Homies

Remember the little homie figures that were sort of cult popular in the late 90's/early 2000s? You know:Well I have recently learned that these characters were created in Espanola based on the people who live there...I am somehow not surprised, and very amused. Espanola is the town I work in about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. It's the heroin capital of the country. It is also the low-rider capital of the world. (I shit you not. Just ask MTV) Needless to say, the equation equals an interesting health care population. Lots of baby-daddy drama, crazy baby names, and a few too many hard drug-related consequences.
The work itself is going pretty well. I mean, it's a hospital, so it's not my ideal, and working 12 hour shifts means waking up at 5 and getting home around 8:15, but then I get 4 days off, and of course I am learning a lot. Oh yeah, and I have health insurance now! Of course, I sliced my finger the day before it started, and now will probably have a gnarly scar, but I think it will be a nice reminder for me of the year and a half I went without health insurance...something to tell my kids when the country finally has universal health insurance...See kids, this is why it's important for everyone to be able to see the doctor when they are hurt or sick...thankfully, mommy was a nurse and had the skills and resources to care for herself, but not everyone does...

Santa Fe living is treating me very well. I have a great roommate, who makes maps for the gov't and bakes wonderful pies. And I've had several couchsurfers in my 3 weeks here, a couple of whom have been absolutely wonderful, and I cannot imagine my experience without them. One was a nurse-midwife from Miami with whom I went salsa dancing at the gay retirement community as well as gallavanted around town. The other was a cancer massage therapist from Monterey, CA, who cooked me fabulous meals when I came home from work and delighted me with great conversations. I've gone on several nice hikes and checked out some meditation centers with another friend who I've met through couchsurfing.
I'm now a proud card holder at the Santa Fe public library and a member of the Santa Fe co-op. And I have a punch card for the Japanese hot spring spas. It's a goooood life!

Come visit! I anticipate writing much less frequently, since my life seems less and less entertaining to the observing eye, but more and more fulfilling to ME! Hence I plan to spend more time living it and less time on the computer :)

Love to all,
Rachel

PS to throw a wrench into your idea of Espanola, I would like to also note that Espanola is additionally home to the largest community of ethnically diverse Sikhs in the world.
New Mexico is a very strange and diverse place if you haven't noticed (even aside from the alien sightings). One time my roommate asked a foreign couchsurfer, "what is the strangest thing you have ever seen in your travels?" And he responded, "Santa Fe, New Mexico."

Home

Well my job was supposed to start last week, but so goes the slow-paced, easy-going culture here, and so they didn't have all the paper work in order for me to start. It might have frustrated me if I hadn't just spent 2 months in South America and 3 months on the Tex-Mex border. So I was unsurprised by their incredible disorganization despite being a large hospital system, and instead was happy to have the opportunity to explore and enjoy my new state a little more. I visited Tent Rocks, a national park of incredible volcanic canyons/rocks in the shapes of mostly tents but also strange formations. I went down to Albuquerque for a hike in the Sandia foothills and to see the largest hot air balloon festival in the world with my sister's brother-in-law (there must be a word this relationship, anyone?). Unfortunately it was too windy so the balloons didn't go up that day, but we enjoyed the carnival that goes along with it (at 5am), which included a simulation dome of Texas, which incidentally = hilarious if you ever get the chance....

Yesterday was my official first day. It was another day of having to say, "hellloo! I'm here! Are you going to orient me or something? What do I do if there's a fire?" Oh New Mexico. The flip side is, that everyone is incredibly friendly and I met everyone from the kitchen staff, to the housekeeping, to IT, to admin, to security...pretty rare for a hospital. The other cool thing about Presbyterian Espanola is that although it is a tiny hospital in a tiny town, so it has the benefits of being able connect with the people and park in the free parking lot, it also has access to up-to-date research, technology, and is actually with-the-times of big hospitals (not that I always agree with hospitals, but that's another story). It's going to take some time getting adjusted to the schedule (leaving the house at 6am, getting home at 8pm or later if like last night I couldn't help but dash to BumbleBees to get something to eat)...it'll probably take about the amount of time I'll have before they switch me to nights in fact. But in general I feel very positive about this new job. I just need to organize myself and figure out: ok, when am I going to cook? When am I going to exercise? How is my sleep schedule going to work? When will I have a social life? Ah the complexities of starting a new job...in a new town...with silly hours.

Below are some pictures from my grand week and a half of adventure and bliss.

One of the many beautiful homes on the East side, near Canyon Road

Tent Rock

The Aspens up near the ski basin

PS in case I haven't noted, I am a labor and delivery nurse, and the hospital is great because it has a very low C-section and epidural rate, but also a high rate of interesting complications like drug-addicted babies and teen moms...

Hello frito pie, chili, and adobe at 7,000ft

Just a quick update to say that I have moved to Santa Fe. I drove out Weds through Denver--stopped to see my sister--and arrived Thursday evening via a lovely yellow aspen filled drive. The purples, yellows, and reds were just amazing. I am so lucky to have been able to drive during the changing of the seasons. Yum.
I'm working on settling into my new place on the east side of Santa Fe, very near to Canyon Road, where all the art galleries are. We've had a couchsurfer here since I arrived, which has been fun. She is a midwife from Miami, and we've had a great time talking midwifery, relaxing at the Japanese spa, and going salsa dancing. Ah, such a life. My reality call will be around 5:30am however with my alarm on Tuesday, to report to the hospital for my first day of training.
Below are some pictures of posh earthships in Taos.

love the bathroom

Autumn in America

I have left the land of instant coffee, internet cafes, abundant noxious chemicals and rip-off scams, and non-potable water and have entered the land of hot showers, soymilk, suburbs, expensive produce, and people not quite so impressed by my communication skillz. The good juices are already missed.
I'm currently in Iowa, preparing for my move to New Mexico, and I am really really excited for the fall weather!

Would you believe these are mushrooms? I love the farmers' market

Frolicking in the woods in Iowa City

Last push

getting ready to try it out

For my last weekend in Peru I wanted to meet a friend in Chincha, the center of Afro-Peruvian music, because it was a place I really wanted to visit last year and never got a chance to. From Paracas I took a collectivo to Pisco, and from there a bus to Chincha. I walked around the market, enjoyed my favorite activity in Peru: drinking juice at one of the fruit stalls, and waited for my friend to arrive. When she got there, we took a taxi to El Carmen, the more tranquil town outside Chincha where beautiful plantations and haciendas remain from the colonial period.

Since I was running out of $$ as my time neared to an end, I planned to put our stay at the luxurious Hacienda San Jose on my credit card and then let Pamela pay for the things we needed in cash, like taxis and food. Well...it turned out that the hacienda (and most of the town) was still in disrepair from the earthquake 2 years ago, and so it was not open (unmentioned on their website)...nor was anything else, including the dancing/drumming shows that we had come to see.

filling up the bus on the side of the highway

So, we decided to take a bus 2 hrs south to Ica from Chincha...back to Chincha by taxi and then south again (the direction from which I had come that morning). Upon arriving in Ica, we decided to go to Huaca China, another small town outside of town that is more tranquil...another taxi (note the $$ flying by without much purpose). Again I thought, ok, well I´ll just pay for the hotel and we´ll be fine. It turned out that no hotels in town took credit cards...shit! Ok ok, well I have an emergency $20 USD in my bag, we´ll use that for the hotel. Pamela will pay for our excursions and we´ll have to eat at nicer restaurants so I can use my card. (I may have de-emphasized my lack of cash earlier, when what I meant to say was that I had exactly what I needed to get me to the airport and pay the airport tax and no more...I was just praying that in Lima, since it´s a big city that I could use my card to live for the couple days I was there). Well that worked for one meal, and then for the next morning for breakfast, we intended to pay with my card again and the electricity went out in the whole town...so we ended up using all of our money except what we needed for the taxi to get to Ica hopefully use an ATM there.

When we got to Ica, the electricity was out there too, and so we could not use any ATMs. With only 20soles (aka $6), there wasn´t much we could do, and Pamela had to get back to Lima (5hrs north) for class in the morning. I starting thinking, ok, I have almost all my belongings with me...what can I sell to get money for our bus fare?? Then Pamela had the genius idea to take a bus back to Chincha, for which the fare was only 6soles. So we walked to the bus station and returned to Chincha we went. We searched around for a little while before finding a working ATM, as even though they had electricity there--thank god--some of the ATMs did not have $$. Finally I was able to get some money out...just enough to pay for the bus rides back to Lima and minimal accomodations there.

Walking back to the bus station, we decided to buy snacks for the bus, since we had some change and by this time it was 5pm and we hadn´t eaten lunch. We also wanted to buy some wine, since we were in the center of the Peruvian wineland. We happened upon a place selling ¨wine¨ out of giant barrels, ciphened with a large hose into used bottles for 1.5soles (aka 50cents): we´ll take it!! We happily skipped back to the bus station with our $2 feast (the snacks costing much more than the bottle of wine). All of a sudden, a guy jumped on me, stealing my sunglasses off my head and our bag of treats (but not the wine, which Pamela was carrying)...we ran away but caught sight of justice in action, a bystander punching the guy who jumped us.

Finally we made it back to Lima after a traffic-filled bus ride. We feasted at a nice restaurant, using my card of course, and then back in my homey hostel in Miraflores, we drank our ¨wine,¨ which was delicious and surprisingly strong.

Ommitted from the story, was the fact that we did have a great time in Ica sandboarding and dune-buggying in the giant sand dunes. The end.

big sand dune, with dune buggy at top and Pamela at the bottom

Overnight flight to the US tonight! Looking forward to being ¨home,¨ whatever that means for me at this point...

Paracas

I have officially left the land of crazy Spanish, yummy empanadas and pastel de choclo, healthy stray dogs, and high prices, and am back in the land of Pisco, scam-artists, street food, and crappy computers. I am currently enjoying Paracas/El Chaco/Pisco (Peru), which is a desert/ocean preserve on the edge of a small town outside of a larger town (in corresponding order). After a flight and a 16 hour bus ride, I have spent the last day and a half gawking at the pristine coastline and the sand dunes, drinking Pisco (since I`m in the home of the liquor after all), and letting lonely restaurant/hotel boys treat me and a girl I met from DC.

Heaps of colored sand in Paracas

Pelicans

Paracas Reserve

Tomorrow I am meeting a clowning amiga in Chincha (3hrs south of Lima) to explore the world of musica negra, Peru`s african music, and a large hacienda which remains from the Spanish colonial era.

Semillitas (little seeds)

Colca Cañon: (end of August) I made a 3 day trek of Colca Canyon with 2 German girls and a pair of Auzzies. Don´t be too impressed by the 3 days...you cover the same ground as the 2 day trek but in 3 days, which I was definitely glad of, as it afforded plenty of time to relax and enjoy the journey as well as the destinations. Colca Cañon is supposedly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but I don´t believe it... Anyway, we spent our first night in a little village at the bottom and the 2nd in a place called ¨The Oasis,¨aptly named with its palm trees and swimming pools filled from nearby water falls. On the second day of hiking we happened upon a village festival and wound up dancing and drinking chicha (a regional alcohol, in this case made out of corn) with the locals, who were dressed up in colorful embroidered outfits. The last day, we awoke at 4:45am and climbed out of the canyon which took about 2 and a half hours--straight up. It was a killer. I´m not sure which was making me feel worse: the altitude climb or the low blood sugar, but I felt vomitous a good portion of the day. That night, after returning to Arequipa, the group reunited at a restaurant called ChiCha, which is owned by the most famous chef in Peru (possibly all of Latin America): Gaston Acurio. Then the 2 Aussies and I dragged ourselves to a local pub to drink some anis and mojitos before calling it a very long day.

Meat drying in the sun in Colca

Santiago: Chile is wonderful and surprisingly different from Peru (I know, I shouldn´t be surprised). Most notably, it is more expensive, more modern, more green, and the stray dogs are a lot healthier! The biggest drawback is that the food is not as good as in Peru despite being about double the price. They eat a lot more bread here (I´ve been told they are second only to Russia in per-capita bread consumption), and like in the mountainous areas of Peru, they eat a ton of dairy.
I have enjoyed being a sloth here in the palace of my parents´former exchange student´s family. They have a Spanish style home that is laid out on one floor with each room having a sliding glass door to the ample and lush garden area. ¨The garden¨ consists of a pool, hammoc, a set of wicker table and chairs, tons of green plants, flowers, and fruit trees, and 5 cats who live like kings.

On my first day I visited the home of Pablo Neruda, rented a bike and biked around--to the various parks (including a Japanese garden) and boulevards, the Plaza de Armas, and up Cerro San Cristobal to get a nice view of the city. Another day I went to La Moneda (their White House) which is much more accessable because the Presidenta (a woman: Michelle Bachelet) does not live there (business only...though still I am surprised at how close you can get). There are several art exhibitions in the basement which you can visit (which I did). Another day I visited one of the many fine wineries of Chile with Veronica and Manuel (my Chilean parents) and tasted lots of yummy wines and cheeses. I´ve spent a lot of time just hanging out with the family: going grocery shopping and running errands with them, etc. One night we had a party and I´d like to reiterate that South Americans really know how to party. Even though Chileans are supossed to be the least lively, the group of adults and kids were up until 3am drinking wine, eating sopapillas, and raucously playing a board game.

The day after the party, we went to Valporaiso, which is west of Santiago on the coast. The city is full of artists and remnants of English presense (as oppossed to southern Chile which is very German-influenced and Santiago which is very Spanish). I loved strolling the colorful streets with all the art work: murals, sculptures, clever graffiti, etc. We had coffee and cake at one of the many cafés tucked into the windy brick streets. Basically it was a lazy sea-side weekend, with lots of snoozing, wine, rich food, and nice walks. Yum!

Valporaiso

Just another wonderful family dinner of coffee, hot chocolate, and creamy cakes (Pictured at Café con Letras en Valpo)

Now I´m back in Santiago, making ¨chocolate pie¨(my rendition of brownies) with my 13 year old Chilean sister. On Wednesday I officially start my trek north.... (first to Arica by plane, then Pisco-Paracas-Chincha and Lima by bus, and finally Ioway!)

Santiago

My new favorite fruit: Chirimoya

I am in Santiago after a 6 hour bus ride from Areqpuipa to Tacna, half hour taxi from Tacna to Arica, and a 32 hour bus ride from Arica. It really wasn´t as bad as one might think--I paid the extra for the delux bus, which basically just meant that I could recline my chair more and have more leg room, and as a result I did manage to sleep much of the trip. I arrived at 6am on Sunday, totally whacked out though, and proceeded through the rest of the day like normal. I am still sort of catching up, but yesterday I rented a bike and biked all around downtown, which was lovely. I am happy to see all sorts of trees and plants again after being in the desert. Every morning we drink fresh orange juice and it´s basicaly a paradise here at Alonso´s house (former foreign exchange student of my parents). I can even drink the water from the tap! helllz yeah!
More later.
xoxo

Colca to Santiago

Clothes drying on a line in a vilage in Colca Cañon
Yummy colors

Church in the cañon, open only once a year during festival

I returned yesterday from a 3 day trek to Colca Cañon and I´m leaving tomorrow for the long (35hour or so) journey to Santiago, Chile. More later...

love, Rachel

Reflections

Welp I know I´m backpacking again because I´m using citronela bug spray as ¨perfume,¨ guarding plastic silverware and napkins like it´s the depression, and finding myself sleeping on 15 hour buses and sunken-in beds. And it feels great!

Before I knew it, the clowning trip (and more than a month in Peru) have passed! This year I found Iquitos/Belen easier. I was familiar with the town, knew some people, and spoke a lot more Spanish. But I found that with this smoothness came a tendency to fall into unconsciousness. Traveling can be such a gift (and a point of exhaustion) because in the unfamiliar you are always having to be present in the moment and on your toes. This year, admist the poverty and the miserable conditions of some of the places we visited to clown, I found myself both more complacent (for which I felt ashamed) and also more able to connect with the people.

On the plus side, I found myself more able to keep up with the South Americans, specifically the Argentinians :), who are always having more fun than everyone else it seems. They are somehow able to stay out drinking and dancing until 4am (or later) and then be up in the morning to clown and paint and hold the attention of children. With my Peruvian, Columbian, and Argentine coaches, I was able to stay up most nights (but without drinking), however I always turned in while the South Americans sat smoking or sharing a bottle of beer, laughing and laughing... One of my friends advised me, ¨You just have to keep fighting¨...I´m not sure for what, but I´m trying to learn the ways.

On the other side of the coin, speaking about trying to remain strong and present in the moment: being with the kids in Belen can be very hard. Some are so clearly neglected: with filthy little bodies in tattered clothes, skin rashes and lice. It was obvious that one little boy I was with one afternoon at the workshops was simply not being cared for. He was 5 years old and looked like he was maybe 3. Who were his parents I wondered to myself angrily...and then had to release judgement and remind myself to just be with the boy in that moment and give him love. I didn´t know what more I could do. I can´t remember feeling so heartbroken as when I think of that little boy.

And so the challenge continues...trying to remain present. After an overnight bus ride, I am in Arequipa now. I tryed to push myself and pack in the town today (which is normally not my style), so I visited the Santa Catalina Monastery, which housed hundreds of nuns for almost 400 years within a stone walled city before being opened to the public in 1970. It is literally a city within a city, with streets, a mill, co-op stone ¨laundry¨ and baths, etc. Very cool. Tomorrow I will further explore the colonial white city, construted from white volcanic rock. This will include a visit to see Juanita, a 14 year old girl sacraficed and mummified by the Incas on a nearby volcano, and discovered 15 years ago after being frozen for hundreds of years.

This is what I´m talking about... a lovely Limeñan model with the classic Pilsner

Great T-shirt: If you love me, don´t yell at me, don´t insult me, don´t ignore me, don´t hit me, don´t violate me, don´t kill me... Love me!

Lima

I´m in Lima now, passing time beautifully in a hostel in Miraflores and attending a conference called Art as a Bridge to Health and Development. It´s put on by the Pan-American Health Organization, a branch of the WHO, so it´s a very cool thing to be a part of...and even cooler that it involves clowns!

I will be here until Friday and then I am taking an overnight bus to Arequipa with a couple girls I met in Iquitos. Tonight I am seeing Patch speak about love strategies. It´s funny having to pay to see him speak after spending 2 weeks with him, but I´m excited that the money from this lecture will go directly to the purchase of another community center in Belen. Yes! He is also raising money right now to send 4 people to go work at an orphanage in Russia with 400 kids, which is currently being run by 1 woman. Ahh!
More pics below of recent adventures:

Check out the body paint! A thank-you show from our hotel for our work in the community

A snake for the parade/show made out of recycled trash. Check out the long tail of painted plastic bottles and bags

Two of my dance students after the big show

Jitterbugging with Patch at Nikoro

Our work in Iquitos/Belen

Follow the link to see a documentary about our awesome work in Iquitos/Belen:

Gesundheit/ Bola Roja en Belen 2009

It´s in Spanish but there will be English subtitles to follow...

Clowneando

Clowning with my beauties

Well, I´ve been here for almost 10 days in Iquitos. I´ve clowned at a children´s shelter, a respite center for special needs kids, a mental institution, and a market-place. Tomorrow I am going to a prison, which should be interesting. I have also been painting houses in lower Belen, a town that floods during the rainy season and the people travel by canoe and live in the upper level of their homes (Don´t ask me how they deal with the mold ?). I have also been helping out with a garden project and dance workshop. Needless to say, it´s been pretty busy.

Every night we break into 10 ¨families¨of 8 for meetings, which involves debriefing about the day and planning for the following. I am lucky enough to have Patch in my group along with clowns from Peru, France, and the US. There are also clowns on the trip from Argentina, Colombia, and Italy. We wrap up on Sat with a clown parade and a big performance by the kids to show off the art they created out of recycled trash, their percussion ensemble (drums also recycled from trash), puppetry, and dance. Then I am going back to Lima for a Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) conference.

In other news I have eaten a mountain of platanos (basically bananas...but I feel that one word cannot possibly do justice the wide variety of banana like treats that platano encompasses) in so many wonderful forms...fried, boiled, in tacacho (a ball of mashed bananas with bacon), juiced, grilled, etc etc. YUM

This is where we went to buy plants for the gardens we planted

You have to love a truck full of clowns. See also the moto-cars

House I painted and 2 of the people who live there

Iquitos

I made it to Iquitos and am with Patch and the group officially...clowning around in this crazy jungle city, painting houses, teaching dance classes, and eating a mountain of jungle fruit ;)

Pictures and more to come...

i don´t believe in germs, i don´t believe in germs, i don´t believe in germs....

I attended a dance class recently that made me wonder if perhaps the people of the jungle evolved with additional ligaments and small muscle groups. The way these people can shake it is beyond the imagination of my poor body...and I´m no stranger to shakin` it. The class was at a gym so it was intended to be a workout, and that it was. The tiny yet muscular Peruvian man--and I ask you, how do you tell (especially when dancing) the gay latino from the straight latino?--lead the hour long class of gyrating, shaking, humping, kicking, turning, and pulsing. There were several occasions in which we were literally stradling the floor and pulsing our pelvises (aka humping). Another favorite move was placing our hands on our knees, legs spread wide apart, and pulsing down to the ground and up again while he yelled at us to ¡pulse! ¡pulse! for 30 seconds or so. Ahh, que loco!

Then once I had swat all the liquid from your body (no AC of course), I naturally wanted some water to drink. There was a big container of water that I saw people drinking from with small plastic cups, so I asked where the cups came from and I was told, ¨just those,¨ meaning there are only 5 cups and you share. Oh. Silly me. I realize that germ theory is in fact a theory, and that not everyone believes in it--and trust me, I am not germaphobe--but the idea of sharing water cups with every sweaty person at the gym had simply not occurred to me. Alas, I made note of my American germaphobe thought-tendencies, deciding not to honor them, and grabbed a glass after someone set one down.

Which brings me to some other noteable germ moments. And again, I wish to inform that I feel for the most part that my American germaphobe tendencies (and trust me, we are way out there in terms of germaphobe lunacy in respect to any other country in the world) have been cured by spending a lot of time in cultures with different theories concerning illness. But I do believe that harmful bacteria in large amounts will cause illness, especially if your body is not prepared to battle the little buggers. The only reason I`m even slightly skirmish right now is because I had that shot of Pennicillin G which killed all traces of my precious healthy flora that I had been culturing for weeks specifically so that I could come here and eat whatever I wanted off the streets. And now I´ve found myself with a cold because of it. Oh well. Here are some of the other bacterial observations:

• With my cold, which people like to joke is¨gripe porcina¨ aka swine flu, no one is hesitant about drinking out of the same glass as me or giving me bites of their food with their utensils or touching my snotty kleenexes.
• There clearly has not been a public health push for washing hands, at least in Pucallpa. There is usually not any soap to be found in the bathrooms: public or private, nor is there soap in the kitchen, which is more disturbing to me.
• I went to the market to buy chicken with Maria, which involved selecting our live chicken, picking it up and poking and proding the poor thing, and then a man took our chicken by the feet and brought her back to the alley to slaughter with his bare hands. The chicken returned dead and defeathered, and a woman hacked into her, breaking her pelvis and removing the insides for us to inspect (on a dirty table). The chicken and the parts were then put in a plactic bag, and Maria put the slimy thing in her shopping bag atop the produce we had just bought. Meanwhile in the market, Maria is petting animals, children, etc. Then we took the food home and prepared it again without washing hands. Yum.
• Though I am unphased by this by now, if you buy a roadside juice or hot drink, they either do not wash the glasses at all in between customers (but do usually give each person a new straw) or they wash it some nasty looking water. Same goes with street food in plates or bowls. I don´t care though...I only got parasites once last time, and I survived! I ain´t quittin my love affair with street food! I just love pulling up a chair or standing at the stand and chatting about the day with other people who have stopped for a treat.

Pucallpa Pics

The kitchen, where all the magic happens

The port: more bananas than I have ever seen

My adventure to the doctor (that'd be him)

Mas Aventuras

As my family well knows- I cannot go on a trip without incurring a serious infection (eg Dengue Fever) or a serious natural disaster (like a rogue wave or an avalanche). I wasn't about to disappoint with this trip, but I wasn't expecting it to come so early. I suspected with my luck that perhaps something could come of my ayahuasca experience (see part 2), but thankfully that was not the case.
Part One: The jungle in all its moist deliciousness is an ideal environment for life of all kinds, including a crazy assortment of fungi and bacteria. Basically if you have a wound, it will become infected. Because of this, the blisters which I received playing soccer the day I got here (which I could have more correctly identified as absesses), turned into little pockets of excrutiating infection on the soles of my feet, that I felt with each movement of my foot. I was hesitant to go to the doctor here, knowing from my experience working in a clinic in Cajamarca that the care here is ¨unresearched¨ at best, dangerous at worst. But when I couldn't sleep a couple nights ago, my friend Oscar dragged me to the clinic.
The clinic in reality was a modified store front. We knocked on the door and a secretary answered. She called the doctor who was in plain clothes and had me take a seat in the one-room office. I undid my bandages for him to see, to which he remarked, ¨Puta madre,¨ which is sort of like saying ¨son of bitch,¨ but a little more crude. With ungloved hands, he washed it off and applied some more gauze. He then gave me a shot in the butt of Pennicillin G and a steroid. The whole thing took about 10 minutes and cost about $10! The same thing would have cost at least a few hundred dollars in the US.
Hooray for getting sick...but not too sick thank god (may I never have to be hospitalized here; I would rather be in a US teaching hospital in July...which if you've never worked in a hospital is the time when the new residents come on board and it can be a little scary). I am happy to report that with the magic of systemic antibiotics and steroids, I am back to freely walking about, and I even went to a disco with Oscar last night, which invloved watching a bunch of 18-year-olds grinding on each other to reggaton.

Part 2: The reason I came to Pucallpa was to drink Ayahuasca, which is a mix of hallucinogenic and purgative jungle herbs which has been taken for hundreds of years by tribes in the Amazon as a sort of super medicine to cure all that ails you, from parasites to cancer to depression, and to help you connect with the spiritual world. Many books and articles have been written about the curative effects of Ayahuasca, and there is actually a research and rehabiltation facility in Tarapoto that specializes in rehabilitating drug addicts, alcoholics, and criminals using ayahuaska and psychotherapy. I had wanted to experience it the last time I was here, but I met someone who told me I should wait until Ayahuasca came to me instead of seek it out. So when I had the opportunity to drink it with my friend who is from the area, who has done it several times before, and who is acquainted with a well known (and non-touristic) shaman, I couldn't pass it up. I am going to write a whole other article about my experience, but I will not post it publically, so if you're interested in reading it, email me. I invite anyone to read it, but I don't want it to be out in the public realm, so really, if you have interest in learning about my experience or Ayahuasca in general, simply send me an email at Rachel.Olsson@gmail.com and I will send it to you when I finish writing.

That's it for now! much love de la selva (the jungle)
RO

Pucallpa

Bueno, I made it safe and sound to Pucallpa yesterday at 5am. My friend and his dad picked me up from the airport. I then crashed until about 10am and awoke in a pool of sweat. It must be 190% humidity here. After taking a shower (from which I never quite dried) we feasted on ceviche. It was a version I´d never had before, which I didnt think was possible as I have partaken in a whole lot of Peruvian ceviche (far superior than others in my humble opinion). It was a version of ceviche called Chinguirito from Chiclayo with strips of dried fish, and of course tons of delicious lime juice, tomato, cilantro, chili, and onion, and served with choclo (big kernals of corn), cancha (choclo fried and salted), and yucca. Yum. I ate it with several glasses of camu camu juice, which is a fruit from the jungle here.

Then I played soccer with 7 Peruvian dudes for almost 3 hours, which was amazing except for the fact that I did not have adquate shoe-age, and now have enormous blisters on the bottom of my feet which makes it hard to walk. Hilarious since one of the guys playing literally had only one shoe on, so how could I get so effed up? Ah, such a gringa I am.

Things I had forgotten about and am so excited about:

• My simple little Peruvian cell phone with a flashlight on top that stays charged forever


• Fresh squeezed orange juice on the corners


• SO much fresh fruit and vegetables


• Rice and lentils (the food in general, it´s so fresh!)


• the smell of the air...which is really a lot of pollution, but it´s somehow soothing


• riding motorcycles


• the simplicity of life here and the calm presence of the people who are so damn good at living in the now


• the lack of mirrors

The whacky wonderful world

Employed

I got a call from Presbyterian Hospital in Espanola, NM on Friday around 11am that they were interested in interviewing me. Now, with a non-refundable nor changable for <$250 plane ticket to Peru leaving Tuesday, it didn't leave much room to wiggle. To complicate matters I had promised my friend Alexis, who is getting married while I'm in Peru, that I'd come visit her before I left. So I booked a last minute flight leaving Sunday morning to Albuquerque with the necessary rental car to drive an hour and a half north to Espanola. Then I showered, jumped in the car, and headed to Minneapolis.

That night Alexis, her fiance Jordan, and I feasted on delicious Vietnamese food in Uptown. The next morning, she made her classic: scrambled eggs with cheese and chocolate chip pancakes (yum!) and then we met up with my friend Jessalyn for some farmers market fun. I got 10 minutes of Reiki at an Immigrant Rights fundraiser booth (best fundraising idea ever!). Then a quick run to the co-op, where I gave sick Mike a hug and helped him pick out some OJ :) Then back to Des Moines to pack and leave in the morning.

I arrived into Albuquerque around 2, drove to Santa Fe, walked around, then passed out. Man I love having a whole hotel room all to myself. Monday morning I checked out, drove up to Espanola, interviewed, got the job on a sweet labor and delivery unit: low c-section and epidural rates, super small hospital with opportunity to do lots of things include float to other units, interesting and diverse population (eg lots of Native Americans), ETC. Victory dance in the parking lot (see pic above). With a little extra time to spare, I happened on a West African dance class in Santa Fe (I couldn't make this stuff up). I danced my heart out and released a lot of tension from driving-flying-driving-driving-interviewing-driving, then drove some more: back to the airport, flew to Denver, flew to Des Moines, got in at 10pm, and here I am , rushing to pack for Peru, while indulging at looking at apts around Santa Fe.... They're holding the job for me until I get back, so basically, if I can hold on long enough for the ride, I'm set!

So here I go again (deep breath.) A little more prepared this time with some Spanish skillz, Peruvian friends, a clue of what I'm getting myself into (though come on, it's South America, who knows?)... Oh yes, and with only a 45 min layover in Atlanta, I'm carrying everything on.
First stop: Pucallpa, a town east of Lima in the jungle. I probably won't post until I get back to the capital city in a week or so.

Mmmm, lots of love and good vibrations :)
Rachel

Boston family va-cay

Mark and Rachel historical reenactment

I'm here in Boston on an old school family vacation. Complete with historical sites, walking tours, family dinners, angry car rides, and my mom twisting her ankle. Are we having fun yet? Mark and I got some classic pictures of my baseball capped dad walking down the street with a map fully unfurled, nearly running into other tourists...my mom stumbling behind him with her McDonalds latte. Oh man, it's probably good for me to get this concentrated family and tourist time out of the way before I hurdle myself back into the jungles (literally) of Peru. Especially since it's probably one of our last times to hang out just the 4 of us...oh the joys :)

All in all, I've had a great time though. The best was certainly getting to see my dad play in a soccer tournament for men 65 and older. To see a 70-year-old slide tackle his opponent and then get up and yell at the ref who called a foul, is absolutely priceless. Every time I saw one of them head the ball with blind vigor, I had to feel inferior, thinking I can only hope to become this cool in 40-50 years. I'm not shitting you: I saw one of them try to bicycle a shot on goal.

Other highlights of the trip included

• My brother, dad, and I went to see the Goldcup matches: USA vs Haiti and Honduras vs Grenada in the Gillette stadium (where the Patriots play). I had forgotten how much fun soccer was.

• Went to a Couch Surfing meet-up at a Cambridge brewery. I got to couch surf with a friend I had met in Lima and I met a couple other really cool people.


• Embarked on a salsa dancing cruise around the Boston Harbor, which involved 3 levels of music. Following the cruise, my two couch surfing friends and I hit up a beautiful bar called Rocca. I don't generally like to drink at all...maybe a glass of wine with dinner here or there, so it was trouble when my friend kept bringing me shots of 1800. I vow once again to never drink again...


• Ate a pistachio ice cream cone at Revere beach and watched Brazillian boys in tiny swim suits play an impressive blend of soccer/volleyball


• The Freedom Trail!


• Walked around Walden Pond and visited the site of Thoreau's home in 1846, where he wrote Walden. This was probably tied actually as my favorite with watching 65-75 year olds play soccer.

Check out these faces:In Walden Pond:

Notes from my zillions of beautiful hours in the car:
Austin, TX = yum
Dallas, TX = a cluster#$%@
106 degrees in Texas = hard to stay cool while driving. I actually sunburned through the window.
Green green and glorious Oklahoma. Who knew?
Boggy State Park = a lovely place to re-energize.
I ate an entire papaya and a cucumber along the way (and near the end, a lot of tootsie-roll pops).
I'm so glad I took the back highways and not 35

Kansas City:
Lots of babies, dogs, and watermelon.

To Boston on the 7th:
Flying with the family = hilarious. (see Herding Cats)
We'll be watching 2 Goldcup soccer games (The big soccer tourny for North America, the Carribbean, and Central America), as well as watching my dad play in a senior soccer tournament--so cool!! I can only hope to be as cool as my dad when I grow up :)

7 days

My weeks seem to be overwhelmed with an abundance of strange and wonderful things. Please forgive my recent habit of writing lists for updates instead of prose.

Tuesday:

• I convince myself that I have an infection and need antibiotics since I'll shortly be boarding a plane to a land of no healthcare access (which to an uninsured individual means no access to Mexico..).


• I make a trip just across the border to buy some Cipro (an anti-biotic which kills stomach bugs (picked up by say, drinking the water in Monterrey...), urinary tract organisms, as well as anthrax should one happen to have that too). The pharmacist tells me that it is illegal to bring this specific medication over the border, before offering me a bottle of Toradol to put it in. Thank you shady border pharmacist.


• Giddy with my purchase of Mexican pharmaceuticals at an outrageously low cost (along with my friend who bought a years worth of Yasmin), we skip back across the border and head back to the clinic.


• We receive a call along the way to inform us that our "clinic coup" has happened earlier than expected. I'd love to elaborate on the topic, since my giddiness at that point was uncontainable, but I will err on the side of being "professional." Basically there was a lot of bad stuff going on in the clinic, and when I came here, I realized that perhaps my reason for being here beyond patient care was to help in the revolution and rebuilding of wonderful Holy Family. I am happy that I will be able to leave knowing that the clinic is returning to the wonderful work and care it was built on 25 years ago.


• We went out for margaritas to celebrate. Where? Weslaco residents' favorite "bar:" Chili's. Haha, I will never get over this being one of the "local hot spots."

The Holy Family crew

I go to McAllen, where I've been house-sitting, to pack up my things. Shortly after arriving I begin feeling itchy/burny/tingly: at first in my hands and feet, and then all over. Not wanting to have an anaphylactic reaction alone, I finish up and quickly head for the clinic. Mid-drive, I start blacking out, and pull over to hang my head between my knees. I call the midwife/family nurse practitioner, who reassures me I won't die and that "anaphylactic-like" symptoms can be a side-effect of Cipro. Great. I pull myself together, drive home, and induce a Benadryl-coma.

Wednesday:

• Wake up 6 hours later for the staff meeting which has been moved to IHOP, as the clinic is under siege.


• Hop on the plane to Denver for a "business trip," miss the connection in Dallas due to weather, and finally arrive around 11pm.

In flight entertainment

Thursday:

• Hang out with my family who "just happened" to be in Colorado visiting my sister.


• Cards were played. Food was eaten. Sleep was had. In that order of importance.
  

Friday:

• Business day: I spend the afternoon/evening writing health education modules for my sister's actuarial consulting company.


• All work and no play makes Rachel and Kristen dull sisters: we indulge in some mountain biking and Estes Park's own locally roasted coffee at Kind Coffee shop.

Saturday:

• More work for Kristen. Back on the plane to Texas. Plane majorly delayed due to pressurization issues.


• I have the pleasure of staying at a crappy motel in Dallas' airport-land. I love having a motel room all to myself, especially when paid for by American Airlines. Where do they get the decor for these rooms? is what I want to know though.

Sunday:

• After 6 hours of sleep, I hustle myself out of bed and back to the airport.


• There's a laboring patient when I arrive in McAllen, so the midwives can't pick me up.


• I finagle a borrowed car and make it back just in time for the birth. Beautiful.


• My co-workers attend a Christian rock concert. I opt not to.


• I spend the evening wanting to go to bed, but feeling guilty because there's too much to catch up on, and thus crack myself out on chocolate and home-made tortilla chips and achieve marginal productivity until 1am

Monday:

• Exhausted and hungover from junk-food and insufficient sleep, it's back to work. The office is peaceful and happy under our new democratic rule.


• I am pleased but in denial about starting my last week of work at Holy Family

Playing 6-handed Pitch

A Day in the Life of Danica and Rachel

One of my girlfriends is visiting from Seattle. When we get together, crazy and wonderful things always happen...

7am Wake up at Sister Anita’s House in McAllen

8am order from abundant breakfast taco menu at Mrs. G’s Taco’s

8:15 Be so excited about our impending feast that I back directly into a giant pole and spill hot coffee all over myself—the only pair of pants I’m planning to bring on our trip—but the tacos are safe.

8:16 Drive off as if nothing happened

8:21 Eat epic breakfast taco feast on the porch

8:32 Examine car and find only a small dent and some red paint. Yes!

8:33 Tour the neighborhood lawn displays of exercise equipment, laundry facilities, and various ornaments.

9:00 Buy 2 lotto tickets—win $20—buy 2 more—lose—net win $16

9:20 Board bus to Monterrey, Mexico

12:50pm Arrive in Monterrey. After failing to function the pay phone we are discovered by Luis and Diego, who were sent by Memo (a friend I know from the Iowa City salsa scene) to pick us up.

1:00 Hit the town

1:15 Enjoy a free Tacate beer at the brewery’s lovely beer garden

2:00 To the art gallery to see Luis’ collage

3:00 Walk around Macro Plaza, see a pony in a store window, next to a jaundiced monkey, but refuse to pay 2 pesos to enter the store. Laugh hysterically outside instead. Woodchips.

4:00 Rachel eats pig. We feast on traditional Mexican soups, carne asada, mole, cheesy plantains, and inadvertently drink a couple glasses of tap water…

5:00 Meet up with Memo and drive to the top of the city to look out. Incidentally, Monterrey is enormous.

7:00 Get lost in the crazily (dis)organized Monterrey and gawk at the rich people’s homes

8:00 Memo turns over his apartment to us for the weekend.

9:15 We meet wonderful Mirna, Memo’s girlfriend, and go out for ceviche.

10:20 Get a table at last, in the unroofed restaurant. People eat very late here.

11:00pm Finally get served. We feast on ceviche tostadas with avocado—much different from the Peruvian ceviche, which is spicier and has more lime and onion, and is served with fried corn and sweet potato or yucca instead of tortillas.

12:15am Arrive home to our new place, and unready to go to bed after our late meal, we do some house cleaning for our outstanding host.

1:30am Giggle about our days of ridiculousness that never cease when we are together.

This was day 1 of 3 for us in Monterrey. We returned late on Saturday night.

Note: If you buy a toothbrush in Mexico, spend more than $1.