"¡Ayúdeles! ¡Moverte!"

Hey peeps!

Some things I have noticed that are absent from Cochabamba: stop signs, black people, asian people.

Stuff I learned today: we have a nighttime security guard.

Now on to my day- so today when it came to observe the nurses, it went a little differently. My boss told me to learn by observation and had me sit in a chair by the nurses desk to observe, from which I couldn't see anything. After an hour of this, I felt really silly and got up and stood by the doorway where I could see the action a bit better. My boss came in and before he went back to his office he said, "Hillary, Ayudeles! Moverte!" Which means, "Help them! Move around!" (He said this in an encouraging way not a mean way). I was confused and didn't know how I was allowed to help. Should I steal one of the medical students' patients and take his temperature? What am I supposed to do? There was a patient about my age who had been brought in passed out who was now awake, and my boss told me I should get her history. Her history?! I can barely communicate with him! Thankfully her history had already been written down. The medical students weren't there yesterday, but they were a bit better at teaching. I think they took pity on me because I looked pathetic and lost. One of the medical students, not the nurses, gave me my first task. I was asked to take the temperature of the now conscious girl, which I did! I mean, I've done this at Condell Hospital in Libertyville, but the machine here is different, I'm not at home, and I haven't interacted with patients in a few years, so I was relieved. Then when things slowed down a different med student had me practice taking blood pressure on his arm.

At one point a little later on, there was a 1 year old boy on a medical table with his mom and a nurse. The nurse said something in spanish to someone other than the two she was with, and after I looked around I realized I was the only one in there, and she was talking to me. I went over and saw that the little boy had a fairly deep cut directly below his eyebrow. The nurse said something and I figured out she wanted me to hold his eye shut so she could tape the wound closed. AND WE DIDN'T HAVE GLOVES. It wasn't really bleeding at this point but there was a bit of blood in the wound, and while I held his eye closed and stroked his hair while he screamed, she cleaned the wound, swabbed it with iodine, and tried to tape the wound. In my professional opinion, he needed a couple stitches, but I'm not sure they do that at this clinic. He kept crying, so the the tape wasn't sticking, and his long eyelashes kept getting in the way. Eventually the nurse settled for taping gauze over the wound which worked better. The mom kept trying to get him to stop crying by trying to get him to breast feed, which was a bit odd. Immediately afterwards I used their hand sanitizer liberally. When I told this story to one of my housemates, she gave me a brilliant idea! Getting gloves in the clinic can be what I use my mini grant for! (Every volunteer pays $75 included in the cost for their room that they can apply to use for little projects like this).

Side note, almost every time I've told a Bolivian person that I'm from Chicago, I get remarks about Al Capone and the Mafia. Almost as often as that, I will get a comment about Obama. (I remind them of Oprah, don't worry).

Love,

Hillary