The rest of my day!

So I'll give you that good good on what I do the rest of my day after work

So around 12 I pack up my stuff and say goodbye to the nurses, today was Cirilia!



She is really great, I call her my novia peruana (peruvian girlfriend). She is a true general, she regulates on patients all day and runs thing with an iron fist, BOSS. We talk a lot when it is slow and she gives me all the cuzco tips. I built our "door" that you see in the background the other day so we could stop people from flooding in, hahahaha

Here is a picture of the front of my clinic, this is when I was leaving at noon. When I arrive in the morning, there is people filling the courtyard waiting to get helped!



Through those doors are two big waiting rooms, Triaje, Topico, a couple obstetrics, two dentists, a lab, x ray place, and a bunch of doctor rooms. Centro salud de ttio, BALLIN OUT

Today we had our resident homeless/alcoholic guy stumble into triage and ask to get helped. I told him he had to go pay at the front office and get a little receipt before we could help him (little piece of green paper in our case). He stumbles out and much to my surprise he comes back with one and we are about to help some cuts on his legs, when a lady pulls me aside and says he just reached into the office and grabbed someone elses paper hahahahaha. Drunk, yes, clever, yes. We helped him anyway, he deserved it!

So then I cab back home to eat lunch and usually see this waiting for me:



Lunch with Carly (Virginia), Sarah (Maryland), and Peter (UK). Today we had like a egg/vegetable scramble and some rice with like fried corn kernel type things and pineapple juice yEAAAAAAAAA

Then during 1:00 and 4:00 I usually read ESPN for a bit, go chill on the roof if its a nice day, and do my spanish homework before class. Occasionally I sneak in a 3 hour nap as well.

Then its off to spanish from 4:00 to 6:00, and we actually have a field trip today!!!! I am just as excited as I used to get for them in elementary school. Yesterday we were talking about chicha, this peruvian homemade fermented corn drink and we just asked our teacher if we could go get some. She insta said yes, so we are going to a typical peruvian restaraunt and drinking some chicha instead of reading books in class, uhhhhhhh ship it

Then after class its back here for dinner, after that we will usually play cards or walk around the city or go grind to techno music in bars or take salsa lessons or have house movie night (contraband market by our house has 1$ DVDs, we have like 300 movies in the house) or just hang out on the roof. Rough life!

Tomorrow I leave for the jungle at 4:30 am, no electricity out there so no internet or anything like that. Can't refrigerate meat as well, so I also get to try out being a vegetarian for 2 weeks! Bathing in waterfalls, watering and moving all these jungle plants, charting animals (seriously hahahaha), playing soccer and teaching english at these small jungle schools in the middle of no where, all that good stuff. Im pumped!

Ill take lots of pictures for when I get back, HOLLA

ps - here is a picture from our house on a tour last weekend. These are my good friends, but everyone but Sarah already had to go back, and Sarah leaves friday. Sad life. The first cycle of housemates is complete, and we just got a new shipment of like 6 people hahaha. Let the games beginnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Typical Workday

So I am currently volunteering in a medical clinic called "CENTRO SALUD DE TTIO" which basically means health center of ttio, which is an area of cuzco.

I volunteer Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

Here is a picture of Luis (fellow volunteer) and I at our place:



Funny story about Luis, we were cabbing to the clinic on Day 1 doing standard chit chat. Hes like oh what experience do you have, I of course say pretty much none I just want to go to dental school eventually. Then I say, well how bout you luis? He says well I am pretty used to working in chaotic environments because he has been a war time doctor in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last 10 years HAHAHAHAA. He is also born in puerto rico and fluent in spanish. I had never felt so owned in my life. He was a real cool guy, he is already gone though because he is starting school again and had to go back home to Colorado.

I still haven't taken my camera to clinic, sorry, but I didn't want to be the tool standing around snapping pictures while everyone else is running around super busy. I will take it on Thursday though, we usually dont have as many patients then.

So from 8:00 to 10:30 we have a ton of people, so I usually help in triage (EL TRIAJE), which sees all the emergency/obstetrics/general med/dental patients that come through. So we have to interview all the patients and find their numbers and addresses and vitals like height, weight, pulse, blood pressure all that jazz. So I help with that and weigh babies and interview patients and do whatever helps people get through faster. All the emergency patients are usually people with really high fevers or parasites, we have had a couple malaria cases as well.

I work with one nursing student, Ruth, and a different nurses depending on what day it is. Today they told me I am cute and asked if I have a girlfriend in the USA, i said yes so they wouldnt try to set me up with ruth (who is shy and would probably explode), and they said triste triste triste (sad sad sad). So apparently the peruvian 40-60 age woman bracket is my new home base.

The nurses are real awesome though, and I teach them english words while they teach me spanish and kechua words. Kechua is a peruvian dialect that people speak in the mountains, and sounds NOTHING like spanish, so that is quite the learning experience.

After 10:30 there is not nearly as many patients, so I usually either help with making materials for the clinic or wander around topico (emergency room basically). You dont just buy gauze bandages or cotton balls here, everything comes in huge sheets/rolls and you have to make it. So if there is no one in triage I will usually roll cotton balls for a while or cut and fold the gauze into different sized bandages for different things while talking to ruth and the nurses. More spanish practice baby.

When I am in topico, I work with Dr. Julia and she is super great about showing me all these different procedures and stuff. There is obviously no patient secrecy down here, so girls just drop their drawers while I am sitting there in the room and they show me random files and X-rays and personal stuff all the time hahaha. If you have never seen infected internal c-section stitches taken out and cleaned, let me tell you, it is quite the experience (first class ticket to gag city).

The majority of patients in Topico are usually people needing injections (hep. B is the rage right now) or who have infected wounds from cuts and stuff that we just clean and restitch. It is cool and a great experience, plus I am learning a ton. They would let me stitch and give injections if I wanted, hahahaha.

As a whole, the clinic is nice and crazy. It is one of a few clinics in the city that accepts SIS (the Peruvian social security basically) so we get a lot of low income patients. When I show up at 8:00 there is usually 100-200 people waiting outside in a line to the street. There are kids everywhere (EVERY woman in peru is either pregnant or already has 10 kids I swear) so it is just chaos crying, breast feeding, daycare city. Sometimes it is my job to chase out the stray dogs that wander in, or to reach anything above 5 ft (I am the resident gringo giant)

Overall, great experience, no dental stuff yet only because I have been enjoying myself and feel like I am pretty helpful in my current capacity, so I haven't asked. I go to the jungle on Friday for 2 weeks for reforestation/conservation work, and anticipate specifically asking for this new dental clinic Maximo Nivel is working with when I return. I like all my friends at TTIO though and will probably work at least a day or two per week for the rest of my time here at this clinic just because it is fun.

CIAO AMIGOS

PERUVIAN HUSTLE

little update for you guys

here is what my food looks like on daily basis



Yep youre looking at 3 chicken tacos with homeade guac, refried beans, and stewed tomatoes and onions. BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. dont even worry about the strawberry shortcake dessert. so glad im not sick anymore and can eat again




and this is wonderful karol, our house chef, and nelly, our house mom/cleaner/chef. Karol was planning the menu for next week last night and Teagan and I just got to pick like 3 meals each. Chicken kabobs, pizza, burritos, arroz con pollo, hELLOOOOOOOOOOO. They are awesome

COMPS ABOUT TO DIE CYA