These past couple of weeks has been absolutely amazing. It is hard for me to believe that I left the US only a little over a month ago. It feels like I have been here a lifetime and I feel more and more at home here with each passing day. I have truly found my niche within the many projects that our volunteers do here. My favorite days are the ones spent in the hospitals shadowing the Obstetrician/Gynecologist in the morning and hanging out with the medical interns in the afternoon. My relationships within the hospital are growing quickly as I am becoming better and better friends with the medical interns. I have also formed a great relationship with the Gynecologist, Dr. Ricaldy, who now expects to have me observe him daily and seeks me out when I am not waiting in his office in the morning. Dr. Ricaldy is also head of the hospital so I am learning more and more the amount of work that goes into running such an organization. When I am not in the hospital I like to spend my mornings at Zapatitos loving on those sweet boys and learning innumerable lessons from them. I am learning that it takes more than a home to heal childhood wounds and hence I am learning to be patient with God and trust in his healing powers.

I feel so settled here and have already begun to dread leaving. I know that there is so much at home and school to look forward to but I feel so much of my heart settling in to stay. I am not sure when I will return here but I know that I will eventually. I have been planning to take a year off after undergrad before going beginning Medical school and I will hopefully be able to return here at the beginning of that year for at least two months and hopefully more. I just love the Bolivian lifestyle. Their relaxed time schedule, their never-ending hospitality, and their work ethic. These things bring out the best in me and I am going to be very sad to lose these influences in my life. In the meantime, I am going to try to enjoy my last week and as much as I can and to soak up as much of the Bolivian culture as I can.

PS Thank you Myvy Ngo for that last post. Miss you!

Llamas, Alpacas, and More!

Today I not only took a picture with a llama, but I also kissed one and spit on one. It was crazy but so awesome. By the way the Westmonters are so darn AWESOME!!! I'm going to go eat a llama now! Peace yo!

When Invisible Children Sing

     I would really really really really really love it if any of you have free time if you would read the book When Invisible Children Sing by Dr. Chi Huang. It is about street children in La Paz and so much of it is really on par with the things I've seen and experienced being here. It not only perfectly captures the Bolivian culture but also so accurately depicts the lives of the kids living in the orphanages that I am working in and especially the lives of the people living in the plaza. Multiple times while reading it I have been brought to tears because it so perfectly matches the things I have witnessed.
     While working at the orphanages and talking to the teenagers in the plaza I have heard some of the most heart-breaking stories. One of the little girls, Ruth, who lives at CDA 1 is there because her mother is in jail for repeatedly trying to sell her. The worst part is that when her mother finishes her 3 week stint in jail Ruth will be returned to her. One little girl is called Sustantivo meaning survivor because her parents threw her out of a window in attempt to rid themselves of her. The arms of the teenagers in the plaza are unabashedly covered in scars and their skin boasts of untreated burn marks from lighters. The boys at Zapatitos just want to be hugged and touched and loved. Upon arriving there they all climb on you and if you sit down on the ground you are ambushed by a dozen boys who want to sit in your lap or hold your hand. When one little boy got hit in the face with a ball and was crying I kissed his forehead and he instantly stopped crying in surprise. The look he gave me led me to believe that he had never experienced this type of affection before.
        I ache so deeply for these kids who grow up with such little resources yet such big hurt. As I'm sure everyone who has spent time in orphanages has experienced, I am having to learn to feel these things yet to not let them destroy me. To let myself be molded and matured yet not hardened. To continue to trust fully in the Lord while still questioning Him about the existence of this hurt in the world. And most important of all, being an avenue for God's grace so that each and every one of these kids can feel loved even if only for the four hours a day I am there. I have to trust that the Lord is using me and that I am fulfilling his purpose because otherwise it feels all too cruel to be yet another temporary presence in these kids lives and yet another person who will ultimately leave them. It is all this and more that daily runs through my head and daily I am so grateful for my faith in God because with this faith I am free. I am free to offer these hurts to Him, and to know that I could never be enough to heal the aches and pains of these children, only He is. So, with this knowledge and faith I know that my only responsibility is to daily show up and give Him my best and the more I trust in Him, the more effective I can be.

El Lago Titicaca

            This has been a crazy but amazing week. During last weekend I traveled to the tiny town of Copacabana, which is on the shores of Lake Titicaca and we stayed at a really nice hotel right on the lake for the equivalent of 7 American dollars. Sunday we took a two and a half hour boat ride out to Isla del Sol and hiked from the North end to the South end, about a two-hour hike. It is so incredibly gorgeous there, the Andes sprawling right behind this giant body of water (about 8,000 square km) will take your breath away. The bus ride to Copacabana from Cochabamba took in total about 12 hours and took us straight through La Paz. La Paz was this crazy, huge, sprawling city that just emerged out of nowhere. It is the Parliamentary capital of Bolivia while Sucre is the traditional capital so it was interesting to get to see such an important Bolivian city.

Being in Bolivia even furthers my love of traveling. I can’t imagine a life that didn’t involve seeing the world. Every time I get a taste I just want more and more. I love the people that I meet when I travel and I love hearing their stories and their lives. Just today I spent two hours talking with a medical intern from Brazil and hearing about a life so different from mine absolutely fascinates me. We had to speak in Spanish the whole time because his English phrases were limited to “Hi my name is” and “How are you?” and my Portuguese is limited to none at all (although he did teach me how to say Christmas, which seems like an odd word to have learned in the middle of July). But I just love learning about other ways of life and traditions. Whenever I’m in another country I begin to worry that there won’t be enough time in life to see everything I want and in fact, I want to see absolutely everything so it is pretty safe to say that I won’t be able to accomplish that in one lifetime. I wish I could spend a year in the Altiplano of Bolivia on a llama farm, I want to live in a city in Brazil, I dream of skiing in Chili, and I would love to taste coffee in Columbia. I want to know every part of South America by heart and even then I would want to see and know more and that’s only one continent. Having come here completely alone and having everything work out so perfectly has given me so much confidence and I feel as though there is no part of the world that isn’t manageable. I just have to have faith in the fact that the Lord will give me the time and the resources to keep doing trips like this for the rest of my life.

The rest of the week has flown by in a blur. On the 4^th we celebrated with a barbecue, smores, and fireworks and listened to the most American-loving country music possible. Yesterday I went to a children’s hospital in Cochabamba and spent all afternoon hanging out with a little boy and two young girls who were long-term patients. Today I had the opportunity to shadow the Gynecologist at the hospital, which was actually surprisingly interesting and then this evening a group of us went to see Spiderman with a couple of Bolivian girls that we have become friends with. I have just continued to love every minute of being here and am already dreading returning home in two and a half weeks.

I just feel so passionate about medicine and the path that I am taking and I am so glad that I have gotten to be here and work so closely with the doctors. I am unsure at this point what type of medicine I want to do but I am confident that I am on the right track. I really am just excited to see where it all takes me and am so excited for the experiences that haven’t happened yet in my life.

"For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful I know that full well"

-Psalm 139:13-14

La Paz

My Most Exciting Day So Far

            Wednesday has by far been my most exciting day since arriving here. In the morning I was lucky enough to return to Zapatitos and play with the little boys. They are fascinated with English and made Mali, Kyle, and I write out list after list of words for them. One little boy made Mali write out every single number up to 100 in English for him. Part of what I love most about Mali is how happy she is to do anything asked of her. In true Mali form she wrote out every single number with a smile on her face just so happy to be contributing to this little boy’s day. I admire her so much for her constant optimism and constant willingness to serve.

That afternoon I went into Cochabamba to CBA (Clinica Bolivia Americana) and had the opportunity to observe two different surgeries. The first one was on a man who nine days previously had been hit by a car and had severe injuries. The surgery being performed on him that day was on his tibia (one of his shin bones), which had been completely broken in half. He needed a metal rod inserted to allow stability in his shin. When we entered the operating room his shin had a slit almost a foot long running along the top of it. There, in plain sight was the entirety of the anatomy of his lower leg. I could see muscles, tendons, and of course, the completely severed tibia. They allowed us to observe the whole surgery only a mere foot from the patient. In order to secure the metal rod the surgeons had to drill holes in his bone before screwing the rod in place. I was incredibly nervous for this part because I was sure the sound of metal being drilled into bone would be too much for me to handle but it actually didn’t bother me in the slightest. The rod was successfully inserted and screwed into place and the slit was sewed back together as if none of it had ever taken place. It is just fascinating to me how one second everything is a bloody mess with bone chips everywhere and the next it is only a neat row of stitches.

The second surgery I observed was a planned Cesarean Section. Cesarean Sections are very common here and it had been my goal for the trip to observe at least one take place so I was thrilled when I was given the chance to do so. It was honestly life changing; watching a life come into the world turned my world upside down. The initial prep of placing the epidural and creating the incision in both the epidermis and the uterus is extremely calm and methodical. Once the incision has been made in the uterus however, there is a rush of movement and out of the blood and layers of skin a head becomes obvious. Then, in the blink of an eye, a baby is pulled from the incision and there, in front of your eyes, is a new, perfect, life. The baby I watched being born was a tiny little girl and to see the look on her father’s face as she was being born and the way he stood over her with such a look of fascination was the most amazing thing.

Thursday morning one of the volunteers, Jeff, who is a trained paramedic held a training course for the Paramedics employed by the hospital. I was able to sit in on this training course and afterwards Jeff taught us how to perform intubation and place IVs and I got to practice doing both of these on training dummies. It was the most practical medical procedure I’ve ever been taught and it made me extremely excited to take an EMT class somewhere down the road.

This weekend I am traveling to Lake Titicaca with some of the other volunteers. It will be a three-day round trip with a ton of bus time, which is too bad, but hopefully it will be worth it. Please pray for safe travels!

Charque, Pirumani, and Zapatitos

This past Saturday was another Bolivian holiday as it is traditionally considered to be the coldest day of the year. The Bolivians use this holiday to burn their fields so keeping with Bolivian culture we did the same. It was by far the most intense manual labor I’ve ever done. We were actually in the flames trying to keep them from getting too high so that they didn’t reach the house or melt the casing off of the electrical wires. By the end of the morning we were all covered in soot and my arms ached from machete-ing the bushes and batting down the flames. Saturday afternoon a few of us returned to La Cancha, the outdoor market, and did some shopping for souvenirs. That evening we went out to dinner and I tried two of the traditional Bolivian dishes, Pique and Charque. Pique is beef and potatoes with vegetables, and Charque is dehydrated llama with hominy. I loved the Pique however the texture of the Charque was a little too much of a stretch for me. It was drier than beef jerky and kind of crumbled in your mouth but the taste was similar to that of beef. 

On the hike to Pirumani

Sunday Kyle, Andrew, Brittany, and I hiked Pirumani, which leads to a waterfall in the middle of a canyon. It is only a short trufi ride to the trailhead from the guesthouse but we ended up walking the 3 or so miles up the road because we couldn’t find a trufi. The hike itself wasn’t too difficult and was breathtakingly beautiful.

Monday I spent the morning at CDA 1 with the babies and I am quickly falling more and more in love with them. That afternoon I slept for a few hours as I seem to have come down with a case of Bronchitis or something along those lines and have been feverish and achy on and off with an awful sore throat.

Tuesday morning I went to Zapatitos an all boys orphanage that houses 35 boys ranging from elementary school age to college students. Playing with all the little boys was my favorite thing in the entire world. If I could I would move into Zapatitos and spend the rest of my life teasing those sweet, sweet little boys. My favorite, a little boy named Christian, melted my heart, as he and I became friends sitting under a table in the dining room. We spent the first half of our time there doing a clinic for the kids, which involved taking height and weight and inspecting their teeth. We then did a short presentation on dental hygiene and nutrition. The rest of the afternoon was spent spinning, tickling, and racing the little boys (which did wonders for my Bronchitis as you can imagine). These little boys are just so full of a contagious vigor for life and I know I have so much to learn from them. They are all so brave and so willing to fight against the adversity that they have already faced in their lives. That afternoon Hannah and I cleaned an old Ambulance that they plan to begin using again. We tried really hard to convince ourselves that the dark reddish/brown splattering everywhere was not blood but anything else.

Llamas

My relationships with the other volunteers have just continued to grow and I feel so close to so many of them. It is such a great experience to meet and truly get to know so many people from such different backgrounds. Brittany, one of the Westmont girls from San Diego, moved into my room this past weekend and I am happy to have company because it was getting quite lonely by myself. She is extremely similar to myself in a lot of ways but also very different and I have loved getting to know her. I think our instant bond can be contributed to our many similar food allergies and due to these allergies we have spent many hours in the kitchen cooking together while we blast country music... Specifically Wanted, our favorite song.

Walking down our street, Anacarare

I am really hoping to get healthy soon because I am already tired of feeling so awful. I spent all afternoon sleeping again and it is just a bummer to be missing out on so much and to not be contributing as much as I was before. I trust that the Lord is using me even in idleness but I am still impatient to be back to my normal self so that I can more fully serve the people here.

More pictures from our hike (click on them to make them bigger)

 

The Westmont Team plus the two Messiah Boys

    

Things I Love About Being Here

The hot days and freezing nights

Wearing full scrubs all, day everyday

Speaking to the Bolivians

Trufi rides

Quiet time with God

Bolivian children

The look on a man’s face when the Xray shows that he doesn’t have lung cancer like he had thought but merely a broken rib

Family dinners

Learning about medicine

The way the Quechuan women dress

Paying in Bolivianos

Llama socks and sweaters

The never ending hospitality of the Bolivians

Wally

Living on Bolivian time (which happens to be very similar to Anna time)

God’s grace

How everything in the guesthouse is just slightly broken but not broken enough to replace

The buzzing of instruments in the Emergency Room

The hectic, craziness of the Bolivian streets

Only showering twice a week

Speaking Castilliano

Freedom to explore and live life on your own time

Washing my face in ice cold water each morning and night because hot water heaters don’t exist in Bolivia

Weekends off

Three hour church services

Learning to live in another culture

Fellowship

Bonfires and worship songs

How willing to teach the Bolivian doctors are

God’s little surprises

Country music and dishes

Running in the countryside

The other volunteers

Learning to be selfless (even though I have a long ways to go)

The spotty Internet because it forces me to be present to the people here

Trying Bolivian foods (including llama)

The babies at the orphanages

One Week Down

It is impossible for me to believe that a full week has past since I’ve been here. In some ways it seems like I arrived in Bolivia yesterday but in others it feels like I’ve been here for years. On my run today I was talking to my friend Ben about how quickly we all became accustomed to life in the guesthouse and to the customs of the Bolivians. They seem already ingrained in me and I am quickly disconnecting from America and our fast pace lives and the constant stress we put ourselves under. Down here things just seem simpler. You wake up, you read your task for the day and then you do whatever is expected of you. Even within the schedule though there is so much room for freedom. The schedule will merely say “Hospital” but the hospital is a large place and the opportunities within this guideline are endless. Wednesday I spent the day in the hospital and for me this meant observing an American Internal Medicine Doctor as he evaluated patients throughout the morning. After a long lunch I returned to the hospital, which is a mere 100 feet from the guesthouse and spent the afternoon hanging out in the Emergency Room. This mostly consisted of folding gauze pads with a nursing student from La Paz who spoke broken English. As we folded we would talk and she would correct my Spanish and I would correct her English and we would pass the dictionary back and forth until our sentences were perfect.

Near the end of the day an elderly Quechuan woman arrived in the ER with a tumor on her cheek. She was immediately taken to surgery to remove the tumor and given the lack of laws concerning hospitals here I was able to observe the surgery by simply asking “Puedo observar?” and changing into a new set of scrubs. Watching surgery is incredible to me; To watch the doctor cut so fearlessly into the skin and then, after extracting the tumor, so nimbly sew the raw square inch of flesh back into one neat scar was nothing but extraordinary.

Thursday was feriada in Bolivia, meaning holiday. From my understanding it is kind of like the New Year and the Quechuans celebrate by burning fruits and vegetables in the mountains. For us it meant hosting a free medical clinic at a church in Vinto. This was one of my favorite mornings so far. I spent a portion of the time taking vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, etc) but I spent most of the time interviewing patients about their medical history. This is by far the biggest challenge I have faced as I did all of this solely in Spanish. My medical Spanish is definitely improving quickly and I can now proudly say that I know the word for Gall Bladder. The guesthouse decided to use the feriada as an excuse to celebrate Christmas (because it is winter here after all). Those that didn’t go to the clinic spent the day making Christmas cookies and decorating the living room complete with a makeshift Christmas tree, lights hung around, garland, wreaths, and paper snowflakes. We had a lovely candle lit family dinner of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes as Charlie Brown Christmas played softly in the background.

Friday I spent the morning in the clinic in Cochabamba and the afternoon in the plaza with the glue sniffing community. One of the families living in the plaza has a 20 month year old little boy named Eric and I spent all afternoon playing with him. He had the sweetest smile and the most heart-melting laugh. It breaks my heart to think of such a sweet little boy growing up in such a desperate environment. As I spent the afternoon there I was again so shocked by the helplessness of these people and the underlying violence in everything they do. Today I talked with a girl living in the plaza that was only seventeen and was seven months pregnant. I can’t imagine the life she has lived and the horrors she has seen. I can’t understand why I was so lucky and why I was born into my family and why I have the luxuries I do. I think about Eric and how little of a chance in life he has and how little opportunity he will be given all while I sit here with the world at my fingertips. I wish I could see the reasoning in this injustice, I wish I could understand why some of us got so lucky while others did not. 

El Cristo

This past weekend flew by. Saturday we hiked up to El Cristo, a giant statue of Jesus way up on a hill. I heard rumor that it was the highest statue of Jesus in the world due to our high elevation but I don’t know how accurate that is. We did a scavenger hunt in La Cancha the open-air market later that afternoon. La Cancha was absolutely crazy. They had everything you could ever imagine, including hundreds upon hundreds of llama fetuses. It is Bolivian tradition to bring new homeowners a fetus and bury it in their yard for good luck. Mostly I just found them terrifying. The most shocking part of the markets wasn’t the fetuses though it was the raw meat being sold. It was literally everywhere- on the ground, covering tables, in wheelbarrows, just everywhere. The women selling it were just casually leaning on piles of it and eating their lunch over it as though there was nothing unhygienic about raw beef. It was outrageous; I have never been so shocked by lack of awareness of bacteria in my entire life. That afternoon we did kid washing in the plaza for the people of the city who don’t have the resources to properly bathe. After the kids were cleaned we would play with them and all they wanted was to be spun. We would pick them up and spin them and they would squeal with laughter. The joy in the kids and the people here never stops surprising me.

La Cancha...

Sunday we went to a morning church service that lasted almost 3 hours. This long of a service is completely normal for these people because they honestly can’t stop worshiping the Lord. That is just so different from our “get in, get out” worship habits. For these people, Sunday is truly a Sabbath and all they do that day is go to church so they see no reason why it should be cut short. I am also just so amazed by the community aspect of the churches here. After church we all cooked lunch and cleaned together and sang along to country music for hours. The happiness and willingness of the other volunteers is awesome to witness and the complete selflessness of each person is inspiring. That night we built a fire in the yard and all sat around singing worship songs for over three hours.

Playing in the plaza

Monday I spent the morning cooking lunch and then the afternoon at Casas de Amor 2 which is an orphanage for children over the age of 4. Another volunteer and I helped a little girl named Abby wash a car and then I helped her clean her room. Tuesday I went to Casas de Amor 1 which is for infants through age 3 or 4. I spent all morning rocking babies and feeding small children. All of the kids at CDA 1 are sick right which is pretty heartbreaking to see. They call the caretakers at the orphanage Tia and I can’t imagine a more exhausting job than being one of the Tias at Casas de Amor 1. There are 15 toddlers and babies living there and at all times at least 4 are crying. Those women are truly impressive to me that they can spend all day and night caring for children, I can’t think of a more selfless profession. That night we went into town to buy hamburguesas and since I wasn’t eating one I spent that time talking to about 7 kids around the age of 8. Kids are the best for learning Spanish (or Castillo as it is called here) because when you make a mistake they aren’t afraid to correct you. With these kids, every time I would make a mistake they would all just laugh and laugh at me until one of them would correct me. But what better way to learn a language than to be laughed at by a bunch of 8 year olds.

 It has been such a blessing to be out of my comfort zone and being forced to rely on the Lord. I have been having a ton of quiet time, which is really good for me because it doesn’t exactly come naturally to me by any means. I am still not really sure what my purpose is here but I have faith that the Lord is using me exactly how he needs to. Please keep the babies at CDA 1 in your prayers! Love you guys!

On top of El Cristo

The view of Cochabamba from El Cristo

Two Quechuan women. Quechua is the indigenous people of Cochabamba and they speak Quechua. This is how all of the Quechuan women dress. 

Street corner in Quillacollo (Between Vinto and Cochabamba)

And So It Begins...

June 15, 2012

The guesthouse

Hello all! After over 36 hours of traveling I have finally arrived in Cochabamba. Despite the long travel hours, I have nothing but positive things to say about my experience this far. I landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia and as I left customs I was met by Emily and Hannah both nursing students at Ohio State. We spent the next 10 hours at the airport and passed our time jump roping, jousting with these bizarre stalks hanging from trees, sitting in the sun and drying my food (I had an explosion in my food suitcase) and taking turns making laps around the parking lot. The two of them are beyond nice and I am so grateful that I got that time to get to know them. We then took a regional plane to Cochabamba and when we arrived we were picked up by a hospital volunteer and were driven the 30 minutes to the hospital, which is in Vinto. When we got to the guesthouse, which is within the walls of the hospital, everyone was in a bible study so I got a chance to unpack. I’m staying in a room with only one other girl, which is lucky since the other two rooms each have like 8 or 9 girls in them. This is honestly the best place on earth though. There are about 30 college students staying here right now, mostly from small Christian colleges (Westmont, Wheaton, etc). I’m the only college student here without at least one other person they know but it hasn’t at all been a problem. The guesthouse is the homiest place on earth. The kitchen is packed with food and is a free for all at all times. There is a living room/ dining room that everyone just hangs out in and there is always something funny happening. I’ve never felt so at home right away. Everyone is so nice and friendly and welcoming and I am just really, really happy to be here. The guesthouse itself feels like an old cabin with everything just slightly broken but still functioning enough to use. There is barely hot water but it is lovely nonetheless.

The inside of a trufi

This morning I went with 4 other girls to a clinic in Cochabamba where we shadowed doctors all morning. To get there we had to take Trufis (Troo-fees), which are kind of a hybrid between a bus and a taxi. They pack about 15 people into these tiny vans and everyone is completely on top of each other. The streets of Cochabamba are beyond hectic. They are filled with children, dogs, vendors, cars, buses, and out of control Trufi drivers. I am absolutely in love with this place. I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave the hustle and bustle of it all. At the clinic I got to observe as a surgeon changed the dressings on a man’s hand. The man explained to me (in Spanish of course) that he had hurt it working on his farm and had neglected to take care of it and due to his diabetes, the wound was progressively getting worse. The whole back side of his hand was raw down to the bone and in a month or so he was going to receive a skin graph using skin from his stomach but he couldn’t undergo this procedure yet because the flesh was too unhealthy.

Teenagers living in the plaza

This afternoon we went to the main plaza in Cochabamba and it was an extremely moving experience. The plaza is the home of approximate 60 people who are all extremely addicted to sniffing glue, which is a cheap high. They walk around with bottles pressed to their noses at all times and often look extremely out of it as they sleep on and off throughout the day. They have formed communities mostly based on age and there is a lot of conflict between the different communities living in the plaza. They have cuts everywhere, especially self-inflicted wounds on their arms. I got the opportunity to clean and dress a few of their wounds, which was pretty cool. The highlight of the afternoon though was when I gave my first injection of my life. I gave a lady a shot of vitamin B in her bottom (which is good because it’s hard to mess up shots in the bottom). I was terrified though that I was going to mess up because I wasn’t shown an example first, I was just told what to do as I went. It was awesome hanging out with these people (most of them under the age of 25) and talking about Jesus and singing songs about Jesus in Spanish.

It has been a crazy but amazing experience already and I love each and every one of the other volunteers. It is just so incredible how the Lord has once again provided for me. I was so scared coming here alone and so unsure of how this experience would be but just like he has in every area of my life, the Lord has been nothing but faithful. I love getting to pray for the people who live in this city and I feel so blessed to be apart of this organization.