Where are the keys?

Monday: the abrupt start to every working person's week. Granted, I live in the Ecuadorian Andes and get to call playing with kids, painting stars, teaching English and working out for an hour 'work', but I digress. Today's Monday began abruptly at 7:50am with Mark banging on my bedroom door as a reminder that our weekly meeting starts at 8, and would I please actually wake up this time instead of sleep-sitting through the meeting? Right. Check. Cold water on the face.

After our morning meeting I sat down to the task of finishing the monthly update for November. And yes, I know that it's being sent out later and later every month, I'm WORKING ON IT, OK. After wrestling with the google group for about an hour (it still won't let me add everyone onto the list, something about "spamming 700 people" and "am I sure they're all my contacts" and "requests pending"...if one of my best friends in the whole world didn't work for Google I would be using a few choice words about now), I finally got the update sent out and posted on our blogger site (found here). At this point it was closing in on 1 o'clock; time for a quick bite of leftovers before bussing out to Apoyo Escolar to get down to some homework...only to find out that half of our kids have Monday through Thursday off from school. As Santiago said "No tengo debers, profe!! QUIERO JUGAR!!" (I don't have homework, professor! I WANT TO PLAY!!")...great.

After Apoyo it was time for a few minutes chillin' in 'la cueva' and then off to English and Exercise class. Upon arriving at the church where we host these programs, however, we found out that the doors were locked and no one knew where the keys were. No one seemed too worried about finding them either. As everyone milled around the gravel and dirt street in front of the church gates (did i mention it's gated with spiked fencing?) and did their best to convince everyone else they were trying to think of where the keys might be, Eliah disappeared, only to suddenly be seen walking out of the church into the gated courtyard. Apparently he had spotted an open window (think second story window) in the church, maneuvered his way up and over an enormous wall, wiggled through the window, used the speaker stand as a step, jumped down from the window ledge, walked out the front door and opened the church from the inside. Everyone was in awe (and a little freaked out that he had just successfully broken in to the community church), and classes were able to continue as planned, albeit a little late.

Pictures of tonight's break-in to come tomorrow, as soon as I get them off of Serena's camera.

Happy Monday!
Holly

Papanicolau

(Today's guest blog comes from Serena Zhou, who has recently begun teaching us all words in Chinese while lounging on the couch in the kitchen.)

"Doctora: "blah blah blah, blah blah, blah papanicolau blah blah, blah?"

Me (pretending to know what's going on...my ultimate downfall): "ya ya ya, bueno!"



La Doctora (Dra.) dons a pair of surgical gloves, motions me over to the patient bed, and hands me an ancient-looking metal clamp device. The patient, a woman in her 50s (although most women here tend to look a lot older than they are), starts unbuttoning her pants. Meanwhile, I'm holding this monster clamp in my right hand watching this woman willingly reveal her world, feeling my gracious smile beginning to twitch. What have I gotten myself into? 




In Ecuador, like in most other countries in the world, high school graduates apply to universities as a medical student. In other words, there is no such thing as "pre-med." To save the confusion in trying to explain this minor discrepancy, I tell the doctors that I'm a 5th year med student (my logic being that I've had 4 years undergrad training as a pre-med, planning to start my 5th year as a medical student-here's hoping!). I'm about to find out just how much "5th year med students" in the US are perceived to know by Ecuadorian doctors...



The clinic where I've been shadowing for the past month functions under the Ministry of Public Heath in Conocoto, and provides free services to its patients who cannot otherwise afford basic health care. I would've walked right past the unlabeled building if it weren't for the locals directing me to it. To be honest, it made the clinics in ghetto downtown Baltimore seem like penthouse suites. But I love it. 

Lines as long as those formed in Ohio on Nov. 4, 2008, appear every morning before it opens at 8am. The clinic has 2 nurses and 7 doctors (2 obstetricians, 1 gynecologist, 2 pediatricians, 2 general practitioners), who's showings are as predictable as Ecuadorian weather (that is, very UNpredictable). Over the course of the past few months, I have had the lucky opportunity to do clinical rotations and shadow a different doctor each week.

On my first day (that is, after a few no-shows), I shadowed Dra. Espinoza, an obstetrician. She taught me the word papanicolau, which means "pap smear" and subsequently set me to work. If it weren't for the lack of liability, I think I would have been in some legal trouble. The staff just don't seem to fully grasp the meaning of "no, no todavia he aprendido eso" (no, I have not yet learned that). I've been asked to prescribe medicine despite my broken Spanish (don't worry, I didn't. Not about to build a malpractice track record that will haunt me for years). But I do get to take patients' histories and fill out various medical forms in Spanish, fill out prescription forms (with proper assistance), and perform/record basic clinical procedures (blood pressure, weight, height, temperature). How accurate they are might be another story, seeing how I taught myself how to take blood pressure from a CVS pamphlet. But hey, the nurses seem to trust my measurements over their own. (It must be the white jacket? Or being Asian?


).

Nonetheless, these experiences have confidently prepared me for medical school in the future, for which I am immensely grateful. I can definitely see myself, and hope to be, working long-term in a clinic that serves underprivileged citizens such as this (apart from the flakiness). However, it did, I have to admit, confirm my interests to not specialize and instead go for primary care...at least over ob-gyn.

:) Serena."

(Jocelyn gets her blood pressure taken by Serena. And tries not to laugh.)

The Manna Hotel

For those of you wondering what happened to the Wednesday guest blog, don't worry, it's still around...even though it's been mia for the past two weeks. Serena's thinking up her entry as I write this, which is set to appear sometime later today instead of Wednesday. Obviously. Since Wednesday has a blank hole where someone (ok fine, it was me) forgot to put anything.

Anyway! The MPIEcuador house is going to play host to three wonderful Manna Executives (for want of a better term) over the next three weeks, the first of whom arrived late Wednesday night. Lori, the director of Manna Project and one of its original founders flew from Nicaragua to Ecuador via Miami yesterday, which makes about as much sense as the man I saw watering his grass today WHILE IT WAS RAINING, but so it goes down here. She's already gone on a run to the bank in Conocoto, spent some time on the couch in the kitchen (we moved Dunc's bed back up to his room), read a bunch of Dr. Suess books with Maylen at Apoyo, played Go Fish! with Jocelyn's english students, laughed through women's exercise, and watched a movie on the projector. The girl's got a lot ahead of her, considering that was just day one, and we couldn't be more excited to show her around the Ecuadorian life we've built here thus far.

As for our other two guests, Chris and Amira, can't wait for you guys to get here!

Holly

Si se puede...

Tonight, as we watched history unfold in a little bar named Mulligan's, in the middle of Quito, thousands of miles away from the places we sent our absentee ballots, none of us could hide our smiles or our tears as we joined with Ecuadorians in adding our voices to Obama's refrain, "Yes we can"... "Si, se puede."

"...we've been warned against offering people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

It finally happened

After making it on to every meeting agenda we've had since July, there is now a bed in the kitchen. Dunc's bed, to be exact.

After spending all day yesterday doing a deep DEEP clean of the kitchen (scrubbing the walls, sweeping 3 times, mopping twice, taking everything out, painting the cabinets, purging the fridge, de-mildewing the fruit baskets...I think my mom's horrified expression when she walked in last week inspired me), I thought what better way to welcome everyone back from their weekend adventures then with a little surprise.

Clearly it went over well :)

Back to work tomorrow, promise some program updates will be coming soon!

Holly

(Serena, Dana, Jocelyn and Dunc relax on the bed while Eliah checks the fridge)