Clinical and Lingual Experiences
Upon arrival at my host family’s house I was greeted by Rosita, the local coordinator and my host mom. She took me down to my room, introduced me to Davinder, then left me to unpack and sleep as I wished. I didn’t stay up too late, as we had our orientation in the morning at the spanish school. On Sunday we drove to the Amazing Andes Spanish School, got the lowdown on expectations during our stay, then Davinder, Raj and I went for some lunch at Gus. After lunch Davinder and I headed to el Mitad del Mundo, the equator. We visited the Indigenous museum there, enjoying the view from the top, then took some equator straddling photos to have some tourist shots, Davinder even planked across the equator.
We caught bus back that got us to El Centro and met a guy from Quebec as we got off. We joined him for coffee in the Plaza San Francisco and he told us stories about getting mugged twice, the first at knife point. Note to self: be smart about where I go at what time and with who…
We then headed back to Rosita’s house where we met the other two students, Kelsey and Courtney, ate dinner, then headed to bed excited for Spanish classes the next day. Monday and Tuesday were 7 hours each of Spanish, with a meeting with my Puyo medical director on Monday and salsa class on Tuesday after Spanish.
Wednesday was Davinder and my first clinical rotation at El Centro de Salud #1. We had a slow morning in the ER, only a couple of ulcers, kidney stones, strep throat, a dog bite, and a hook stuck in a foot. At one point a man with a gun passed us and there were calls to close all the doors (I’m still not sure what that was all about). Shortly there after an ambulance stopped by and a young woman was wheeled in. Turns out she was in labour so we followed along and watched a rather quick 20 minute birth of a beautiful baby girl. Once it was time to take mother and daughter back to the ward I got the honors of carrying the little girl… mom still hadn’t had the chance to hold her. After that Davinder and I ran upstairs to meet with Dra. Magdalena Castro to arrange our schedule for the next day then we headed to a Krishna restaurant for lunch before catching the trole back to our Spanish school for our afternoon class.
After class I headed back to my Tropical Dance class (today included Salsa, Merengue, Reggaeton, samba, and lambada). The lesson continues until 6:30, by which time I was very tires then I returned home for dinner then bed.
Thursday at the Hospital: Davinder and I found ourselves in El Plaza Grande for a free Influenza vaccination clinic, set up under a tent with the workers inviting anyone over 65, under 5, diabetics, and those with high blood pressure to get their influenza vaccination. Giving your name and age was all it took to get a vaccine. We ran out of vaccinations around 11am so we headed back to the hospital. The streets were rather full and there was an expectant air to the crowd. We found out why when we returned. Apparently the President of Iran had an imminent arrival in El Centro. We were advised to catch our trole before the whole centro got shut down for security reasons.
Class ended well, it was my last day with Jorge, and after my final Tropical dance class I returned home to get ready for a night in the Mariscal (aka Gringolandia). We ate dinner at a funky restaurant, had some volcano shots, then headed to a couple of different bars before settling on a club which was featuring Brahma (my favorite Brasilian beer). The music was quite mixed from electro to American pop hits, to reggaeton to salsa. We stayed until about 1 then the others hit up the taco bar before we caught a cab home.
In the morning we headed out on our tour of Quito which included a museum, a beautiful view of the city, the Panacilla, and La Basilica. We finally returned home, picked up our laundry, got packed, then I said goodbye to the others who were headed north for the weekend before catching a cab to the south terminal in Quito the catch a bus to Banos.
