¿Habla español?

Hello everyone. I had planned to add some pictures this time, but apparently the USB cord that I brought and the camera I borrowed are not compatible. I´ll try another cord later and see if I can get some pictures up here.

I´m getting settled in Cusco, but my days at the hospital keep changing. Yesterday I went in the AM and worked in the ED for a couple of hours. I was told that I would be meeting with my contact person at 11AM and actually met up with his secretary at that time. We mapped out a schedule for me for the next couple of weeks, then my contact person, Dr. Montoya came in. He crossed out the schedule we had made and then made me one for the next 4 weeks. I told him that I would only be here for 3 weeks, and we crossed out that schedule again. He then wanted me to go to the remote clinc this next week and spend time there, but I told him that I already had spanish classes set up for every day in the evening this next week. After about 30 mintues of explaining and redrawing a schedule I think we finallyu have it figured out. I´ll be going to one of the local clinics for the next 3 days, and then out to the remote clinic on thursday and friday. I spoke with the spanish teacher and we´ll do 2 hours on Monday and Tuesday, and 1 hour on Wednesday. For the final week and a half I´ll be at the hosptial rotating in various specialties in the AM with the ED mixed in the afternoon and evenings.

Speaking of the remote clinic, I traveled there today with Dr. Montoya´s secretay. We visited the town and the clinic, and I got set up with a hotel to stay in overnight. I´ll be there for 2 days, but at this point I´m feeling pretty confortable with my spanish that it should be ok. I was able to talk with Carmen, the secretary, all the way out there and back in spanish with only a couple of pauses where we both were lost in the translation. I´m also able to talk with random people on the street in spanish and it´s going pretty well. There is a center courtyard where I can go and strike up various conversations with people. Most people are pretty nice and patient with me and the words are coming a litte easier.

I also went to the hospital last night to work a couple hours in the ED. Everything was going as it usually does until one of the patients in the hospital family member came to us in tears and shouted to the doctor. We ran up 4 flights of stars into the pediatric department and into one of the rooms. I´ll spare you the details but we ended up inubating, placing a central line, 2 NG tubes, and 2 liters of blood before she was ¨stable.¨ All of this with very primative medical supplies. At one point the doctor was cutting through a syringe with scissors for the intubation and placed the central line blindly (we usually use ultasound in the US). We were squeezing bags of blood and fluid with blood pressure cups and the nurse was trying to suction with a pump by hand. It was pretty crazy.

I wrapped up my student ticket for the churches/museums yesterday. For those of you who are into the history of the church this place is a must visit. There is plenty of history of the catholic church and the incan peoples that I probably won´t be able to visit all of the sites during my stay here. There are 14 different chruches and I think 8 different museums to see, each with a different story, and each with different original pieces of art that are important to the incan way of life. I had a private tour of one of the churches yesterday by a peruvian woman who talked about how the incans incorporated catholisim into the artwork/chapels. She also talked about how each place of religious importance to the incans was replaced by one of the churches. The biggest surprise came when she explained that the Incan people believed that the mountains were sacred, so the spanish placed a cross on the highest mountain to cover the Incan place of worship. She even explained that most people in Cusco still practice the Incan religion, although they would never tell their chruch.

Well, I´m off to the pharmacy to buy a mask for tomorrow. Es muy importante no tengo tuberculosis en Cusco.