Typical Cusco

Hola! Welcome to another fun filled Peruvian blog. I want to give you curious folk a look into my volunteering in the Cusco health clinics. First, I want to describe what to expect in the typical health clinic. There is tons of dust in the city; I guess the climate isn’t that great for growing grass. Nonetheless, the dust easily finds its way into the clinic. It’s very dirty and the doors are always open. It’s not uncommon to see dogs roaming around the waiting areas of the clinic. In the mornings, it is extremely crowded. The typical patients are older women and younger women with babies.

This week I was stationed with a very young doctor. Her name was Pamela. She is 23 and just finished med school. Here they are able to start medical school directly after high school, although, it lasts for six years. My doctor was extremely nice and is at this underfunded health center for only one year. I believe it was a part of her scholarship for medical school. After this year she wants to specialize in Pediatrics. She has a boyfriend of six years whom she met in medical school. He is currently applying for a specialty in plastic surgery in Brazil. She hopes to follow him there. Obviously, the doc and I are tight meow. We saw lots of normal cold and flu symptoms in our patients this week. Typically, red, swollen throats and raspy coughs occupied our day. My job was to check their throats with a tongue depressor for any swelling. I also checked for any constriction in the patients lungs with a stethoscope. I would listen for any raspy constriction when they breathed. It was pretty interesting to me since I’ve never actually done the tests. We got to see quite a few children. I think she usually sees all the children in the clinic because really enjoys working with them. FYI, Peruvian babies are the cutest. I really enjoyed working with Pamela but it’s on to the next one! Hopefully, I’ll get to hang around the director of the clinic this week.

We also said farewell to of my some of my favorite people this week. Hillary was headed back to Michigan and Laura was headed to a tour of Europe before returning home to Australia. We, of course, sent them off the right way. We went to trivia at the Real McCoy. It was tons of fun with it being mostly and English speaking crowd. We had dinner and a few drinks at happy hour. Then, it was off to the roof for drinking games and good times. Many pictures tend to be taken on the roof top. Brittany and I had a little too much fun that night. Our flight to the jungle, the next day, was miserable.

It’s time for your random Peru fact of the week! Every taxi ride is a different adventure. I literally feared for my life on my first taxi ride. I was thrown from window to window in the back seat. All the cars are extremely small and they don’t believe in staying in one lane. Usually we are riding four deep on a three lane road. It’s also quite nerve racking when we don’t stop at any four way stops. They just lay on the horn in belief that it is sufficient to have the right of way. Speaking of right of way, pedestrians do NOT have it. Taxis yield to NO man, child, or animal. For me? No seatbelt. I like to keep things interesting.