Shadowing in a rural community, Santa Rita

This morning, Rachel (another student in the Somos Hermanos group) and I visited the health center in Santa Rita, a small, rural community located about 30 minutes by bus from Xela. The people of this community were very warm, and we learned so much. I may go back there again depending on my other opportunities for shadowing.

We visited a small "Puesto de Salud" where they have medicines for the community and the doctor, Jose Manuel, comes in to do consults every Tuesday morning. He also works the rest of the week in another community, called Esperanza. There, he works in the public clinic in the morning and his private clinic in the afternoons.

Rachel and I both got the opportunity to sit in on some of his consults. Jose was so wonderful, because after each consult, he sat with us individually for a bit to answer our questions. The first consult I observed was with a women and her five year old son. The son had a flu and the women had inflammation in her stomach/intestines. I learned a lot of useful vocabulary simply by listening. It was also interesting hearing the doctor´s advice to the woman - she needed to avoid acidic foods like coffee, beans, and acidic fruits and focus more on oatmeal (a common breakfast here in Guatemala nicknamed ¨mosh.¨) For me, hearing simple advice like this is so informative, because lifestyle has profound effects on health, and the diet of a Latino is very different from other diets around the world. By living here I am learning a lot about the culture and lifestyle of Guatemalans and other Latinos.

The second consult I observed was with a 34 year old woman with similar stomach problems. However, the origin of her sickness was more serious. Half way through the consult, she started to cry, talking about the abuse she suffered from her father as a child. The doctor was very patient, listening to her, and confirming her thoughts that the trauma she still suffers in her mind may be related to her painful stomach problems. After the consult, Jose Manuel talked with me privately about how, unfortunately, problems with abuse (especially of women) are common in Guatemala, and often, it´s a big part of health problems for the people here.

Throughout the morning, Rachel and I also talked with the health promoter , named Sarinda,(she´s the one who manages the health center all week) along with her two daughters. Later in the morning, we went to visit the school down the road to watch the kids celebrate "Carnival" (the beginning of Lent) with a costume contest and confetti-filled eggs. The whole morning was a wonderful experience, and I´m glad I got the chance to visit this little community.

Hike up Tajamulco

This weekend I got the chance to do a day and a half hike up the dormant volcano, Tajamulco, the highest point in Central America at 4220 meters above sea level. I did the hike with Brooke and Jessica (two girls in my group) guided by a nonprofit trekker group here in Xela, called “Quetzaltrekkers.”

Saturday morning the Tajamulco group met up at 4:45am to make our way by bus to the base of the volcano. We grabbed a great breakfast at a comedor (a small restaurant) and then started our walk uphill until lunch. The food during the hike was great too! We shared four different types of salads and homemade peanut butter and bread for lunch, had pasta for dinner, and oatmeal for breakfast (along with spices like basil, powdered milk, cinnamon, etc). The food was definitely not bland on the volcano!

I’m not in very good shape, so it was pretty hard for me to climb the 2000 meters up to the peak, but we took the hike slowly, and the view on the way and on top made the exhaustion totally worth it. The “Quetzaltrekkers” were great guides too. Not only are they part of a nonprofit group who uses the funds from their guided hikes to help a school for underprivileged Guatemalan kids, but they are also really caring guides – patient with my slow pace and always concerned about our physical and emotional state. The four guides were always asking me how I was, making sure no one injured themselves or became sick from the elevation gain.

We made it finally to our base camp around 3pm (where we set up our tents and make-shift kitchen), and around 5, hiked up another 100 meters to a peak to watch the sunset (pictures included!). The next Sunday morning we woke up at 4:30am to hike up the 100 meters again to see the sunrise. It was freeezing up top, but we brought our sleeping bags to lay and watch the sun come up from under the horizon. It was beautiful!

The description of the trek - http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/guattajumulco.html


















On top of the summit Sunday morning waiting for the sunrise!
















The sunrise!
















On the way down we saw a volcano in the distance called "San Aguito" blow smoke out the top!






















On the bus ride home, there was a bit of a fight between drivers...transportation in Guatemala is always an adventure :)

Buena Vista Social Club Concert

Last night we went to a cover band concert in Xela for the Buena Vista Social club. Buena Vista Social club was a really famous members club in Havana with traditional Cuban music. It was pretty fun especially because the music sounded great and we got the chance to practice our salsa skills.



Tomorrow morning (Saturday) I leave for a day and a half hike up a volcano called Tajamulco. Wish me luck! I'm sure I'll have lots to blog about when I get back. Feliz fin de semana! (Happy weekend!)

Our first trip to “Little Israel,” otherwise known as “Lago (Lake) Atitlan”

On "El Día de Cariño" (Valentine's Day)...



This past weekend we got the chance to visit “Lago Atitlan,” one of the most beautiful lakes in Guatemala. It was a very appropriate trip for Valentine’s Day weekend. The lake is huge with several villages around it. We arrived Friday afternoon at the lake, and we had enough time to shop, eat fajitas and burritos by the water (picture of dinner included), and visit a club or two that night. The village there is pretty touristy, but that means the view and the shopping were great! And to your benefit, I was able to get some great gifts there!

Saturday in the afternoon, we took a boat ride to San Pedro (another village on the lake). The ride was gorgeous, although we did not anticipate getting splashed so much, so we were pretty cold and soaked for the last half of the trip. But after an hour, we made it onto dry land, moved into a beautiful hotel and started our little “Día de Cariño” (Valentine’s Day) gift exchange. I have to brag about my group, because between the rap songs, homemade coupons and cookies (gluten free for Ricky!), poems (sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in Spanglish), there were some awesomely creative and thoughtful gifts. Who needs a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day when you’ve got “Somos Hermanos!” (That’s our group name, and it means, “our brothers.”)



We soon discovered that San Pedro was “Little Israel” in Guatemala. You could hear students speaking Hebrew everywhere. Saturday night we went to a restaurant called “Zoola” where my Jewish/Israeli friends in the group confirmed that the food was authentically Israeli. Sunday afternoon, after a crowded 3 hour bus ride back through the mountains and a ride from one of our Guatemalan friends back the school, we made it home safely. Let’s just say transportation in Guatemala is an integral (and sometimes adventurous) part of the culture (see picture).

This Monday and Tuesday, we had a full time workshop on general health (all in Spanish of course) with an organization here called “Alas (Wings).” The workshop has been a great experience because I’ve learned a ton of useful vocabulary (that I’m sure will come in handy during the women's health classes I’ll be helping to manage very soon) as well as getting great ideas for making health classes dynamic. Who doesn’t like pretending to get married with a paper ring and having five children in the span of six years (it was our introduction to the topic of family planning)?

I hope everyone had a great weekend and a good, relaxing President’s Day. ¡Feliz dia de cariño!

Pictures posted below - at dinner Friday night on the water (first picture is of me with my loaded purse..it's a running joke at this point), Sharon and I on the boat to San Pedro (the second village on the lake), our gift exchange outside the hotel along with pictures of people reciting their raps/poems, and a few pics of the crowded bus ride home

Time with the family

Last night after dinner, Antonietta (my “Mom” here) invited me to participate in a religious ceremony where neighbors delivered an “imagen” (sort of like an idol, but not really). They brought over a statue of the Virgin Mary, named here "the virgin full of pain" or "La Virgen Dolorosa", and conducted a little service. It was nice to spend time with more people from the family (at least 10 of the members of the family came over to the living room to receive the blessing). A man from the neighborhood made a speech, mostly talking about caring for the sick and having faith in God in order to live a positive life. Through these types of events, many Catholic Guatemalans seem to maintain their optimism and happiness in daily life, and it was nice to sit and listen to his warm speech. His visit was also very personal. Not only are many Guatemalan’s so warm to their own family, but they are warm to their neighbors as well. And after the ceremony, they served everyone homemade chicken empanadas. Needless to say, I didn’t go to bed hungry.

Visit to the hospital

On Monday afternoon after lunch (yesterday), I went with the other students in my group to visit the public hospital in Xela, called “Regional Occidente.” It was interesting to see the extensive capacity and as well as the limitations of the main public provider of health care in Xela and the surrounding area.

Occidente provides consults for a good amount of medical specialties: general medicine, surgery (general/plastics/neuro), hematology, dermatology, among others. However, they do not have oncology/radiology. Patients with cancer have to go to Guatemala City to get treatment.

The Guatemalan government, since the mid 1990s, provides public health care, and in theory, all medical care is free (the government pays the salaries of the staff), but in reality there is not enough money to support the size of the population, medicine, and equipment. Occidente has the only trauma center in the area surrounding Xela, and the center gets over 100 patients each day. Patients can get free consults in the morning, but in many cases, they have to pay for certain (sometimes very expensive) aspects of their treatment like laboratory tests.

The tour was very eye-opening in general. I was surprised at how nice the nurses were (two different nurses were our guides, leading us throughout patient rooms and constantly answering our questions (sometimes in quite broken Spanish). I hope to learn more about the health system here when I start my own volunteer work in a hospital next week (possibly the Tuberculosis/AIDS specialty hospital here in Xela). Seeing a health system so different from the U.S. is really helping me broaden my perspective of medicine, and I hope that this will help me later in my career.

The first "futbol" game

This past Saturday night was the first “futbol” (soccer) game in Xela. Practically all of the students went to support our team, the “Super Chivos” of “Xelaju.” Complete with fireworks, sulfur sticks, pineapple tea, and dominoes pizza in the stands, the game was quite an experience, and I have a feeling that we’ll go back to as many more games as we can. I don’t know much about soccer, but my friends tell me that the guys on the teams are pretty good, except it seems like the players focus a lot more on individual tricks (handling the ball themselves for a long time) rather than passing. Nevertheless, we were ecstatic that “Xelaju” pulled it off in the end, 2-1.

Pictures and videos below – some of the crew at the outdoor stadium (wearing our awesome red Xelaju jerseys!) and a picture of the fireworks at the beginning of the game.

Also, I took a video of the fireworks and confetti thrown as the “Super Chivos” entered the stadium before the game. There is also a short video of the “halftime show” with this little kid wearing a cute costume and singing his heart out.

To the beach and the one month mark!

This rest of this past week has been great. It’s hard to believe I’ve officially been here for four weeks. This past weekend, the entire group took a trip to the Southeast coast to a beach called Tilapita (there are pictures of the 4 hour bus ride to the beach as well). The beach was practically deserted when we arrived. Having the entire beach to ourselves was so fun! We all shared a little house about forty feet from the shore and spent the whole day Saturday sunbathing, swimming, reading, and relaxing…couldn’t ask for a more relaxing weekend.

The food was great too. There was a family who owned the house and a little restaurant right next door. For breakfast we got eggs and beans with tortillas, for lunch, a huge fruit salad (I even have a picture of the beautiful fruit), and for dinner, a choice of grilled/fried fish, shrimp, and of course a vegetarian option. The fish was amazing! Both nights after dinner we built our own bonfire on the beach and roasted marshmallows to make s’mores. I’m pretty sure everyone in the group had an amazing time.

This week is pretty normal as well. We're working out our volunteer projects as well that we will start in two weeks. I will probably be working on a health class for young women as well as working a bit in the Tuberculosis/AIDS hospital in Xela, however, I'm not sure exactly yet, but I'll keep you updated. The women's class, especially, will be a lot of work (we make up the lesson plan/activities ourselves), but I'm so excited. So far, I've had some great experiences talking to Guatemalans, whether in my house or on the bus. I have high hopes for the volunteer work.

Last night we had a conference on the public health system in Guatemala and some of its issues (in short, the government does not have enough money to support the system). Tonight we're watching a film on the Cuban music group, Buena Vista, and there's more salsa later in the week too!

Hasta pronto!

Pictured below - the group piled into a truck on the way to the bus station (that's the way you travel in Guatemala! so fun!), on the four hour bus ride, the house we shared overnight on Friday and Saturday a few paces from the beach, the fruit for lunch, the sunset on Saturday night on the beach, and a few of us on the little boat that took us to the beach