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

Cajamarca

Mountains. Cheese. Friendly people. An actual home for a few weeks. What more could a girl ask for?

I´m staying with a fabulous family, the father of which is an obstetriz, which is not a doctor, not a midwife, but basically a technician...for removing babies. They are trained as obstetricians/surgeons only (as oppossed to in the US where we have two types of baby catchers: physicians whose specialty is OB-GYN and midwives--either nurse practitioners or traditional, who are experts in womens health and the normal process of labor and birth). I´m sad to say that here the system combines the worse of our worlds--it´s highly technical--lots of C-sections and episiotomies and the woman has to stay in bed, yet the doctor is not trained in other aspects of medicine. Basically they are at least 15 years behind the US in this area....So, since baby extraction does not really interest me (for those of you who don´t know, I`m a nurse, and aspiring to be a midwife), I`ve just been hanging out at the clinic. I don´t feel I`m too helpful either, because much of the care and the instruments are very differnt, more or less due to lack of resouces. For example, needles are re-used for IV medicine administration (for the same patient, not between patients), gloves are rarely used, and as oppossed to the US where everything is in separate packages and we have very specific things for specific purposes, here there`s a couple bottles of alcohol a vat of cotton balls, and some tape, and you use those three things for basically everything. None of the fancy tape, gauze, separately packaged alcohol swabs, q-tips, etc. IV fluids are in bottles and if there´s no IV pole, well you just get creative...stack it on some books, say, and forget iv pumps, and hopefully you remembered how to break open glass ampules from nursing school, because that´s what all the medicine is in! It´s a very interesting experience, and like most experiences here, it shows me how much we think we need in our daily lives that we could really get by without.
It really is kind of boring having specialized things for everything in our daily lives, as well as having our own of everything. Though kind of a pain in the butt, I actually enjoy making the trek to the internet cafe to share my computer time in a big room with a bunch of strangers. And there are locutorios everywhere should you need to make a call, so no need for a phone...unless you want to be contacted ever (details, details). I feel like my capacity for creativity and improvisation is severly lacking compared to the people here. And too, I feel like we loose a little bit by being so disconnected from the most simple things in our day...laundry for example. When I learned that I´d be doing all my laundry in a bucket of cold water here, my first reaction was ugghh how tedious, and it was funny realizing that I don´t actually know how to properly wash my clothes in this manner. I´ve done laundry in the sink before, but only misc pieces of clothing, never on a grand scale. I´d feel a little snobby about this if I hadn´t been doing all my own laundry since I was in 7th grade..but of course in a machine. I was delighted however to find that doing laundry, having a connetion to its becoming clean, hanging it out to dry on the rooftop, and collecting it the next day (crunchy, but pleasantly smelling), is actually a pleasure. The first time I collected my laundry and realized, ¨Omg, it´s clean! And I did it!¨ I was actually grateful for the experience. And of course, I can enjoy it because I´m not rushed here. If I was at home, I´d be none too pleased if there was something I wanted to wear, and I had to wash something by hand and then wait for it to dry. We need things now! And indeed, I´ll definitely go back to washing my clothes by machine when I´m home, but I really do appreciate the experience of taking it slow, enjoying the process, and having more of a connection to the things in my daily life. I actually feel a sense of gratitude when I put my clothes on, which is nice :)
Along the same sort of domestic lines, the family here, like many families, has a maid. A whole nother journal entry could be dedicated to this (my discomfort with the concept of someone having a ¨lower status,¨ sleeping on the roof, making my food, cleaning my dishes, carrying things for me when I am perfectly capable... as well as the fact that she couldn´t go to school past 11 years old; but also that this is an opportunity for work for her that she wouldn´t maybe otherwise have had, etc, etc). The maid had the day off on Sunday, and I found myself doing the dishes, because it seemed that the family actually felt quite uncomfortable doing them. I lept at the opportunity to actually be useful, and did the pile of dishes, again feeling gratitude for the sense of connection to my food and my day.

Other notes: Apparently it´s hard for ¨vertically challenged¨people to get jobs here...which is another thing, to me everyone is short, and I´m barely 5´5´´! For the first time in my life, I am actually quite tall! But apparently there is no sort of law against descrimination, so it is hard for women, short people, and unnattrative people to find work, says one of my friends.

Also, a little more about the house: People here are very protective (which I alluded to earlier when talking about the history), so basically every door locks automatically, so I have to bring my keys with me at all times--hard for me, coming from a family who never locks the door, and who tends to leave the keys in the car. Even while riding in the car here, people always lock the doors.

My room is more or less outside. There are walls, but its on the rooftop and its freezing, so I have a mountain of blankets when I sleep. And the bed...I need to upload a picture, the bed frame is literally made out of boards (that frequently fall down and I sink down to the floor) and cardboard with a thin matress atop it. I feel like I´m camping. I have bruises on my hips from sleeping on my sides, so I´m trying to train myself to sleep on my back. Also the water is turned off after 9. And the hot water heater for the shower is electric...right at the shower head, so every now and then, I get a little (very mild, but always surprising) shock. Also, of course, the water isn´t drinkable, so I either boil water or buy bottles at one of the many little tiendas (shops) in the streets. But I have to say again, that I am so happy to have a room of my own to settle into for awhile. And it´s nice to be awoken each morning to chickens and dogs...well, when I´m in a good mood that is...

More later about the family, the meals and food (holy giant stacks of meat), the town, the bathrooms, herbal medicine, and strength of the people when it comes to comsuming alcohol and staying out late, as well as the glorious festivals of Peru (someone told me there are 2,000 or was it 3,000 per year)

much love, Rachel