Day 1:
This weekend Helen and I had the opportunity to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu. It was an amazing trip but with all the traveling (2 planes, 2 buses, 2 trains, taxis and lots of walking) it seemed to pass by far too quickly. We were traveling back to Huancayo on Monday so we missed day one of this week. Below you can find a few pictures from our trip!
Day 2:
We went to Portawawa, right after we got off the plane from Lima in Juajua (the smallest airport I've ever been to- there was only one waiting room, one security line and one check-in counter). Rojito, our driver was there to pick us up. Helen and I both commented on how nice it was to see a familiar face, he gave us each a hug as we fought through the taxi drivers asking to give us a ride to Huancayo.
When we finally made it to Portawawa, we got to see Shayna! Who had made it to Huancayo the night before. She had a very difficult few days after landing in Lima and we were very sad that we couldn’t have been here to ease the transition a little. We felt even worse when we found out later in the week that Macchu Pichu actually wasn’t closed all of February, as we were told due to the rainy season, instead it was just the Inka trail that was closed, which we weren’t planning on going on anyway, so our trip to Machu Picchu could have waited a weekend or two. :(
At the Portawawa group this week, the women had to take a quiz, with questions about pregnancy, how to be healthy during pregnancy and other similar topics. After the quiz the women formed a circle and Manouche was very excited to help them make their own anti-stretch mark cream. She had bought all-natural ingredients and little spray bottles. Some of the ingredients included: cocoa butter, aloe vera gel from an aloe plant, Sangre de Grado (at first I thought this was actual blood but it’s a red sap from a Croton tree that is found in the jungle of Peru), rose extract, and Vitamin E. The women seemed excited about the lotion and we thought it was a fun activity to do with everyone.
In the afternoon, we headed to Castillo de Leon with Lucero and Pablo. We were going to be passing out flyers inviting parents to our meeting on Friday, where we would be introducing a similar program to the one we would be running at El Rosario, where we would be involving parents in developing healthy habits and learning about living healthy lifestyles. We were following the Castillo de Leon bus up and down crazy looking roads.
I think we went to about ten houses. The mothers who were home seemed willing to come to the meeting, we looked forward to seeing them on Friday.
Day 3:
On Wednesday, we went to Aco for the opening celebration of the second round of the Cuy Project. The previous program had run for 3 years and was extremely successful! This past December they tested all the children whose mothers were in the program and all of them were out of anemia! Which is an amazing accomplishment for the program, and a real testament of the devotion and dedication of the mothers to improve the health of their children. Manouche and Yuli both think that they would be able to finish the program in two years instead of three, so that is slightly different this time around.
The room that we were initially supposed to be in was being painted so we moved into a space that the community uses for special events. It was very intricately decorated with a beautiful mural and really nice owl shaped lamp shades.We had made snacks for the participants this morning that included mini pancakes with fruit and cucumber, cheese and ham sandwiches. We also prepared an Instagram like frame for the participants to take a pictures with, and a glitter sign that spelled out Bienvenidos. It truly felt like a celebration while we were there.
Yuli presented the program and showed an amazing video that previous volunteers in Huancayo had made for the program, it was beautiful to see the mom’s positive reception of the program and how effective it was. The video was beautifully constructed, and it made me a little jealous that I didn’t have those skills to use here in Huancayo, but it also challenged me to think of what kinds of things I could do to make a more substantial impact on the program here and the people that we work with. Yuli also presented a magazine that a separate group of volunteers had created for the program. It included recipes from past participant with nutritious and iron rich meals, as well as some pages of fun games for kids, and general information about anemia. I thought this was an incredible resource for the new moms and was excited to see them printed off and given to the families. It was great to see not only 13 mothers there with their children but also the appearance of one father. Some of the questions that the moms had was how they would be able to participate in the program if they didn’t have room in their homes to take care of cuy, Yuli responded that where there was a will there would be a way. Which at first sounded blunt to me but as I thought about it more, it’s true. Towards the end of the presentation the kids were getting restless, they kept walking outside. I watched them for a little while, and then went outside to play with them, while Yuli was wrapping up. One of the little boys came up to me and told me that he spoke English. I asked him what he knew and then quizzed him on it. He knew his colors and numbers really well. After this we played thumb wars for a little while, I think this was new for them, it was nice watching them smile and laugh about it.
Day 4:
In the morning we had a health campaign in Spallanga. There seemed to be an open market going on with numerous booths. Right next to where we set up our tent was what seemed like a beauty school tent, they were braiding and cutting hair. They seemed really busy!
We set up our tent and proceeded with the usual blood pressure checks, blood glucose and HIV/Syphilis testing. Helen was doing blood pressures, while Shayna and I were pricking fingers for blood glucose and HIV/Syphilis testing. There was one patient who asked Shayna for a consultation, he stated that he had just gotten pricked by a needle at work 4 hours prior to this health campaign, he seemed very worried. We told him that unfortunately the rapid test would not be an accurate test, and that instead he should try to get an ELISA or a more specific test done at a laboratory.
I think we saw about 40 patients in the 3 hours that we were outside. As time has passed I think that Marcia and Lucero feel more comfortable letting us explain results to the patients that we see. This helps us practice our medical Spanish while also making us feel more involved in the campaign itself. It was hard at first, because I felt like I didn’t have to wisdom to be able to help these patients whose blood glucose level could indicated that he has diabetes. We spoke about it later that night and came to the conclusion that obviously we weren’t doctor yet, but our 4 years of medical school does give us more knowledge than the average person. Whenever I spoke to a patient, I always preceded what I was saying by stating they should try to go visit their physician as soon as possible, they can recheck your glucose level and then I did dome diabetes education, and suggested things that could help lower blood glucose levels. It’s hard because diabetes is a chronic disease a the 10 minutes that you have to explain diabetes to someone at a health campaign just doesn’t seem to give justice. Thankfully we had no positive HIV/syphilis tests, I would dread having to explain that to someone.
In the afternoon, we went to Amanecer. It was Shayna’s first visit there so Manouche suggested that we do an ice breaker, Shayna suggested a human knot. Which seemed like fun as I watched while holding one of the little babies, so their mother could play. After the game I was called on to talk about the three main layers of skin, and the functions. They had a model ready for us to use that had an epidermis, dermis and hypodermis. Thank God we googled what the function of each layer was over lunch because I definitely would not have known what to say without that. We did a very basic lesson, and I tried to be as engaging as possible, quizzing them whenever I could. They seemed to get something out of it, it was definitely shorter than last week so that was good.
After the skin lesson, we made another set of lotions for the girls, like we did with the mom's at Portawawa.
Day 5:
Friday morning we headed to a rural clinic for rotations. This week there was no nurse working at the clinic, only an obstetrics student. I learned that obstetrics doesn’t require a medical degree the way that it does in the United States, instead it is more like a midwife program in the United States where they just get specialized education and do clinical rotations to get practical experience. They are then able to care for women throughout their pregnancy and labor as long as there is no need for a cesarean section. I thought that was pretty interesting.
We had a patient that was waiting for the nurse, as we looked at her closer, we realized that this was the women that we had visited two weeks ago for pre-eclampsia. Helen recognized her before I did, I needed to take a few good looks at her before I realized who it was. Her son was exactly one month old, so we did all the developmental checks, weight, height and head circumference and thorax size. We checked his umbilicus which was healing well. Helen asked the mother how her headaches were doing, she said she hasn’t had a headache since the day before we visited her. The baby was doing well overall.
As we finished up with the one-month check, there was a 4-year-old boy who wasn’t feeling well waiting. His mom told us that they had just arrived from Lima, but she was worried that he wasn’t eating well and was saying that it was difficult for him to swallow. We listened to his lungs, which were clear. We checked his throat with our cell phone flash light and a tongue depressor, his tonsils were red and swollen. He told us that his stomach was hurting, that he had vomited up white foam. Marcia prescribed him some antibiotic and a fever reducer.
As we were talking to this patient, the obstetrics student who was at the clinic came in and told Shayna that there was a man who needed stitches. As we wrapped up with the little boy and hoped that he would be feeling better soon, we walked over to the clinic’s procedure room. The man stated that he was cutting a coconut when he stated that he thought he hit the bone in his left thumb. The obstetrics student was helping Marcia as they evaluated the cut. It was clear that cut wasn’t going to need stitches. Marcia asked for saline to try to wash the wound, the student couldn’t find any. They then proceeded to wash the wound with soap. When Marcia asked for bandages we all checked the cabinets around the room to find some, we couldn’t. The student was able to locate some somewhere in the clinic but these were things that we thought would be easily on hand in a procedure room, but they weren’t. Although the man hadn’t needed stitches as I was there watching the difficulty to get a regular bandage I wondered where the supplies for suturing would have been.
In the afternoon we had our meeting with the parents of Castillo de Leon, we introduced the program that we would be doing with the children and the parents and asked them for input on what days would work best for them to meet. We played a game like Taboo, where someone from the audience would come up and try to explain one of the ten themes that we would be reviewing with their children. We had also prepared snacks of ham and cheese and small bread rolls for everyone who came. After the presentation we asked the parents to fill out a survey about what topics they would like to learn and basic information about them. Shayna gave one of the mothers the survey and the mom refused it, when Shayna asked why the woman said that she couldn’t read and wouldn’t be able to fill out the worksheet. Shayna then helped her with it and when it came to the topic of what she would like to learn from the program- the mother said she wanted to learn to read. When I heard this I nearly cried. This was such as significant need that was so important to address but was not really in the scope of our program. However, I wondered if there was a way that we could incorporate that, because it would have a significant impact on family as a whole.
Day 6+7:
This weekend, we decided to take a break from traveling and spend a relaxing weekend at home and try to show Shayna around Huancayo.
On Saturday we sat in the mall for a few hours to get some good internet while we tried to figure out how to fix Shayna's computer that has been acting up. We sat at a little coffee shop for six hours learning about caches, TimeMachine, Terminals, Disk Utility, corrupted FireVaults (trust me it was a steep learning curve), and even after all that we couldn't get the corrupted user account opened. Unfortunately, there are no Apple stores or repair shops in Huancayo, so we had to resort to downloading all her applications to a different user, but this still didn't solve the problem that all her files are in the other account. We are just praying that something will miraculously fix it.
On Sunday, we had a delicious lunch at "La Lena"and we walked to the Sunday markets (which reminded me of "piata" in Romania minus all of the rain). After walking around and getting hit in the face by a few umbrellas, we searched for a coffee shop and bakery. You would think that it wouldn't be that difficult to find a place that sells both right? Well... it was. I think we walked around for at least an hour before we gave up. Instead we headed to Detras de la Catedral for an espresso for me and Pisco Sours for the girls!
At the end of the day Senora Elena had told us that we were going to have a very special treat for dinner, a Peruvian delicacy if you will... Cuy (aka Guinea Pig). Yes, you read that right like the pet! We knew it was coming, but so soon? Anyway....I believe Shayna will be posting about the details in a later blog post, so I won't spoil it for you guys... make sure to read her post to find out all about it! :)
Hope you enjoyed the read and the pictures! :)
Chau,
~Maria
P.S.
Here are some pictures of a gorgeous mural that has been created on the wall of a Regional Mother and Child Hospital "El Carmen." Helen and I have been trying to get pictures of it for a while and we finally walked by it this weekend! Isn't it amazing? The picture on the end is my favorite!
