basically means he speaks in poor Spanglish to us and gets frustrated when we correct him) caught us and had us go to see the American (who is now sober and post op day 1). We helped removed the dressings on his knee and clavicle and clean the wounds. He had a large hematoma above his knee making the anterior compartment of the thigh hard - we pulled off about 200 cc´s of blood with a syringe which made the skin less tense and a little more comfortable for the patient. Then he had us write orders and write progress notes for the day, in Spanish and I am pretty sure it was the worse progress note ever written but he said it was fine after explaining to me for the 3rd time what normal saline is.
Then we had a nice lunch and headed to the plaza. We were planning on going to Monkey Island today but when we went to the dock to barter with the boat guys, I wasn´t getting a fair price and wasn´t guaranteed a boat back, so we decided to try again when we have someone who can guarantee that we aren´t trapped at an animal orphanage. Tonight we hope to spend some time with Jose and Sylvia because we haven´t seen them in ages. This morning we ran into Jose and while chatting with him, Sylvia called and Jose said. Ëstoy hablando con las chicas perdidas (I´m talking with the lost girls) so they have noticed the loss of us as well. I also discovered today that they call us hermillas (twins) but I don´t think it´s because we look alike but probably more because we talk alike.
Anyway, nothing too spectacular, but a good couple of days nonetheless. We are down to our last week in Iquitos...I think it just may be the best yet.
After finished up my blogging Wednesday night, we met some friends in the Plaza...they are the peeps from Colorado that we had dinner with the night before and they have a Peruvian friend who was going to take us dancing. We went to this nice place with pretty good music (although later in the night, we were forced to hand the DJ a request list because he was getting a little too liberal with the techno). As I mentioned before, Kristyn tripped off a curb. We had taken separate motocars and were waiting for the guys to get there and I was standing on the sidewalk when I heard a yelp and a crash. I turned around to see Kristyn sprawled on top of a motobike parked on the side of the road. She had tripped off the curb (I have a suspicion she was dancing) and landed on the bike which didn´t fall over but shot backward a bit. I died laughing a little bit while one of the guys working at the club came over to help her and put the bike back where it belonged. The boys eventually came along after getting lost, I guess their driver got confused on the location and took them to a strip club before finding the right place. It was a lot of fun to see all the people and listen to music - the girls here are good dancers, but the guys are amazing, we spent at least the first hour just sitting and watching!! We definitely danced plenty and were exhausted when we got to bed!
The past couple of days have continued to be busy. We went on the river again yesterday. We went to a little town called San Luis which is up the river about an hour by speedboat. Some of the nurses wanted to work in the pharmacy for the day which freed up Kristyn to work with me. Together we saw 44 patients in under 4 hours. It was crazy!!! The other American docs all had translators, but we did fine without one. The only time we had trouble was when our patient had a ventral hernia and we were trying to explain the concept of a strangulated hernia to him. At the end of the day, some women from the village brought us handmade necklaces to thank us for coming to their village. It started to rain as we packed up everything and had to wait out the rain before loading the boat and heading home...when we got to the dock, it was raining super hard again and wouldn´t let up, so we grabbed the bags of supplies and made a run for the clinic, needless to say, after that I didn´t need another shower.
After resting up a little bit (because we were planning to work in the ER that night), we went to dinner and found the dining hall all decorated for a banquet...we found out that there was a big fancy reunion dinner for all the Grinkgos that came down on the short term mission trip and that we were invited since we helped them. So we went back to our room and changed out of our scurbs into dresses, everyone was surprised that we could look nice! It was fun with lots of really good food. They had a small local band play music for the event which was pretty entertaining. They even sang a song about Aguaje Shambos!!!
After dinner, we changed back into scrubs and headed to the ED which was packed prior to our dinner, but pretty slow after. We helped with a 2 yr old who fell and had a lac on his head and a few other patients. It was still fun even though it was slow because one of our favorite docs, Christian, was working and his wife Cynthia who is also super fun had come in to help as well so it was fun.
Today, we just went into post-op clinic for the cataract patients that were operated on yesterday. We just helped with the charting. After clinic we went to the ER and a young girl with a lac on her chin came in. It was pretty deep and required deep suturing as well as SubQ sutures. Kristyn assisted the doc and then finished up the SubQ stitches. As we headed back to our room, the ortho doc (who loves to practice his English, which basically means he speaks in poor Spanglish to us and gets frustrated when we correct him) caught us and had us go to see the American (who is now sober and post op day 1). We helped removed the dressings on his knee and clavicle and clean the wounds. He had a large hematoma above his knee making the anterior compartment of the thigh hard - we pulled off about 200 cc´s of blood with a syringe which made the skin less tense and a little more comfortable for the patient. Then he had us write orders and write progress notes for the day, in Spanish and I am pretty sure it was the worse progress note ever written but he said it was fine after explaining to me for the 3rd time what normal saline is.
Then we had a nice lunch and headed to the plaza. We were planning on going to Monkey Island today but when we went to the dock to barter with the boat guys, I wasn´t getting a fair price and wasn´t guaranteed a boat back, so we decided to try again when we have someone who can guarantee that we aren´t trapped at an animal orphanage. Tonight we hope to spend some time with Jose and Sylvia because we haven´t seen them in ages. This morning we ran into Jose and while chatting with him, Sylvia called and Jose said. Ëstoy hablando con las chicas perdidas (I´m talking with the lost girls) so they have noticed the loss of us as well. I also discovered today that they call us hermillas (twins) but I don´t think it´s because we look alike but probably more because we talk alike.
Anyway, nothing too spectacular, but a good couple of days nonetheless. We are down to our last week in Iquitos...I think it just may be the best yet.
Cliff Notes of my life for Daniel (Kristyn´s Novio)
Wednesday: After updating the blog, we met American friends and cute Peruvian gay man in square to dance. Went to a boring dance place then a really great one. While waiting for friends who got lost, Kristyn tripped on a curb and fell onto a motorbike, pretty sure it was dented but not knocked over which was good...I laughed hard Kristyn was really embarassed. Good times were had by all.
Thursday: Went on river, Kristyn and I saw 44 pts together in under 4 hours, we were the only Americans able to work without the help of a translator. Got soaked in the rain on the way back to clinic. Had a banquet thing with the short term mission group with good music and then worked in the ER until midnight.
Friday: Helped with optho clinic and then worked in ER. Kristyn helped sew a lac on a girl´s chin (pretty deep). Then worked with crazy, wanna speak English but can´t ortho doc before escaping to the Plaza for the afternoon.
Thursday: Went on river, Kristyn and I saw 44 pts together in under 4 hours, we were the only Americans able to work without the help of a translator. Got soaked in the rain on the way back to clinic. Had a banquet thing with the short term mission group with good music and then worked in the ER until midnight.
Friday: Helped with optho clinic and then worked in ER. Kristyn helped sew a lac on a girl´s chin (pretty deep). Then worked with crazy, wanna speak English but can´t ortho doc before escaping to the Plaza for the afternoon.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Gringo Conman In Iquitos
So last night, we went to dinner with two of the Americans that are here with the Colorado group. The one is my age and is an engineer and the other is in high school. We ate on the Boulevard next to the river and the food was really good - Kristyn and I shared fish with garlic and rice and it was great!!! It wasn´t fishy at all and it was super moist...I am not sure if I can become a ChickiFishetarian, it´s such a big word.
Anyway, while we were eating, a British man walked by and gave us this free Iquitos newspaper in English. We thought it was a big advertisement for some tour company but the guys took one anyway. Cam was reading it while we waited for our food and told us about a letter to the editor about a conman in Iquitos. I guess this guy is British, thin, and tall - he comes up to tourists and shows an injured pinky and says he was robbed and needs medical attention, his story is that he is waiting for his passport to be recreated and sent from Lima and until Monday he has no money for medical attention...people give him money and then these people were approached a week later by him again - when they called him out, he changed the story and said he was coming up to thank them and some other nonsenes. Anyway, I guess he has lived here for years - so we chatted about that for awhile and forgot about it. After dinner we ran into the rest of the Colorado peeps and chatted a bit - we got ice cream and at about 10 pm Kristyn and I decided to walk home. We often walk the 10 blocks to the clinic even late at night, we like it better later because there are less people and traffic - it´s safe as long as there are two of us - we said goodnight to the peeps, walked across the Plaza (which was surprisingly empty because there was a brief downpour earlier) and turned down the street to the clinic. We were chatting and then this guy passed us , then turned around and asked if we spoke English. We said yes, and as soon as he started, I knew it was him ¡The Conman! - Kristyn reached over and squeezed my hand and I squeezed back in recognition.
The guy seriously had a real injury, his pinky was definitely broken, swollen, and black and blue...he had some lacerations on it that looked to be infected. It really did look gnarly and we agreed he needed medical attention. His story was verbatim to the story in the paper. I was almost tempted to call him out on it or ask to take pictures of him and his finger but the Plaza was kind of empty and I didn´t want to set him off. There was no way we were giving him money, but instead we invited him to join us on our walk to the clinic. We told him he definitely needed a doctor and needed to get to the clinic. He said he couldn´t afford it but we said he should go anyway, he kept saying no and ended up walking away which was for the best. We quickly walked home and went straight to the nurses to share our story - they were super entertained and proud of us. It was just so random that we read that paper just an hour before!
The boys were super surprised this morning too, I think they are a bit dissappointed that they didn´t get to meet the conman. We can´t figure out the spanish word for conman although we tried. Oh well, at least all of you know what a conman is and that Kristyn and I outsmarted him!
Anyway, while we were eating, a British man walked by and gave us this free Iquitos newspaper in English. We thought it was a big advertisement for some tour company but the guys took one anyway. Cam was reading it while we waited for our food and told us about a letter to the editor about a conman in Iquitos. I guess this guy is British, thin, and tall - he comes up to tourists and shows an injured pinky and says he was robbed and needs medical attention, his story is that he is waiting for his passport to be recreated and sent from Lima and until Monday he has no money for medical attention...people give him money and then these people were approached a week later by him again - when they called him out, he changed the story and said he was coming up to thank them and some other nonsenes. Anyway, I guess he has lived here for years - so we chatted about that for awhile and forgot about it. After dinner we ran into the rest of the Colorado peeps and chatted a bit - we got ice cream and at about 10 pm Kristyn and I decided to walk home. We often walk the 10 blocks to the clinic even late at night, we like it better later because there are less people and traffic - it´s safe as long as there are two of us - we said goodnight to the peeps, walked across the Plaza (which was surprisingly empty because there was a brief downpour earlier) and turned down the street to the clinic. We were chatting and then this guy passed us , then turned around and asked if we spoke English. We said yes, and as soon as he started, I knew it was him ¡The Conman! - Kristyn reached over and squeezed my hand and I squeezed back in recognition.
The guy seriously had a real injury, his pinky was definitely broken, swollen, and black and blue...he had some lacerations on it that looked to be infected. It really did look gnarly and we agreed he needed medical attention. His story was verbatim to the story in the paper. I was almost tempted to call him out on it or ask to take pictures of him and his finger but the Plaza was kind of empty and I didn´t want to set him off. There was no way we were giving him money, but instead we invited him to join us on our walk to the clinic. We told him he definitely needed a doctor and needed to get to the clinic. He said he couldn´t afford it but we said he should go anyway, he kept saying no and ended up walking away which was for the best. We quickly walked home and went straight to the nurses to share our story - they were super entertained and proud of us. It was just so random that we read that paper just an hour before!
The boys were super surprised this morning too, I think they are a bit dissappointed that they didn´t get to meet the conman. We can´t figure out the spanish word for conman although we tried. Oh well, at least all of you know what a conman is and that Kristyn and I outsmarted him!
Surgery
So today we decided to forgoe the river journey and watch some of the cataract surgeries going down at the hospital. They don´t have the same equipment here as in the states, so they were doing a slightly older technique than we both saw on our optho rotation. It was interesting but the surgeries do get boring. We kept busy by helping prep patients and act as circulators. Kristyn even scrubbed in and retracted a guy´s cornea. There was one complicated case that could have been avoided if the patient´s full medical history had been known prior to operation, but it was a learning experience for us all and was okay in the end.
Late in the day, my little femur fracture kid was wheeled in. He is the Autistic spectrum one who likes to wail like a siren which he proceded to do in the operating suite. It annoyed the one opthalmologist a lot and I tried hard to get him to quiet down. Kristyn went and got my Ipod, but brought it as they were putting him to sleep (we played it for him after and he really likes Coldplay). We basically just removed the cast that was on, readjusted the bones, and applied a new cast. The x'ray after looked a lot better. All the men stayed in the room while the x'ray was taken but the nurses, Kristyn, and I left the room since we don´t want children with 4 arms....Christian was a little worried when we told him that as he wants children too, the anesthesiologist decided Christian´s kids will be malformed for sure.
While we were in the OR with the ortho guy, people kept telling him he had 2 patients in the ER. After we finished with my patient, I took him to his room and everyone went to the ER. When I got there, there was a guy with a fractured hand (already wrapped up) and I was told Kristyn was in the Xray room - I went there to find her talking with our drunk trauma patient - he was drunk and wrecked him moto...turns out he fractured his clavicle and the tibial plateau thingy. He needs surgery and is not too excited about it. Kristyn is concerned about vascular damage in the area of the clavicle but they can´t do CT angio´s here and so they will do a echo and see what that shows. He is scheduled for surgery tomorrow, we will be on the river, but maybe it will be later in the day. I am worried about DTs because he´s a pretty heavy drinker, he´s more concerned with nicotirne withdrawal. He is another talker. Oopps, I forgot to tell you that he is American and yes, like our other Gringo, is not necessarily and positive representation of our country. He too has lived here 3 years and is fluent, he has a Peruvian wife and a daughter. He will likely prove to be an interesting patient over the next couple of days!
We finally got out of the hospital at 8, so it was a long day, but really quite interesting.
Late in the day, my little femur fracture kid was wheeled in. He is the Autistic spectrum one who likes to wail like a siren which he proceded to do in the operating suite. It annoyed the one opthalmologist a lot and I tried hard to get him to quiet down. Kristyn went and got my Ipod, but brought it as they were putting him to sleep (we played it for him after and he really likes Coldplay). We basically just removed the cast that was on, readjusted the bones, and applied a new cast. The x'ray after looked a lot better. All the men stayed in the room while the x'ray was taken but the nurses, Kristyn, and I left the room since we don´t want children with 4 arms....Christian was a little worried when we told him that as he wants children too, the anesthesiologist decided Christian´s kids will be malformed for sure.
While we were in the OR with the ortho guy, people kept telling him he had 2 patients in the ER. After we finished with my patient, I took him to his room and everyone went to the ER. When I got there, there was a guy with a fractured hand (already wrapped up) and I was told Kristyn was in the Xray room - I went there to find her talking with our drunk trauma patient - he was drunk and wrecked him moto...turns out he fractured his clavicle and the tibial plateau thingy. He needs surgery and is not too excited about it. Kristyn is concerned about vascular damage in the area of the clavicle but they can´t do CT angio´s here and so they will do a echo and see what that shows. He is scheduled for surgery tomorrow, we will be on the river, but maybe it will be later in the day. I am worried about DTs because he´s a pretty heavy drinker, he´s more concerned with nicotirne withdrawal. He is another talker. Oopps, I forgot to tell you that he is American and yes, like our other Gringo, is not necessarily and positive representation of our country. He too has lived here 3 years and is fluent, he has a Peruvian wife and a daughter. He will likely prove to be an interesting patient over the next couple of days!
We finally got out of the hospital at 8, so it was a long day, but really quite interesting.
FUTBOL!!!
So I just wrote a long post about this and it got deleted and I want to cry....but instead I will just type it all over again.
So when I was getting advice on Peru from my friend Tanna who has made this trip to Iquitos in the past, she advised that I had to go to a futbol game. So when our friend Isaac told us there was a game this Monday night, we were super excited.
The cool thing is that the clinic provides medical care for the team and is at all the games. They send their ambulance and a certain number of people can go on it. We were hoping to go on the ambulance, but they had to submit a list of people and we weren´t on it. Christian was the doctor going though and he suggested we go with his wife Cynthia (who we love) so we were excited. We headed there is a motorcar - before leaving the house, Christian had called Cynthia and told her to come in at the ambulance entrance. We were glad when we got to the stadium because there was a really long line of people waiting to get in and the game had just started. We found some police officers (and maybe used the girl card a little bit) and asked where the ambulance entrance was - they took us to the entrance where there was a hoard of men wanting to get in, we felt bad as we weaved through the crowd and they let just the three of us in. We found the clinic peeps and then sat in the stands. We sat near the ambulance (my suspician is that it was so Christian could keep an eye on Cynthia and make sure she was safe, and probably us too!).
The games there can be pretty dangerous. There are often fights and a women died in Lima last year because she was pushed or trampled or something. Anyway, there are tons of police, they had to jump over the wall once into the crowd to break up a fight. At halftime and after the game, they all surrounded the field in their riot gear, I guess to prevent people from rushing the field.
It was nice to watch the game with other people. Our friend Beverly who works at the clinic found us at the game and sat with us too. They told us what the people were chanting which we otherwise wouldn´t have understood. The crowd was really funny and full of life. Lima won 4-0 which was sad, we wanted Iquitos to at least score, but they are a new team (only 2 years old) and they were playing against one of the best teams in the league. It was still really fun to watch and they definitely have skills.
After the game, Christian got us into the ambulance to get us quickly out of the stadium in case any fighting started. Ironically, there was a small scuff in the ambulance between two of the clinic workers. We actually don´t know what it was over, but I definitely saw the one guy elbow the other in the jaw before someone broke it up and kicked the one guy out of the ambulance. We made it safely back to the clinic, but still were up on an adrenaline rush.
Kristyn had heard there may be a caravan for the Lima team and we were hungry (despite Christian buying us all Aguaje popsicles) and so we headed to the Plaza. When we got there, we saw the police lined up in front of the El Dorado (a five star hotel on the Plaza, the one we tell strangers we are staying at so they don´t follow us home), the police were all decked out in their riot gear complete with shields. The Lima team was already inside. We ran into a doc from the hospital with his son (a Lima fan) and the doc told us the police would stand there all night long (one guy was falling asleep standing behind his shield). The most entertaining thing was that amongst the crowd outside the hotel were several girls dressed like street walkers waving to the players and inviting them down. There was one who caught a players attention and waved at each other, later an older gentleman came out to talk with her (an agent perhaps) but we left before we saw whether she went in. It was entertaining especially since people just sat there in the street and watched the players hanging out in their room (mostly in their underwear). One player came down to the lobby and signed some autographs, but the crowd died down and we decided to head home! It was a fun night!
So when I was getting advice on Peru from my friend Tanna who has made this trip to Iquitos in the past, she advised that I had to go to a futbol game. So when our friend Isaac told us there was a game this Monday night, we were super excited.
The cool thing is that the clinic provides medical care for the team and is at all the games. They send their ambulance and a certain number of people can go on it. We were hoping to go on the ambulance, but they had to submit a list of people and we weren´t on it. Christian was the doctor going though and he suggested we go with his wife Cynthia (who we love) so we were excited. We headed there is a motorcar - before leaving the house, Christian had called Cynthia and told her to come in at the ambulance entrance. We were glad when we got to the stadium because there was a really long line of people waiting to get in and the game had just started. We found some police officers (and maybe used the girl card a little bit) and asked where the ambulance entrance was - they took us to the entrance where there was a hoard of men wanting to get in, we felt bad as we weaved through the crowd and they let just the three of us in. We found the clinic peeps and then sat in the stands. We sat near the ambulance (my suspician is that it was so Christian could keep an eye on Cynthia and make sure she was safe, and probably us too!).
The games there can be pretty dangerous. There are often fights and a women died in Lima last year because she was pushed or trampled or something. Anyway, there are tons of police, they had to jump over the wall once into the crowd to break up a fight. At halftime and after the game, they all surrounded the field in their riot gear, I guess to prevent people from rushing the field.
It was nice to watch the game with other people. Our friend Beverly who works at the clinic found us at the game and sat with us too. They told us what the people were chanting which we otherwise wouldn´t have understood. The crowd was really funny and full of life. Lima won 4-0 which was sad, we wanted Iquitos to at least score, but they are a new team (only 2 years old) and they were playing against one of the best teams in the league. It was still really fun to watch and they definitely have skills.
After the game, Christian got us into the ambulance to get us quickly out of the stadium in case any fighting started. Ironically, there was a small scuff in the ambulance between two of the clinic workers. We actually don´t know what it was over, but I definitely saw the one guy elbow the other in the jaw before someone broke it up and kicked the one guy out of the ambulance. We made it safely back to the clinic, but still were up on an adrenaline rush.
Kristyn had heard there may be a caravan for the Lima team and we were hungry (despite Christian buying us all Aguaje popsicles) and so we headed to the Plaza. When we got there, we saw the police lined up in front of the El Dorado (a five star hotel on the Plaza, the one we tell strangers we are staying at so they don´t follow us home), the police were all decked out in their riot gear complete with shields. The Lima team was already inside. We ran into a doc from the hospital with his son (a Lima fan) and the doc told us the police would stand there all night long (one guy was falling asleep standing behind his shield). The most entertaining thing was that amongst the crowd outside the hotel were several girls dressed like street walkers waving to the players and inviting them down. There was one who caught a players attention and waved at each other, later an older gentleman came out to talk with her (an agent perhaps) but we left before we saw whether she went in. It was entertaining especially since people just sat there in the street and watched the players hanging out in their room (mostly in their underwear). One player came down to the lobby and signed some autographs, but the crowd died down and we decided to head home! It was a fun night!
Row Row Row Your Boat
So for the past 2 days (prior to today) Kristyn and I went down the river with a group of doctors and nurses from Colorado. We go to a different village each day that has no access to medical care. We set up a clinic in a school or church and basically see hundreds of people in a day!!!
The first day we didn´t know what to expect, but all the Gringos were super nice and friendly. We loaded up suitcases full of meds-vitamins-and toys onto a big speedboat and took off up the river to a community called Canan. When we got off the boat, we had to walk across bridges over the swamplands made from a couple planks then climb a hill to the village. They were all so excited to see us - they brought a baby sloth and a baby jungle pig to show us and they were SOOO cute.
Kristyn and I helped set up the pharmacy and then I was sent to triage to help translate for the nurses. The doctors ended up getting backed up so Lisette one of the Peruvian Medicos had me start seeing patients. It was the first time in my life that I saw patients all by myself and prescribed stuff and had nobody to consult with. It was pretty terrifying. The only thing that made it do'able was that most people just had parasites and anemia which are easily fixed. I was most proud of myself for clinically diagnosing a UTI. The day went by quickly and we had fun - Kristyn stayed in the pharmacy and for the most part kept the pharmacy tech from giving vaginal suppositories by mouth to my patients when the oral parasite medicine ran out. The only disappointing part of the day was that nobody fell into the swamp when navigating the planks, but you win some and you lose some.
The next day, we went up the river to a town called Belen. It was somewhat more developed than the other town (it was only 45 mins up the river whereas Canan was 1.5 hrs by speedboat). We set up shop again, but a different medico came with us, Christian. He told me to see patients with him which I prefered because he taught me so much and I am more comfortable having someone to consult with. The best part is that Christian was kind of stand-offísh at first but Kristyn and I have won him over - we have done so with a combination of medical brilliance (he respects that we know our stuff even if we can´t always explain it in Spanish) and good musical interests (we brought our ipod and he´s a Kanye fan). In Belen, every child got antiparasitics, and the pharmacy tech would pour it down their throat to be sure. We also found this plant with red seeds called chajote that they use to dye food, Christian used it as war paint on all our faces so we were pretty stylin´.
We didn´t go down the river today because we wanted to observe some OR time, but we plan to go down tomorrow! It´s really fun - it leaves us with a lot of thoughts on short term missions and the overarching effect of our time spent in the villages, but it´s a good experience even if I can´t totally justify it. Maybe more on that later...
The first day we didn´t know what to expect, but all the Gringos were super nice and friendly. We loaded up suitcases full of meds-vitamins-and toys onto a big speedboat and took off up the river to a community called Canan. When we got off the boat, we had to walk across bridges over the swamplands made from a couple planks then climb a hill to the village. They were all so excited to see us - they brought a baby sloth and a baby jungle pig to show us and they were SOOO cute.
Kristyn and I helped set up the pharmacy and then I was sent to triage to help translate for the nurses. The doctors ended up getting backed up so Lisette one of the Peruvian Medicos had me start seeing patients. It was the first time in my life that I saw patients all by myself and prescribed stuff and had nobody to consult with. It was pretty terrifying. The only thing that made it do'able was that most people just had parasites and anemia which are easily fixed. I was most proud of myself for clinically diagnosing a UTI. The day went by quickly and we had fun - Kristyn stayed in the pharmacy and for the most part kept the pharmacy tech from giving vaginal suppositories by mouth to my patients when the oral parasite medicine ran out. The only disappointing part of the day was that nobody fell into the swamp when navigating the planks, but you win some and you lose some.
The next day, we went up the river to a town called Belen. It was somewhat more developed than the other town (it was only 45 mins up the river whereas Canan was 1.5 hrs by speedboat). We set up shop again, but a different medico came with us, Christian. He told me to see patients with him which I prefered because he taught me so much and I am more comfortable having someone to consult with. The best part is that Christian was kind of stand-offísh at first but Kristyn and I have won him over - we have done so with a combination of medical brilliance (he respects that we know our stuff even if we can´t always explain it in Spanish) and good musical interests (we brought our ipod and he´s a Kanye fan). In Belen, every child got antiparasitics, and the pharmacy tech would pour it down their throat to be sure. We also found this plant with red seeds called chajote that they use to dye food, Christian used it as war paint on all our faces so we were pretty stylin´.
We didn´t go down the river today because we wanted to observe some OR time, but we plan to go down tomorrow! It´s really fun - it leaves us with a lot of thoughts on short term missions and the overarching effect of our time spent in the villages, but it´s a good experience even if I can´t totally justify it. Maybe more on that later...
House Call On Demand
So my first tale of the evening is going to be about our Gringo patient and the hazards of living in the hospital.
Yesterday morning our alarms went off and I was trying to talk myself into getting out of bed and going for a run (which is quite hazardous seeing as I got bit by a dog while running the day before, no worries, it didn´t puncture the skin) - it was 6 am and there was a knock on the door. People rarely come to our room early in the morning, so I kinda thought it was one of the surgeons coming to tell Kristyn that there was a surgery - but at the door was a friend of our Gringo patient - she is Peruvian and doesn´t speak English, but the gist of what she said is that he wanted to talk to us immediately...we changed into scrubs and went to his room - he called us there because the Peruvian doctor´s recommendation differed from the opinion of medical friends he had in the states who he had emailed his CT to. He wanted to ask our opinion and also ask questions about his procedure. We answered his questions and then left.
It was our very first time being called to a patient´s bedside - kind of like a housecall but not really since he was in the hospital. We realized that our living situation was not so secret, so now we lock our door! :)
Yesterday morning our alarms went off and I was trying to talk myself into getting out of bed and going for a run (which is quite hazardous seeing as I got bit by a dog while running the day before, no worries, it didn´t puncture the skin) - it was 6 am and there was a knock on the door. People rarely come to our room early in the morning, so I kinda thought it was one of the surgeons coming to tell Kristyn that there was a surgery - but at the door was a friend of our Gringo patient - she is Peruvian and doesn´t speak English, but the gist of what she said is that he wanted to talk to us immediately...we changed into scrubs and went to his room - he called us there because the Peruvian doctor´s recommendation differed from the opinion of medical friends he had in the states who he had emailed his CT to. He wanted to ask our opinion and also ask questions about his procedure. We answered his questions and then left.
It was our very first time being called to a patient´s bedside - kind of like a housecall but not really since he was in the hospital. We realized that our living situation was not so secret, so now we lock our door! :)
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Gringo.palooza
Okay so, as I said in the previous post, we were warned last night about the Gringo invasion. There is a large group of people from Colorado here for a medical mission. We have honestly really been looking forward to them coming and are glad that they are here. We will be going on the river with them throughout the week, helping them treat patients and helping with translating.
So anyway, this morning we had to run to the store and pick up some copies of one of our textbooks that we made for some of the docs here. When we got back, we saw that they had set up lawnchairs outside and there were tons of people waiting outside for the eye surgeries that were being done by the opthalmologists that came down.
We had taken a motorcar back and while we were waiting to get change from the driver, our friend Eva ran into us and said that the ER was super busy and they needed us. Kristyn and I rushed off to change into scrubs, but on our way back to the ER, the medical director, Dr. Luna Victoria caught us to tell us about the Colorado group. There was also a surgery going on to see, an open prostatectomy - we had forgotten about the ER and went in and watched the surgery then helped move out the patient and all that before heading to the ER.
In the ER, we found there was a very ill stroke patient but more importantly, there was a hysterical Gringo in X'ray and they wanted us to go calm him down. I headed there and found the guy curled up on the X-ray table. He seemed really happy to see an English speaker and asked for more pain meds, I called the doc and she said they couldn´t give more. Then he asked for a benzo and listed the dose her required (red flag). The problem is that secondary to pain, he couldn´t extend his leg to get the pelvic view we needed, so the doctor allowed the benzo. During the bargaining, I realized that the guy spoke super good Spanish, way better than me and so I didn´t feel quite as useful. The guy was riding Motocross (since there´s a track in Iquitos, randomly enough) and came off a jump at a bad angle landing on his back tire, the bike came out from under him and his right leg was hyperextended backwards, he was in a lot of pain and pretty much a pain in the butt to the nurses. Anyway, we got the x-ray and though the tech said it looked fine, Kristyn and I didn´t agree. The ER doc said he had a posterior subluxation and when the trauma-ortho guy came he agreed but also saw an acetabular fracture. The patient´s injury was severe and very painful so I had a bit more sympathy for him. By that point he had claimed me as his person to stay with him and distract him and if I left, the nurses would come get me to help explain things to him, even though he understands Spanish better than I. So we took him to the OR, sedated him with propofol (while the anesthesiologist made Michael Jackson jokes) and Kristyn and the ortho guy returned the subluxed femoral head to it´s proper place. I videoéd the thing at the patient´s request. Then we casted the foot with a stick on the end so that traction can be applied to the leg for 2-3 weeks. When we woke him, he started talking in Spanish super fast and kissing my hand. For some reason he was super grateful to Kristyn and I...so now he is our second personal patient and we will be checking on him tonight and following up on his repeat X.rays to determine if he needs surgery for the acetab fracture.
After the patient was in his room, we went and chatted with the echo tech Lilly for awhile and then went to lunch with Jackie. After lunch we headed back to the OR to see how the eye surgeries were going. When we were chatting with the opthos, the patient from earlier was rolled back in secondary to frank blood coming from the catheter. After the anesthesiologist and the surgeon debating for nearly an hour (the anesthesiologist didn´t feel like he would tolerate the surgery) they decided to do it and quickly opened - his bladder was full of partially clotted blood. They had a lot of trouble stopping the bleeding and he bled a lot. He lost his BP and flat lined which required CPR for a few minutes. They finally got back his pulse and BP and closed. The catheter was clear, and they were even able to extubate. He was sent to the UCI (ICU) and we will follow him as well.
By that time, the opthos were done for the day, but Martha, one of the medico´s caught us and told us we would be heading out tomorrow on the river with them, so wish us luck tomorrow.
At the end of the day I have come to several conclusions:
1) We have learned a lot in the past 2 weeks, the new Gringo´s look at us with awe which is strange
2) If I need surgery while in Peru, Kristyn has to scrub in to make sure everything is well done and I haven´t seen him operate yet, but I want Dr. LV to do it
3) If I lived here for 8 years, I would speak fluent Spanish but still be grateful for an English speaker when I was in a crisis
4) I´m glad I´m not going to be a surgeon....but I am thankful that I know some people who are going to be really great ones...
So anyway, this morning we had to run to the store and pick up some copies of one of our textbooks that we made for some of the docs here. When we got back, we saw that they had set up lawnchairs outside and there were tons of people waiting outside for the eye surgeries that were being done by the opthalmologists that came down.
We had taken a motorcar back and while we were waiting to get change from the driver, our friend Eva ran into us and said that the ER was super busy and they needed us. Kristyn and I rushed off to change into scrubs, but on our way back to the ER, the medical director, Dr. Luna Victoria caught us to tell us about the Colorado group. There was also a surgery going on to see, an open prostatectomy - we had forgotten about the ER and went in and watched the surgery then helped move out the patient and all that before heading to the ER.
In the ER, we found there was a very ill stroke patient but more importantly, there was a hysterical Gringo in X'ray and they wanted us to go calm him down. I headed there and found the guy curled up on the X-ray table. He seemed really happy to see an English speaker and asked for more pain meds, I called the doc and she said they couldn´t give more. Then he asked for a benzo and listed the dose her required (red flag). The problem is that secondary to pain, he couldn´t extend his leg to get the pelvic view we needed, so the doctor allowed the benzo. During the bargaining, I realized that the guy spoke super good Spanish, way better than me and so I didn´t feel quite as useful. The guy was riding Motocross (since there´s a track in Iquitos, randomly enough) and came off a jump at a bad angle landing on his back tire, the bike came out from under him and his right leg was hyperextended backwards, he was in a lot of pain and pretty much a pain in the butt to the nurses. Anyway, we got the x-ray and though the tech said it looked fine, Kristyn and I didn´t agree. The ER doc said he had a posterior subluxation and when the trauma-ortho guy came he agreed but also saw an acetabular fracture. The patient´s injury was severe and very painful so I had a bit more sympathy for him. By that point he had claimed me as his person to stay with him and distract him and if I left, the nurses would come get me to help explain things to him, even though he understands Spanish better than I. So we took him to the OR, sedated him with propofol (while the anesthesiologist made Michael Jackson jokes) and Kristyn and the ortho guy returned the subluxed femoral head to it´s proper place. I videoéd the thing at the patient´s request. Then we casted the foot with a stick on the end so that traction can be applied to the leg for 2-3 weeks. When we woke him, he started talking in Spanish super fast and kissing my hand. For some reason he was super grateful to Kristyn and I...so now he is our second personal patient and we will be checking on him tonight and following up on his repeat X.rays to determine if he needs surgery for the acetab fracture.
After the patient was in his room, we went and chatted with the echo tech Lilly for awhile and then went to lunch with Jackie. After lunch we headed back to the OR to see how the eye surgeries were going. When we were chatting with the opthos, the patient from earlier was rolled back in secondary to frank blood coming from the catheter. After the anesthesiologist and the surgeon debating for nearly an hour (the anesthesiologist didn´t feel like he would tolerate the surgery) they decided to do it and quickly opened - his bladder was full of partially clotted blood. They had a lot of trouble stopping the bleeding and he bled a lot. He lost his BP and flat lined which required CPR for a few minutes. They finally got back his pulse and BP and closed. The catheter was clear, and they were even able to extubate. He was sent to the UCI (ICU) and we will follow him as well.
By that time, the opthos were done for the day, but Martha, one of the medico´s caught us and told us we would be heading out tomorrow on the river with them, so wish us luck tomorrow.
At the end of the day I have come to several conclusions:
1) We have learned a lot in the past 2 weeks, the new Gringo´s look at us with awe which is strange
2) If I need surgery while in Peru, Kristyn has to scrub in to make sure everything is well done and I haven´t seen him operate yet, but I want Dr. LV to do it
3) If I lived here for 8 years, I would speak fluent Spanish but still be grateful for an English speaker when I was in a crisis
4) I´m glad I´m not going to be a surgeon....but I am thankful that I know some people who are going to be really great ones...
Oh What A Night!!!
So after I last blogged, Kristyn and I spent a lazy Friday evening walking around the plaza. We both love how everyone comes out at night and just walks around and socializes. We went to Ari Burger for some pollo con arroz, pàtas con hueveca, platanos fritos, and helado!! It was a good dinner.
Sabbath was pretty uneventful which after our busy weekend was a welcome change. We went to church (and were able to stay relatively unnoticed there) and then to lunch with our friend Libni in the comendor. Then we napped and read the afternoon away in our nice air conditioned room. I felt guilty for not being out and about so we went for a walk at sunset. We had plans to go out with friends for dinner and they picked us up at 8. On our way out, they informed us that there were more gringo´s in the clinic....we got a little jealous since we have been getting used to being unique!! :) We briefly saw them on the way out.
We went to the Plaza de Independence to a Chife restaurant (Chinese Peruvian). The food was soooo good! We chatted about the food and told jokes while eating dinner. As our Spanish has improved, so has our dinner conversation!! It was really nice - then we walked to the Plaza de Armas where we had helado. We eached tried 2 different types of jungle fruit ice cream. We ate ice cream and walked around the plaza. Then we went to a local club where there was a live band. Shocker of all shocker, the American music they played was ... duh duh duh MADONNA... and a few other 80s hits. It was still fun to listen and dance a little bit. The night flew by and we were exhausted by the time we got back to our room. It was a really fun night and it was interesting to experience Iquitos night life...
We went to bed, but no amount of sleep could prepare us for the day to come...
Sabbath was pretty uneventful which after our busy weekend was a welcome change. We went to church (and were able to stay relatively unnoticed there) and then to lunch with our friend Libni in the comendor. Then we napped and read the afternoon away in our nice air conditioned room. I felt guilty for not being out and about so we went for a walk at sunset. We had plans to go out with friends for dinner and they picked us up at 8. On our way out, they informed us that there were more gringo´s in the clinic....we got a little jealous since we have been getting used to being unique!! :) We briefly saw them on the way out.
We went to the Plaza de Independence to a Chife restaurant (Chinese Peruvian). The food was soooo good! We chatted about the food and told jokes while eating dinner. As our Spanish has improved, so has our dinner conversation!! It was really nice - then we walked to the Plaza de Armas where we had helado. We eached tried 2 different types of jungle fruit ice cream. We ate ice cream and walked around the plaza. Then we went to a local club where there was a live band. Shocker of all shocker, the American music they played was ... duh duh duh MADONNA... and a few other 80s hits. It was still fun to listen and dance a little bit. The night flew by and we were exhausted by the time we got back to our room. It was a really fun night and it was interesting to experience Iquitos night life...
We went to bed, but no amount of sleep could prepare us for the day to come...
Friday, April 9, 2010
a delayed true love
i forgot to take my turn on sharing how giving my travel companion kristyn is. so i hadn´t been running in the mornings because i didn´t know where would be safe. one evening we were talking to one of the docs and he said that he ran around the soccer field in the mornings. i said i´d like to come to and he said he ran at 6 am, so kristyn and i set our alarms.
the next morning, when we woke up, kristyn thought it was raining, but it wasn´t, so we got dressed and went out to run...it was kind spitting when we got outside and the spitting quickly turned to sprinkling.
now for backround, you need to know that kristyn hates rain. we are talking about a girl who would drive to school instead of walk when it was raining (abby and i would hop in the car solely for solidarity)...so when she feels rain, she equates that with unsuitable running conditions.
however, kristyn let me talk her into running a few laps with me....NOW THAT IS TWO LOVE!!!
that is until it really started to rain, then i willingly let kristyn escape to our room. i finished my run soaking wet and super happy - the lunch lady did laugh at me though and ever since when i cough people say it´s because i run in the rain (despite the fact that i coughed for 5 days prior to that).
anyway, my roomie loves me...two love (don´t get jealous daniel!)
the next morning, when we woke up, kristyn thought it was raining, but it wasn´t, so we got dressed and went out to run...it was kind spitting when we got outside and the spitting quickly turned to sprinkling.
now for backround, you need to know that kristyn hates rain. we are talking about a girl who would drive to school instead of walk when it was raining (abby and i would hop in the car solely for solidarity)...so when she feels rain, she equates that with unsuitable running conditions.
however, kristyn let me talk her into running a few laps with me....NOW THAT IS TWO LOVE!!!
that is until it really started to rain, then i willingly let kristyn escape to our room. i finished my run soaking wet and super happy - the lunch lady did laugh at me though and ever since when i cough people say it´s because i run in the rain (despite the fact that i coughed for 5 days prior to that).
anyway, my roomie loves me...two love (don´t get jealous daniel!)
Creo que... (Kristyn)
It should be against the law to serve beets in countries where I am more vigilant about the hue of my poo.
God invented scrubs just for me. They´re wearable miracles.
It´s not cheating to already know the answer if the question is asked in a different language. Ob.Stru.Ction.
A little rain never hurt anybody. Little = less than 10min a day. More, all bets are off.
In a month-long game of charades, an Italian will always win. Only slightly less famous than the whole land war in Asia thing...
God invented scrubs just for me. They´re wearable miracles.
It´s not cheating to already know the answer if the question is asked in a different language. Ob.Stru.Ction.
A little rain never hurt anybody. Little = less than 10min a day. More, all bets are off.
In a month-long game of charades, an Italian will always win. Only slightly less famous than the whole land war in Asia thing...
My First Moto Ride!!!
So, the exciting thing of the evening is that it is Jennifer Lo´s birthday.... Happy B-day J.Lo.
The second most exciting thing of the evening is that I had my first ride on a moto (the Peruvian motorcycle, but this one was a Honda so it was even better).
So this afternoon after work, it was super hot, but Kristyn and I decided to sit outside under a tree and watch the boys play futbol (girls are not permitted, which makes me angry, but i still watch). Anyway, our friend Sylvia came by and invited us to go shopping with her...we haven´t been to the shopping area and so we agreed. We took a motorcar to the shopping area where we walked around and looked in the shops. The clothes here are so colorful and vibrant. I found this really really cute shirt that I really wanted but then realized that it had the playboy bunny logo on it as did many of the articles of clothing in the shop, so I didn´t buy it. Sylvia´s novio, Jose, met us in the shopping area and we decided to go to get some cold drinks down the road, since Jose had his moto DUH DUH DUH, Kristyn got to ride with him!!!! It was exciting and I took pics. Sylvia and I walked and met them there where we had these fruit juice icees made with local juices which were yummy. Then we headed to a Chife restaurant for a small dinner of Min Pao (a Chinese Peruvian sticky bun thing that was yummy), but it was my turn to ride...now I am wearing a skirt today (a really cute one that I made) so I wasn´t sure the protocol for riding on a moto in a skirt behind another chica´s boyfriend, but I have seen girls riding side saddle and I asked Jose if I could and he said yes...so I rode a moto side saddle and it was super fun!!! I liked it a lot and wish that I could ride on a moto every day of my life!!! We then sat around the plaza chatting and then - DUH DUH DUH - I got to call my family and Kristyn hers and it was pretty cheap and we are now really happy.
The rest of the day was good as well. Kristyn was in the ER until late last night while I relaxed in the room, so she rested a bit this morning while I went in. There was an old lady would had a large laceration on her foot sewn up last week and she came back and it was SUPER infected...it was pretty bad, I am actually concerned about osteo since it was right over the medial malleolus, added onto that, she has diabetes. All we did was clean it really well and give her topical and systemic antibiotics and send her home, I hope it works. Besides that we had lots of sick vomiting kids. Kristyn came in because she loves sick snotty kids a lot!! ;)
Right before lunch, the ambulance had to go out to get two kids and they like to send us with the ambulance. We like to go and see more of the city and be helpful. So we loaded up and went off. It was funny because the driver only used his horn to alert people we were coming and used the siren only when breaking the law (like running a red light). We got there and picked up the kids, one had a fractured leg and the other a lump on the head. They were playing football in the street and a truck came and the driver couldn´t see them and hit them both. The driver´s insurance thankfully covered them so that they could come to the clinic and get better care. The driver felt really bad and followed us to the clinic and stayed there. Both children are delayed, the nurse said autism, but they don´t have autistic tendencies. I stayed with the boy with the femur fracture. He cried a lot and was hard to calm, but talking softly or singing in his ear and holding his hand helped, he is 5 years old, but really small and non-verbal. Anyway, x-rays showed a closed, short, oblique, displaced femoral fracture so the orthopedic surgeon came in and had us help but traction on the little guys leg, he cried while we did it, but seemed better after. It was hard to cause him pain. It was quite interesting how we applied traction; with an Ace wrap we wrapped the leg then put tape length wise down the leg and around the foot, then used a bottle of saline with 800 cc´s to approximate 5% of the child´s weight which we hung from the tape at the bottom of his leg and over the edge of the bed. It will remain like that for 2 days and after that, we will put him in a pelvic and left leg cast under general anesthesia. It was interesting, but still sad for the boy and his family. They think his brother will be okay despite the lump on his head.
It is hard to believe that 2 weeks have already gone by. We are really enjoying our time here and are learning a lot of spanish, slowly but surely. I am daily amazed by how generally friendly and giving the people here are. I love the peruvian people and am still trying to figure out ways to thank all of them for all they´ve done for us on a daily basis.
The second most exciting thing of the evening is that I had my first ride on a moto (the Peruvian motorcycle, but this one was a Honda so it was even better).
So this afternoon after work, it was super hot, but Kristyn and I decided to sit outside under a tree and watch the boys play futbol (girls are not permitted, which makes me angry, but i still watch). Anyway, our friend Sylvia came by and invited us to go shopping with her...we haven´t been to the shopping area and so we agreed. We took a motorcar to the shopping area where we walked around and looked in the shops. The clothes here are so colorful and vibrant. I found this really really cute shirt that I really wanted but then realized that it had the playboy bunny logo on it as did many of the articles of clothing in the shop, so I didn´t buy it. Sylvia´s novio, Jose, met us in the shopping area and we decided to go to get some cold drinks down the road, since Jose had his moto DUH DUH DUH, Kristyn got to ride with him!!!! It was exciting and I took pics. Sylvia and I walked and met them there where we had these fruit juice icees made with local juices which were yummy. Then we headed to a Chife restaurant for a small dinner of Min Pao (a Chinese Peruvian sticky bun thing that was yummy), but it was my turn to ride...now I am wearing a skirt today (a really cute one that I made) so I wasn´t sure the protocol for riding on a moto in a skirt behind another chica´s boyfriend, but I have seen girls riding side saddle and I asked Jose if I could and he said yes...so I rode a moto side saddle and it was super fun!!! I liked it a lot and wish that I could ride on a moto every day of my life!!! We then sat around the plaza chatting and then - DUH DUH DUH - I got to call my family and Kristyn hers and it was pretty cheap and we are now really happy.
The rest of the day was good as well. Kristyn was in the ER until late last night while I relaxed in the room, so she rested a bit this morning while I went in. There was an old lady would had a large laceration on her foot sewn up last week and she came back and it was SUPER infected...it was pretty bad, I am actually concerned about osteo since it was right over the medial malleolus, added onto that, she has diabetes. All we did was clean it really well and give her topical and systemic antibiotics and send her home, I hope it works. Besides that we had lots of sick vomiting kids. Kristyn came in because she loves sick snotty kids a lot!! ;)
Right before lunch, the ambulance had to go out to get two kids and they like to send us with the ambulance. We like to go and see more of the city and be helpful. So we loaded up and went off. It was funny because the driver only used his horn to alert people we were coming and used the siren only when breaking the law (like running a red light). We got there and picked up the kids, one had a fractured leg and the other a lump on the head. They were playing football in the street and a truck came and the driver couldn´t see them and hit them both. The driver´s insurance thankfully covered them so that they could come to the clinic and get better care. The driver felt really bad and followed us to the clinic and stayed there. Both children are delayed, the nurse said autism, but they don´t have autistic tendencies. I stayed with the boy with the femur fracture. He cried a lot and was hard to calm, but talking softly or singing in his ear and holding his hand helped, he is 5 years old, but really small and non-verbal. Anyway, x-rays showed a closed, short, oblique, displaced femoral fracture so the orthopedic surgeon came in and had us help but traction on the little guys leg, he cried while we did it, but seemed better after. It was hard to cause him pain. It was quite interesting how we applied traction; with an Ace wrap we wrapped the leg then put tape length wise down the leg and around the foot, then used a bottle of saline with 800 cc´s to approximate 5% of the child´s weight which we hung from the tape at the bottom of his leg and over the edge of the bed. It will remain like that for 2 days and after that, we will put him in a pelvic and left leg cast under general anesthesia. It was interesting, but still sad for the boy and his family. They think his brother will be okay despite the lump on his head.
It is hard to believe that 2 weeks have already gone by. We are really enjoying our time here and are learning a lot of spanish, slowly but surely. I am daily amazed by how generally friendly and giving the people here are. I love the peruvian people and am still trying to figure out ways to thank all of them for all they´ve done for us on a daily basis.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
not for the faint of heart (ie. our daddy"s)
so i debated on whether to write this post since i know several people are concerned for our safety - i feel my little story illustrates that we are safe here, even though we attract a lot of attention (i blame little blonde kristyn)
so tuesday afternoon, kristyn and i had to drop off our laundry to get washed near the plaza...we went to the plaza, did our business and then walked home. a few blocks before the hospital, we noticed a boy was walking behind us, kristyn moved over to let him pass a few times and he never did so we kept going. we walked into the hospital complex and he came in behind us. this wasn"t too wierd because it was mid-day and lots of people could be coming from that direction. we needed something from the pharmacy so we stopped in there and looked back to see that he had walked past the pharmacy. after the pharmacy, we needed to ask our friend, maria, a question. her office is behind the hospital where the families all live and patients don"t belong - only people that work at the hospital go back there. so anyway, we head that direction and see the same guy loitering in the hall, when we pass, he starts to follow again. we go around back and he isnt even discrete really, but says nothing to us. we walked up the stairs to the second floor where marias office was and went inside. we could see from the window that he was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. Jose who went with us on our adventure works in the some area as Marie and while I went to talk to Marie. Kristyn got Jose and told him what happened. Jose later described the interaction like this, "She used no Spanish, only English and her hands"..Kristyn says that she said at least hombre and plaza in Spanish. Anyway, so Jose went out and asked the guy what he was looking for, he said the bathroom, Jose directed him and then the guy didnt go where Jose said and so Jose called security.
My favorite part of the story is that when Jose told security that the guys was following us, he said the guy was following, "the chicas, the GRINGAS" and security took care of it. We decided we dont mind being called the gringas.
So anyway, we are safe, security is here at all hours and we know to make sure we arent followed. We were proud of ourselves that we knew not to go back to our room while being followed. So we have people looking out for us and keeping us safe. In reality, he was probably just curious and at worst wanted to take all our money, but he had no weapons and was skinny, I think I could have taken him (but dont worry daddy, I wouldnt have tried).
so tuesday afternoon, kristyn and i had to drop off our laundry to get washed near the plaza...we went to the plaza, did our business and then walked home. a few blocks before the hospital, we noticed a boy was walking behind us, kristyn moved over to let him pass a few times and he never did so we kept going. we walked into the hospital complex and he came in behind us. this wasn"t too wierd because it was mid-day and lots of people could be coming from that direction. we needed something from the pharmacy so we stopped in there and looked back to see that he had walked past the pharmacy. after the pharmacy, we needed to ask our friend, maria, a question. her office is behind the hospital where the families all live and patients don"t belong - only people that work at the hospital go back there. so anyway, we head that direction and see the same guy loitering in the hall, when we pass, he starts to follow again. we go around back and he isnt even discrete really, but says nothing to us. we walked up the stairs to the second floor where marias office was and went inside. we could see from the window that he was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. Jose who went with us on our adventure works in the some area as Marie and while I went to talk to Marie. Kristyn got Jose and told him what happened. Jose later described the interaction like this, "She used no Spanish, only English and her hands"..Kristyn says that she said at least hombre and plaza in Spanish. Anyway, so Jose went out and asked the guy what he was looking for, he said the bathroom, Jose directed him and then the guy didnt go where Jose said and so Jose called security.
My favorite part of the story is that when Jose told security that the guys was following us, he said the guy was following, "the chicas, the GRINGAS" and security took care of it. We decided we dont mind being called the gringas.
So anyway, we are safe, security is here at all hours and we know to make sure we arent followed. We were proud of ourselves that we knew not to go back to our room while being followed. So we have people looking out for us and keeping us safe. In reality, he was probably just curious and at worst wanted to take all our money, but he had no weapons and was skinny, I think I could have taken him (but dont worry daddy, I wouldnt have tried).
Visitors from the US
So I am not sure if I explained how we ended up in Peru. During your fourth year at Loma Linda, you can do up to 2 months of mission elective outside of the US. There are a whole bunch of Loma Linda affiliated hospitals all over the world to choose from. My roomie Kristyn and I decided last year to go on a trip together this year, but neither of us had a preference. The only condition was that we go somewhere neither of us had been. As time passed, we were both busy and I was on the east coast for much of the time and we never agreed on a place. January rolled around and I was busy on my sub'i and then February when Kristyn was busy on hers and we never had a place to go until late February after I had given up all hopes of going, Kristyn came home super excited and told me that one of her favorite surgeons, Dr. Balarezzo was going to Peru in April and said we should go then too!! It was all last minute to get the trip approved but everything fell into place perfectly and now we are here.
So this past week, two surgeons from Riverside who are Loma Linda Professors arrived in Iquitos, Dr. Balarezzo and Dr. Ludi, who are also two of the surgeons that Kristyn most admires. We have spent the last two evenings listening to lectures by them in Spanish and getting pimped (which Kristyn enjoys more than I do). It is so nice to have a little piece of familiarity even if only for a short time. Dr. Balarezzo is Peruvian and so gave us lots of advice on things to see around Iquitos and then other parts of Peru when we travel.
My favorite part of the nightly lectures were that they were held at the Colegio Medico de Peru...the school is a few blocks from the Plaza where we use internet. We took a motorcar the first night to get there, but once we knew where it was we decided to walk home and then walk there the next night. I got to impress Kristyn with my excellent navigation skills and we didn"t get lost at all.
Besides the evening lectures, we have just been hanging out in the hospital, mostly in the emergency room. Today we had a patient come in after being hit by a bus, she had a lot of pain but was alive and will be fine, which is literally what the doctor told her when she complained of pain. We also had 2 cases of Dengue, 1 mastitis, 1 pregnant lady and a newborn. It was a busy morning and went by quickly. Yesterday there was a guy with a 3'4 inch scalp laceration that Kristyn expertly stitched up. Tonight Kristyn will go to the regional hospital to practice suturing with an intern there. Dr. Flores took us both to the regional hospital 2 days ago and it was so different. The clinic is private whereas the regional hospital is owned by and subsidized by the government. It was really harsh to see how little the hospital had and how many patients went through there. We went to the NICU and saw a 6 week old 32 weeker who was super tiny, almost the tiniest baby I have ever seen. There"s just a lot of volume at these hospitals and the care isn"t as comfortable as here, although I hope it"s still good care. Lots of the specialists that work here also work there so the education level of the workers is the same but I guess it"s just that the resources are scarce.
I am excited to report (at least to Gina) that I have been running in the mornings and really enjoying it. Yesterday I even ran in the pouring rain and it was lovely. I run around the futbol field most of the time but am getting bored of it so I may run through town tomorrow - it is more interesting than circles.
I have one more story, but that"s going in a separate post.
So this past week, two surgeons from Riverside who are Loma Linda Professors arrived in Iquitos, Dr. Balarezzo and Dr. Ludi, who are also two of the surgeons that Kristyn most admires. We have spent the last two evenings listening to lectures by them in Spanish and getting pimped (which Kristyn enjoys more than I do). It is so nice to have a little piece of familiarity even if only for a short time. Dr. Balarezzo is Peruvian and so gave us lots of advice on things to see around Iquitos and then other parts of Peru when we travel.
My favorite part of the nightly lectures were that they were held at the Colegio Medico de Peru...the school is a few blocks from the Plaza where we use internet. We took a motorcar the first night to get there, but once we knew where it was we decided to walk home and then walk there the next night. I got to impress Kristyn with my excellent navigation skills and we didn"t get lost at all.
Besides the evening lectures, we have just been hanging out in the hospital, mostly in the emergency room. Today we had a patient come in after being hit by a bus, she had a lot of pain but was alive and will be fine, which is literally what the doctor told her when she complained of pain. We also had 2 cases of Dengue, 1 mastitis, 1 pregnant lady and a newborn. It was a busy morning and went by quickly. Yesterday there was a guy with a 3'4 inch scalp laceration that Kristyn expertly stitched up. Tonight Kristyn will go to the regional hospital to practice suturing with an intern there. Dr. Flores took us both to the regional hospital 2 days ago and it was so different. The clinic is private whereas the regional hospital is owned by and subsidized by the government. It was really harsh to see how little the hospital had and how many patients went through there. We went to the NICU and saw a 6 week old 32 weeker who was super tiny, almost the tiniest baby I have ever seen. There"s just a lot of volume at these hospitals and the care isn"t as comfortable as here, although I hope it"s still good care. Lots of the specialists that work here also work there so the education level of the workers is the same but I guess it"s just that the resources are scarce.
I am excited to report (at least to Gina) that I have been running in the mornings and really enjoying it. Yesterday I even ran in the pouring rain and it was lovely. I run around the futbol field most of the time but am getting bored of it so I may run through town tomorrow - it is more interesting than circles.
I have one more story, but that"s going in a separate post.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Aguaje (Kristyn)
So we eat in the cafeteria every day. Even when they´re closed for business, they still make plates for us. Which makes the nutritionist a little angry when we decide to eat elsewhere. We can´t figure out how to tell her when we´ll be gone cause she looks so desolate when we try. But disappointed when we come back. Que problema. We´ve called her the Soup Nazi, although she really is very nice.
Anyway, after lunch thursday one of the cafeteria workers got us popsicles for desert...a special treat! We were super excited cause it was a hot day and we took them outside in the yard to eat. They were this interesting orange-y brown with darker brown granulations, almost like the peanut butter my grandpa and my hippie friends like. So we dug in and stopped short. It was grainy, almost like cream of wheat, and equal parts butterscotch, pumpkin and vomit. We tried again and I thought that just licking off the melty parts was a little better than committing to a mouthful. But I couldn´t do it. We noticed that a lady had just deposited a bag of trash in a pile nearby and, after scouting to make sure the windows were high enough to prevent anyone from seeing, Andi surruptitiously tucked our popsicles into the trash. Escape.
Cut to the next day. Cistocoche zoo, after walking around for a couple hours. Jacky offered us a nice white looking popsicle (they´re called Shambo). Our third rule was born, and I took the coco Shambo. Jacky thought she´d introduce us to some local food and dug around in the guy´s cooler for awhile. Even though Andi tried her best to express how much she loved coco, how coco was the only thing she wanted in the whole world, how her head would spin in circles and her knees would bend the wrong way if she didn´t get coco...Jacky pulled out a glowing vomit colored Shambo. "Aguaje!" We shared both. I think that deserved a blog post entitled True Love. Ahem.
Now, a pastoral scene. We were invited to a potluck with the residents of the Clinic, mostly doctors and their families. After we ate, they passed around a cooler...we heard the Jaws theme song in the background, I´m pretty sure. To our relief, Andi was able to get her hands on a coco one and I had just picked up a pretty pink one when Dr. Flores rushed to our rescue. "Women have to eat this kind" and traded BOTH of our Shambos for Aguaje! Oh Lord in Heaven give us strength. Turns out, Aguaje is loaded with all kinds of girlie hormones and people eat it to be more beautiful. The make doctor who picked Aguaje was compared to Ricky Martin, to the glee of all assembled. It wasn´t as bad the third time, but it might be my tastebuds resigning themselves to their fate...
Anyway, after lunch thursday one of the cafeteria workers got us popsicles for desert...a special treat! We were super excited cause it was a hot day and we took them outside in the yard to eat. They were this interesting orange-y brown with darker brown granulations, almost like the peanut butter my grandpa and my hippie friends like. So we dug in and stopped short. It was grainy, almost like cream of wheat, and equal parts butterscotch, pumpkin and vomit. We tried again and I thought that just licking off the melty parts was a little better than committing to a mouthful. But I couldn´t do it. We noticed that a lady had just deposited a bag of trash in a pile nearby and, after scouting to make sure the windows were high enough to prevent anyone from seeing, Andi surruptitiously tucked our popsicles into the trash. Escape.
Cut to the next day. Cistocoche zoo, after walking around for a couple hours. Jacky offered us a nice white looking popsicle (they´re called Shambo). Our third rule was born, and I took the coco Shambo. Jacky thought she´d introduce us to some local food and dug around in the guy´s cooler for awhile. Even though Andi tried her best to express how much she loved coco, how coco was the only thing she wanted in the whole world, how her head would spin in circles and her knees would bend the wrong way if she didn´t get coco...Jacky pulled out a glowing vomit colored Shambo. "Aguaje!" We shared both. I think that deserved a blog post entitled True Love. Ahem.
Now, a pastoral scene. We were invited to a potluck with the residents of the Clinic, mostly doctors and their families. After we ate, they passed around a cooler...we heard the Jaws theme song in the background, I´m pretty sure. To our relief, Andi was able to get her hands on a coco one and I had just picked up a pretty pink one when Dr. Flores rushed to our rescue. "Women have to eat this kind" and traded BOTH of our Shambos for Aguaje! Oh Lord in Heaven give us strength. Turns out, Aguaje is loaded with all kinds of girlie hormones and people eat it to be more beautiful. The make doctor who picked Aguaje was compared to Ricky Martin, to the glee of all assembled. It wasn´t as bad the third time, but it might be my tastebuds resigning themselves to their fate...
Our Paseos
lower case is faster... oh yeah and friday was our first city but ride which is cheaper than motorcar but harder for us gringos when we don´t have a friend to guide us.
so in the past few days we have had so many adventures and if i am as detailed as i like then i will never get caught up so i am going to abbreviate as much as possible.
so friday was a holiday and one of the nurses asked if we wanted to go on a paseo (trip) with her for the day. we agreed excitedly. she took us to the zoo in town with all of the amazon animals. outside the zoo, she told us the food was cheaper so we stopped and got some food at a little hut type place with a grill outside. there were some larva (huge, bigger than my thumb) in a bowl that we could have grilled and eat, but we didn´t do that, instead we had fried sweet bananas, and green bananas in a ball with corn that was yummy. kristyn was full after half of the banana ball thing and so she gave it to the monkeys in the zoo which they were grateful for. this was the first street cuisine we sampled and it was good, we were a bit concerned about the outcome (ie. diarrea) but enjoyed the moment. inside the zoo we saw tons of monkeys, birds, and jungle cats - it was strange only having a chain-link fence between me and a big puma! kristyn and i also got to hold an anaconda!! i have pics, but it has been taking a long time to load, so those will come another time. there were also cabibaras, pink dolphins, pike, alligators, and many more...it was cool to see all the jungle animals even though they weren´t in their natural environment.
after we left the zoo, our friends asked if we wanted to go to another nice place, we said yes and got into a motocar which took us over 5 km out of the city into the jungle where there was this nice little tropical lake with few people swimming and playing volleyball. kristyn and i hadn´t brought our swimsuits, but nobody else had either so we all went in with our clothes. kristyn said nigleria at least 12 times while we swam. after swimming we ate yuacca and guava for the first time!! oh and drank tampico. then we went back to the clinic where we enjoyed a nice shower.
on sabbath we went to church. Dr. Flores, the pediatrician, got one of the elders to get us involved in Sabbath school, our dad´s would be very proud, i announced the hymn, the elder wrote down my one line for me ¨ahora, cantamos el himno numero uno¨ and kristyn had the prayer in english, we were a hit!! on the first sabbath of every month all the people that live in the clinic complex get together for a potluck and they invited us! it was really good food, lots of adventist casseroles (They are everywhere). while at lunch, jackie, our new friend called and asked if we wanted to go on another adventure, this one overnight, we agreed and went off to pack.
at 6 pm on saturday we were packed and ready to go but didn´t know where. we were going with maria (the secretary who helped arrange our trip here), silva (the gynecologist) and her boyfriend (computer guy at hospital) oh and his name is Jose, and Jackie (the obstetrician). Silvia is like the OB GYN and Jackie is like the midwife. that was our group. we took a motorcar to a random corner where a bus was waiting...we loaded on the bus and jose went and bought us snacks. it was like a coach bus in the seats but otherwise like a school bus but really old and dingy. it was packed and pretty hot so we kept open the windows. it was a 2 hour trip to nauta, a city to the south. we got to our hotel, settled in then walked to the town square to get dinner of chicken, french fries, and fried plantains....it was super yummy. Then off to bed.
Sunday morning, we went swimming in the hotel´s pool. kristyn and i showed off our swimming skills and tried to teach the girls how to swim. a stranger in the pool wanted to race me and so we raced for a lap, he beat me but barely. after swimming, we showered and went to the market where we had smoothies and cheese sandwiches for breakfast...they were so good. the girl tried to overcharge kristyn and i but Jose told her no and argued with her until she charged us a fair price. then we got in a boat and went down the river, i forget the name, but it combines with another river to form the amazon. we went to the origin of the amazon where we saw pink dolphins swimming around us!! it was great, then we went to this jungle town with a lookout we could climb up and see the joining of the rivers to make the amazon. the cost to climb the tower was twice the price for tourists, but again Jose argued that we were doctors and Peruvians and not tourists, so we got the Peruvian price. it was a great view and i took lots of pictures. after we came down we ate more guava and aqua de cocoa and then a fruit that tasted like mango but with 4 seeds and thicker skin....the family we bought them from had the cutest little daughter who had a pet tortoise. then we loaded on the boat to go back to nauta. it was super sunny and although we had an awning, the sun shone in the side and burned my arm and leg. we got back to town and went to a restaurant for dinner, just as we arrived there it started to downpour!! it seems like we were always getting out of the rain just in time. if it had been raining on the river it would have been very dangerous. i got potatoes with sauce and avocadoes because they were out of chicken. i tried everyone´s entrees though and ate fried and boiled pike...both tasted really good and not fishy at all. kristyn got the ceviche which is peruvian specialty made with raw fish, she liked it even tho it was really rich. i even tried a tiny bite and survived!!
after dinner we loaded the bus and came back to iquitos, a little redder for the trip but content. so that´s the quick version!!!
and now tonight i am going to the regional hospital (the equivalent of county hospital) with Dr. Flores the pediatrician, so need to run back to the hospital and put on my scrubs.
so in the past few days we have had so many adventures and if i am as detailed as i like then i will never get caught up so i am going to abbreviate as much as possible.
so friday was a holiday and one of the nurses asked if we wanted to go on a paseo (trip) with her for the day. we agreed excitedly. she took us to the zoo in town with all of the amazon animals. outside the zoo, she told us the food was cheaper so we stopped and got some food at a little hut type place with a grill outside. there were some larva (huge, bigger than my thumb) in a bowl that we could have grilled and eat, but we didn´t do that, instead we had fried sweet bananas, and green bananas in a ball with corn that was yummy. kristyn was full after half of the banana ball thing and so she gave it to the monkeys in the zoo which they were grateful for. this was the first street cuisine we sampled and it was good, we were a bit concerned about the outcome (ie. diarrea) but enjoyed the moment. inside the zoo we saw tons of monkeys, birds, and jungle cats - it was strange only having a chain-link fence between me and a big puma! kristyn and i also got to hold an anaconda!! i have pics, but it has been taking a long time to load, so those will come another time. there were also cabibaras, pink dolphins, pike, alligators, and many more...it was cool to see all the jungle animals even though they weren´t in their natural environment.
after we left the zoo, our friends asked if we wanted to go to another nice place, we said yes and got into a motocar which took us over 5 km out of the city into the jungle where there was this nice little tropical lake with few people swimming and playing volleyball. kristyn and i hadn´t brought our swimsuits, but nobody else had either so we all went in with our clothes. kristyn said nigleria at least 12 times while we swam. after swimming we ate yuacca and guava for the first time!! oh and drank tampico. then we went back to the clinic where we enjoyed a nice shower.
on sabbath we went to church. Dr. Flores, the pediatrician, got one of the elders to get us involved in Sabbath school, our dad´s would be very proud, i announced the hymn, the elder wrote down my one line for me ¨ahora, cantamos el himno numero uno¨ and kristyn had the prayer in english, we were a hit!! on the first sabbath of every month all the people that live in the clinic complex get together for a potluck and they invited us! it was really good food, lots of adventist casseroles (They are everywhere). while at lunch, jackie, our new friend called and asked if we wanted to go on another adventure, this one overnight, we agreed and went off to pack.
at 6 pm on saturday we were packed and ready to go but didn´t know where. we were going with maria (the secretary who helped arrange our trip here), silva (the gynecologist) and her boyfriend (computer guy at hospital) oh and his name is Jose, and Jackie (the obstetrician). Silvia is like the OB GYN and Jackie is like the midwife. that was our group. we took a motorcar to a random corner where a bus was waiting...we loaded on the bus and jose went and bought us snacks. it was like a coach bus in the seats but otherwise like a school bus but really old and dingy. it was packed and pretty hot so we kept open the windows. it was a 2 hour trip to nauta, a city to the south. we got to our hotel, settled in then walked to the town square to get dinner of chicken, french fries, and fried plantains....it was super yummy. Then off to bed.
Sunday morning, we went swimming in the hotel´s pool. kristyn and i showed off our swimming skills and tried to teach the girls how to swim. a stranger in the pool wanted to race me and so we raced for a lap, he beat me but barely. after swimming, we showered and went to the market where we had smoothies and cheese sandwiches for breakfast...they were so good. the girl tried to overcharge kristyn and i but Jose told her no and argued with her until she charged us a fair price. then we got in a boat and went down the river, i forget the name, but it combines with another river to form the amazon. we went to the origin of the amazon where we saw pink dolphins swimming around us!! it was great, then we went to this jungle town with a lookout we could climb up and see the joining of the rivers to make the amazon. the cost to climb the tower was twice the price for tourists, but again Jose argued that we were doctors and Peruvians and not tourists, so we got the Peruvian price. it was a great view and i took lots of pictures. after we came down we ate more guava and aqua de cocoa and then a fruit that tasted like mango but with 4 seeds and thicker skin....the family we bought them from had the cutest little daughter who had a pet tortoise. then we loaded on the boat to go back to nauta. it was super sunny and although we had an awning, the sun shone in the side and burned my arm and leg. we got back to town and went to a restaurant for dinner, just as we arrived there it started to downpour!! it seems like we were always getting out of the rain just in time. if it had been raining on the river it would have been very dangerous. i got potatoes with sauce and avocadoes because they were out of chicken. i tried everyone´s entrees though and ate fried and boiled pike...both tasted really good and not fishy at all. kristyn got the ceviche which is peruvian specialty made with raw fish, she liked it even tho it was really rich. i even tried a tiny bite and survived!!
after dinner we loaded the bus and came back to iquitos, a little redder for the trip but content. so that´s the quick version!!!
and now tonight i am going to the regional hospital (the equivalent of county hospital) with Dr. Flores the pediatrician, so need to run back to the hospital and put on my scrubs.
I´m Sick
So with all the adventures that we have had, I feel like I should talk about them, but instead I am gonig to talk about my sickness. Before coming here I had a head cold with congestion and a non-productive cough. I got over it but after being here a couple days, I started coughing again, a deep cough productive of clear mucus. It is accompanied by pressure in my chest and now lots of nasal congestion and rhinorrhea. It is no fun at all. During the night, I have paroxyms of coughing. I told Kristyn that I either have aspiration pneumonia (as I choked on my guava juice the night before I started to be sick) or TB! Dr. Flores, the pediatrician says I have bronchospasms from the humidity. Kristyn auscultated and I am clear with good aeration, so I have no idea. One guy told me I need a shot of penicillin in the butt but I don´t think it´s bacterial. The doc we worked with in the emergency room this morning wrote a script for something today so I will go to the pharmacy and see if that helps. Until then I will just keep Kristyn awake at night with my coughing.
Pienso que... (Kristyn)
Andi has this whole blog thing down, but I haven´t yet figured out how to make my thoughts understandable. I´m sure Daniel agrees. So just a few thoughts:
Danish mom with impossibly straight hair + Sicilian dad with thermophobia = Hair that curls without coaxing in this heat. Who knew? And can I bottle it to sell?
Translucent skin is to your advantage when you want to catch a motocar. Not so much when you want to pay a palatable price for said motocar. Or avoid melanoma, for that matter.
Fruit in a foreign country is generally an invitation for a night in the servicio. Unless it´s a sauna outside, and then it´s wonderfully refreshing and perplexingly constipating.
I still understand what you´re saying even if I don´t understand the words you´re using to explain it. Unless it´s to my advantage to not understand, in which case I can pretend til the cows come home.
I´m sure I´ll have more, but for a complete account of our travels thus far, ask Andi.
And ask her why she screamed last night... ;)
Danish mom with impossibly straight hair + Sicilian dad with thermophobia = Hair that curls without coaxing in this heat. Who knew? And can I bottle it to sell?
Translucent skin is to your advantage when you want to catch a motocar. Not so much when you want to pay a palatable price for said motocar. Or avoid melanoma, for that matter.
Fruit in a foreign country is generally an invitation for a night in the servicio. Unless it´s a sauna outside, and then it´s wonderfully refreshing and perplexingly constipating.
I still understand what you´re saying even if I don´t understand the words you´re using to explain it. Unless it´s to my advantage to not understand, in which case I can pretend til the cows come home.
I´m sure I´ll have more, but for a complete account of our travels thus far, ask Andi.
And ask her why she screamed last night... ;)
Cocos
So coconuts are cocos and so last Thursday afternoon when we got home, we ran into the nutritionist who wanted to show us some plants. We went out into the hospital´s yard where we saw all the coconut trees!! It was pretty exciting. We picked coconuts and then Lilly the echograph tech brought this special tool to open them up and drink the aqua de coco. Kristyn doesn´t like coconut, but it really did taste more like water than coconut. It was pretty fun!! We too pictures but they will come later. We also picked a bunch of bananas, they are still green so we haven´t eaten them here! In Peru they are not sweet when they aren´t ripe so they make not sweet things out of plantain verde and sweet treats out of the yellow ones, plantain amarillo! They have guava and mango trees on the grounds too but those aren´t ripe quit yet.
A few photos
Motos - a lot of people drive these. The maximum we have seen on one of these is 6 but that included children. They are pretty dangerous and we have seen several broken wrists from accidents. We haven´t ridden on one yet, but I think if I lived here permanently, I would drive one!! ;)
The motocars ' which are like taxis ' the driver sits in the front and we sit in the back. The most adults we have seen in the back of one is 6!
Our first night out dancing on the Amazon!
Coming from the Airport this is the first thing we saw.
Rules
So Kristyn and I decided on some rules for our trip, some of which we broke the day after we made them, but some rules are made to be broken, others only ammended. I don´t remember them verbatim as we wrote them in our room but I will put down what I remember. I also will share the story behind the rule.
1. If you don´t hear the number, ask them to say it again.
This rule was created after the cashier at the airport asked me for 39 soles (treinta nueve) for our airport use fee and I handed him 390 (tres cien noventa) ... he basically asked me for $13 and I gave him $130 ... in my defense, it seemed steep when he asked, but we were in a hurry to catch our next flight, which also my excuse for forgetting to zip my messenger bag and then spilling it´s contents on the floor of the security line. So from then on, we always clarify - thankfully the cashier was honest and handed me back all my money, minus 39 soles.
2. Don´t ever eat anything out of a dirty personal cooler.
This one seems pretty self explanatory - but we broke it the next day. So we have ammended it that we won´t eat anything sketchy unless it is given to us by or approved by someone from the hospital. So far the rule has kept us safe with not frequent bathroom visits, yet!
3. Whenever anyone (that we trust) asks if we want to do something, say yes.
During our paseo on Friday, the friends we were with kept asking if we wanted to go somewhere else, neither Kristyn or I could completely understand them so we said we had no preference. They ended up taking us and it was a blast, so we always say ok.
More rules to come.....
1. If you don´t hear the number, ask them to say it again.
This rule was created after the cashier at the airport asked me for 39 soles (treinta nueve) for our airport use fee and I handed him 390 (tres cien noventa) ... he basically asked me for $13 and I gave him $130 ... in my defense, it seemed steep when he asked, but we were in a hurry to catch our next flight, which also my excuse for forgetting to zip my messenger bag and then spilling it´s contents on the floor of the security line. So from then on, we always clarify - thankfully the cashier was honest and handed me back all my money, minus 39 soles.
2. Don´t ever eat anything out of a dirty personal cooler.
This one seems pretty self explanatory - but we broke it the next day. So we have ammended it that we won´t eat anything sketchy unless it is given to us by or approved by someone from the hospital. So far the rule has kept us safe with not frequent bathroom visits, yet!
3. Whenever anyone (that we trust) asks if we want to do something, say yes.
During our paseo on Friday, the friends we were with kept asking if we wanted to go somewhere else, neither Kristyn or I could completely understand them so we said we had no preference. They ended up taking us and it was a blast, so we always say ok.
More rules to come.....
Thursday´s Relaxing Afternoon and Men and Rules
so the shift on my keyboard is being finnicky so i have to resort to something me dad hates - no caps! sorry daddy!
so thursday we decided to sit in the town square and read books, there is one problem with this plan - we attract people, namely men. i am not bragging - no we aren´t unattractive girls but the rapidity with which we are swarmed can soley be attributed to our skin tone. it´s crazy - the first person was a police officer (with a gun) who came up to us. the other universal thing is that the first thing anyone says to us is 'are you married' which is really the least important question in our minds - it even precedes, 'what is your name' and 'where are you from'. when we say no, their eyes light up. the most awkward thing is that this police officer as an example is 45 - yep, 4 5. when you are old enough to be my father (barely, but still) i don´t think my marital status should be your first concern.
after the small talk (that never moves on to large talk because my spanish is not that well developed), the conversation always ends with them insisting that they give me their phone number, e-mail, home address or all of the above. i politely accept since i think that's the easiest solution. so now i have all these little pieces of paper floating around my room with names and numbers and addresses, some i have no memory of who it is and none will i ever use. thankfully i have no phone here and thus have no number to give...
so in the end, kristyn and i concluded that we would be unable to sit outside and read every again because both of us read barely 5 pages in our books in the span of 2 hours. however, we sat in the square and beside the river and enjoyed the afternoon nonetheless.
also during our interlude with the police officer her tried to buy popsicles for us, we politely declined buying anything from the old man with the dirty personal cooler. it was after this that we decided we needed some rules for the trip...those will be featured in my next post....
so thursday we decided to sit in the town square and read books, there is one problem with this plan - we attract people, namely men. i am not bragging - no we aren´t unattractive girls but the rapidity with which we are swarmed can soley be attributed to our skin tone. it´s crazy - the first person was a police officer (with a gun) who came up to us. the other universal thing is that the first thing anyone says to us is 'are you married' which is really the least important question in our minds - it even precedes, 'what is your name' and 'where are you from'. when we say no, their eyes light up. the most awkward thing is that this police officer as an example is 45 - yep, 4 5. when you are old enough to be my father (barely, but still) i don´t think my marital status should be your first concern.
after the small talk (that never moves on to large talk because my spanish is not that well developed), the conversation always ends with them insisting that they give me their phone number, e-mail, home address or all of the above. i politely accept since i think that's the easiest solution. so now i have all these little pieces of paper floating around my room with names and numbers and addresses, some i have no memory of who it is and none will i ever use. thankfully i have no phone here and thus have no number to give...
so in the end, kristyn and i concluded that we would be unable to sit outside and read every again because both of us read barely 5 pages in our books in the span of 2 hours. however, we sat in the square and beside the river and enjoyed the afternoon nonetheless.
also during our interlude with the police officer her tried to buy popsicles for us, we politely declined buying anything from the old man with the dirty personal cooler. it was after this that we decided we needed some rules for the trip...those will be featured in my next post....
Proud to Be An American (Andi)
So although it was four days ago, I want to respond to Kristyn´s post. For those of you who don´t know, Kristyn is my lovely roomate and my companion on this adventure. She is posting on this blog as well - we´ll try to make it clear who is talking. I have a feeling most of her posts will be recounting my most embarassing moments.
I did fish out the TP out of love, but also because I am proud of America. I know that doesn´t make much sense, but I super super love my country and I am very grateful for what it provides me. I may not always agree with the decisions of its leaders, but I am alway supportive. (All this is said in light of the book 'On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet' which is a book sort of about the Japanese internment and how it affects certain people, Kristyn and I have read it during our trip and it´s super good but sad and makes me disappointed in my country).
But anyway, I really feel like we represent our country and so I want to always be careful to represent it well when I travel!! That´s why I am always friendly and happy when we meet people ' and that is why I fish toilet paper out of the toilet, because the hostess directed us to the bathroom and she knew that the Americans were in there and other people in the restaurant saw and if they saw that we threw in the TP, they would think us inconsiderate and I wouldn´t like that. There...off my soapbox now.
So much has happened since my last post, so I am going to split it all up into separate posts so that it´s less overwhelming to myself and my readers.
I did fish out the TP out of love, but also because I am proud of America. I know that doesn´t make much sense, but I super super love my country and I am very grateful for what it provides me. I may not always agree with the decisions of its leaders, but I am alway supportive. (All this is said in light of the book 'On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet' which is a book sort of about the Japanese internment and how it affects certain people, Kristyn and I have read it during our trip and it´s super good but sad and makes me disappointed in my country).
But anyway, I really feel like we represent our country and so I want to always be careful to represent it well when I travel!! That´s why I am always friendly and happy when we meet people ' and that is why I fish toilet paper out of the toilet, because the hostess directed us to the bathroom and she knew that the Americans were in there and other people in the restaurant saw and if they saw that we threw in the TP, they would think us inconsiderate and I wouldn´t like that. There...off my soapbox now.
So much has happened since my last post, so I am going to split it all up into separate posts so that it´s less overwhelming to myself and my readers.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Twoo Wove. (Kristyn)
A point of clarification. Andi mentioned a restaurant. And she mentioned a bathroom in that restaurant. However, she modestly did not mention the demonstration of pure love that occured in that dark, dank outhouse.
It was a squatty potty. You know the kind. A single light swinging from the rafters, the huge spider in the corner that watches you pee, and the roll of toilet paper, slightly damp from sitting on the ground and with only a few precious squares left. Andi went first while I held the door and she courteously threw the TP in the overflowing trash can in the back corner although it was questionable whether or not this particular toilet flushed at all. I, on the other hand, do not have thighs as nicely cultivated as Andi´s. I tried to get it all over with as quickly as possible, and in my haste, I dropped the TP! In the toilet! That probably emptied straight into the Amazon River!
I gasped. Andi let go of the door. And we looked at each other. Then she grabbed an empty TP roll from the trash, being careful not to touch anything else, and fished the TP out of the toilet and put it in the trash can.
Now let the whole world know that Andi is indeed a consciencious and eco-aware world traveller. She says she did it for America, but I know the truth. True Love.
It was a squatty potty. You know the kind. A single light swinging from the rafters, the huge spider in the corner that watches you pee, and the roll of toilet paper, slightly damp from sitting on the ground and with only a few precious squares left. Andi went first while I held the door and she courteously threw the TP in the overflowing trash can in the back corner although it was questionable whether or not this particular toilet flushed at all. I, on the other hand, do not have thighs as nicely cultivated as Andi´s. I tried to get it all over with as quickly as possible, and in my haste, I dropped the TP! In the toilet! That probably emptied straight into the Amazon River!
I gasped. Andi let go of the door. And we looked at each other. Then she grabbed an empty TP roll from the trash, being careful not to touch anything else, and fished the TP out of the toilet and put it in the trash can.
Now let the whole world know that Andi is indeed a consciencious and eco-aware world traveller. She says she did it for America, but I know the truth. True Love.
when you hear hooves (Andi)
At Loma Linda, or in medicine in general I guess, there is a saying that when you hear hooves, you should think horses and not Zebras. I actually just realized that that saying isn´t unique to medicine as I recently heard it on Law and Order SVU (of which I had a mini-marathon of prior to leaving Peru). So back to the saying, which is widespread and means, think of the most common things first. The funny thing is that here in Peru, the most common things are different - like for example malaria, nobody in the US has malaria, but here it´s the first thing that we rule out - the same with Dengue, fever, body aches, and diarrhea would never lead to that diagnosis in the US, but her all you need is that triad and low platelets and you have Dengue -boom. I secretly hope I contract Dengue one day prior to leaving, when I become dehydrated and have to go to the ER for fluid rehydration, Kristyn can burst through the doors with the correct diagnosis - ¡DENGUE! - the doctors will scoff at first but then realize she is right and will be super impressed - okay, so maybe I don´t want Dengue because there is a serious form with high morbidity and that would be no fun.
Yesterday was a bit of a slow day in the ER - we did have a trauma though which made for an interesting time. This 53 year old women fell 4-6 meters off the roof of her house, they brought her on a motorcar (a three wheel taxi thing, pictures to follow someday) and her daughter was stabilizing her C-spine, she had a big laceration on the back of her neck and her right toe was all bloody, she complained of shoulder pain...besides being a bit hysterical she was okay really. Kristyn assisted in sewing up the lac and even though she didn´t catch every word of instruction, her surgeon skills kicked in and she always knew what the doctor need her to do next. Meanwhile I ripped off the women´s big toenail. This is kinda a big deal to me because I don´t like inflicting pain on others. The saving grace is that my best running buddy Gina loses her toenails on a regular basis and so looking at it like that and that the toenail was already half off and she didn´t seem to even notice made me think this was possible. I started to try to do it without anesthetic until the nurse scolded me and made me inject lidocaine which I think inflicted more pain. So long story short, I ripped off the toenail (with some screaming by the patient), and cleaned it, and bandaged it, and only felt slightly nauseous = a good procedure. The ladý´s x-rays ended up only showing a fractured clavicle which is shocking after the height of her fall - they wanted to keep her a few days for observation, but since la clinica is a private place, it was too expensive and the family had to send her to a different hospital. Kristyn and I rode along in the ambulance - we were taking her to a VA hospital because her husband was in the military but when we got there and unloaded the patient we were refused. Kristyn and I didn´t catch all of the conversation and so we didn´t know why - when we got back in the ambulance the driver told us that the hospital didn´t have doctors because the govt doesn´t pay well and so doctors will work there so they couldn´t take care of her. We ended up taking her to the regional hospital which was not nice - there were no sheets on the beds and so we left the clinic´s sheets and gowns with the patient (the family promised to return them). Then we drove around in the ambulance and saw the medical school and cemetary before going back to the clinic.
The past couple of days have been really good and our Spanish is getting better every day. I think Kristyn is learning faster than me though - I have the vocabulary but she has the ear and understands what people say more easily. We have decided that if we could just share a brain then we would be set. As it is though, we are doing pretty good.
Last night we went dancing with a few of the doctors from the hospital. We went to a restaurant that was over the Amazon - it was literally on stilts and had little tables out over the water (about 20 feet over the water) that had reed type roofs and such. It was a really cool view even though it was dark. They played some salsa music, but most of the time we danced to 80s bands which wasn´t the easiest...I haven´t ever danced to Cindy Lauper before but we made it work. We had some interesting moments where Kristyn and I had to hold the bathroom door shut for one another.
So today is a holiday in Peru as is tomorrow because of Easter Sunday, so we aren´t working this afternoon. Instead we walked to the Plaza (the town square) where we can spend some quality internet time and then we plan to enjoy the sun on the Plaza and read good books. Tomorrow we are going on a paseo with some of the nurses. We are told this mean picnic, but my dictionary says a walk - so basically we are going on an adventure which sounds like a lot of fun. So those are our plans for the rest of the week. It is Easter sunday and so we have been having chapel each morning and evening. I think this weekend will have lots of holy week activities. If they don´t have anything on Sunday morning, I think it would be interesting to go to the Catholic church on the square to see an Easter service here.
Anyway, I hope to be able to keep posting frequently, I know my posts are long, but they are partly for my own preservation as well as your information!
Yesterday was a bit of a slow day in the ER - we did have a trauma though which made for an interesting time. This 53 year old women fell 4-6 meters off the roof of her house, they brought her on a motorcar (a three wheel taxi thing, pictures to follow someday) and her daughter was stabilizing her C-spine, she had a big laceration on the back of her neck and her right toe was all bloody, she complained of shoulder pain...besides being a bit hysterical she was okay really. Kristyn assisted in sewing up the lac and even though she didn´t catch every word of instruction, her surgeon skills kicked in and she always knew what the doctor need her to do next. Meanwhile I ripped off the women´s big toenail. This is kinda a big deal to me because I don´t like inflicting pain on others. The saving grace is that my best running buddy Gina loses her toenails on a regular basis and so looking at it like that and that the toenail was already half off and she didn´t seem to even notice made me think this was possible. I started to try to do it without anesthetic until the nurse scolded me and made me inject lidocaine which I think inflicted more pain. So long story short, I ripped off the toenail (with some screaming by the patient), and cleaned it, and bandaged it, and only felt slightly nauseous = a good procedure. The ladý´s x-rays ended up only showing a fractured clavicle which is shocking after the height of her fall - they wanted to keep her a few days for observation, but since la clinica is a private place, it was too expensive and the family had to send her to a different hospital. Kristyn and I rode along in the ambulance - we were taking her to a VA hospital because her husband was in the military but when we got there and unloaded the patient we were refused. Kristyn and I didn´t catch all of the conversation and so we didn´t know why - when we got back in the ambulance the driver told us that the hospital didn´t have doctors because the govt doesn´t pay well and so doctors will work there so they couldn´t take care of her. We ended up taking her to the regional hospital which was not nice - there were no sheets on the beds and so we left the clinic´s sheets and gowns with the patient (the family promised to return them). Then we drove around in the ambulance and saw the medical school and cemetary before going back to the clinic.
The past couple of days have been really good and our Spanish is getting better every day. I think Kristyn is learning faster than me though - I have the vocabulary but she has the ear and understands what people say more easily. We have decided that if we could just share a brain then we would be set. As it is though, we are doing pretty good.
Last night we went dancing with a few of the doctors from the hospital. We went to a restaurant that was over the Amazon - it was literally on stilts and had little tables out over the water (about 20 feet over the water) that had reed type roofs and such. It was a really cool view even though it was dark. They played some salsa music, but most of the time we danced to 80s bands which wasn´t the easiest...I haven´t ever danced to Cindy Lauper before but we made it work. We had some interesting moments where Kristyn and I had to hold the bathroom door shut for one another.
So today is a holiday in Peru as is tomorrow because of Easter Sunday, so we aren´t working this afternoon. Instead we walked to the Plaza (the town square) where we can spend some quality internet time and then we plan to enjoy the sun on the Plaza and read good books. Tomorrow we are going on a paseo with some of the nurses. We are told this mean picnic, but my dictionary says a walk - so basically we are going on an adventure which sounds like a lot of fun. So those are our plans for the rest of the week. It is Easter sunday and so we have been having chapel each morning and evening. I think this weekend will have lots of holy week activities. If they don´t have anything on Sunday morning, I think it would be interesting to go to the Catholic church on the square to see an Easter service here.
Anyway, I hope to be able to keep posting frequently, I know my posts are long, but they are partly for my own preservation as well as your information!
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