Tuesday was Aymara New Year and we went to see Los Viejos - an artsy Bolivian film. It was totally open-ended and we are still discussing the details of the story between us. Most of the cinematography was focused on reflections. When I told other people about it, everyone was surprised to learn that Bolivian has a movie industry. EVERY nation has a movie industry of some sort I'm sure (except maybe Papua New Guinea).
Anyways, the next day I got up at 6am again in order to get ready to go to El Alto. This time, Dr. Gutierrez met us and we took the micro up to the hospital. We noticed that the doctora did not feel well on the way up and I offered her some Excedrin as a fever reducer. She said she didn't have a headache but wanted to throw up. As she spilled the contents of her locker in the office and scrambled to pick everything up, she muttered: "demasiada cerveza" (too much beer). Knowing her personality and the way she looked, we actually debated whether she was drunk. She finally found two bottles of an infantile dosed anti-vomiting medication, took a syringe and left the room. She came back 5 minutes later rubbing her ass. One perk of being a doctor is the ability to treat yourself with medication when needed. Apparently, she seemed to have food poisoning. I don't know if I already described it, but her office is just one of the many doors that leads into a tiny room with a locker, exam table, a desk, and a sink that is rarely used. The 3 of us could not fit in there with the doctor and the patient so I volunteered to shadow Dr. Cecilia Uribe in another building instead, who sees the children/babies of mothers who are under the age of 25. I was surprised to hear that because most of the mothers I saw seemed much older than me. I'm not sure if it was because I knew they were mothers or because they truly look older. On the way to the hospital, I saw a woman who looked like a senior citizen but most likely was no older than 40. It reminded me of the photos of Afghan women I saw in National Geographic, where the captions of their age seemed unbelievable. Poverty truly takes a toll on a human.
Dr. Uribe had a young girl of 9 years of age who worked as her secretary, so we had a very efficient system going. I examined the children, Dr. Uribe talked to the mothers, and Rachel recorded everything down on paper and filed documents appropriately. I was there until 12:30pm and at the end, I was exhausted. We saw many newborns who still had their umbilican cords clipped. They are cuter than I thought.. Many of them cried and I felt bad when we had to ask the mother to hold the hands of the child while we forced their mouth open to look at the throat. I saw plenty of diarrhea and vomit. Furthermore, I found it interesting that whenever the mother complained that the child did not want breast milk or that it was painful to breast-feed, the doctor made them do it right there and taught them how to sit, what to do, and how to tap the baby's back afterwards. At one point, we had one mother breast-feeding, another feeding through a milk contraption because she was HIV-positive, and I was examining another baby and talking to the mother. The room was freezing for the entire time I was there and the only way I could keep my hands warm was to place them on the electric kettle that kept boiled water in the room.
Although I was tired, I really enjoyed the experience and want to come back to do another week of the rotation. On the way home, since we were cold, we stopped by to drink some api and share a bunuelo.
I got home and found everyone sitting around the dinner table, beginning their lunch. The lunch was delicious and very interesting. It was a bed of lettuce with potatoes, carrots, hard-boiled eggs, and broccoli on top all covered with a peanut sauce. Super strange but really delicious. I am also falling in love with quinoa - I can't wait to come home and make pastel de quinoa and quinoa con leche.
Here, you can buy juice or a hot milk drink with quinoa right on the street for less than a dollar. They give them to you in knotted plastic bags with a straw stuck through and you walk on the street with the plastic bag drinking. You must have to be masterful in order to pour liquid into a plastic bag without spilling it and then managing to tie it into a knot as well.
After lunch, I packed for our 4 day Salar de Uyuni trip. We planned to go to the bus station right after Spanish class to catch the 7pm overnight bus to Uyuni, start the excursion Thursday morning and finish Saturday evening just in time to catch the overnight bus back to La Paz. So I packed and ran to my Spanish class. I managed to distract our teacher from actual Spanish exercises for the entire 2 hours by asking her questions about Uyuni, Potosi, and history of Bolivia. She mentioned what has been glaring me in the face ever since I arrived in Bolivia. Bolivia is best described as a "beggar that sits on a pile of gold". Bolivia is the poorest South American nation by GDP yet contains one of the richest piles of minerals and natural resources - silver, gold, copper, lithium, zinc, salt, etc. The list could go on. Blame is put on the government with which Bolivia has been relatively unlucky. Government after government make stupid decisions and rules and slowly lose more and more of Bolivian land - Bolivia has lost land to Paraguay by signing a peace treaty when Bolivia was about to win because the king was drunk and did not know what was going on with his army, Bolivia has lost land full of a unique stone that is only found in a specific area to Brazil because the king lost a bet with the Brazilian king of the time, and Bolivia lost its access to the coast to Chile which is still a sore point for many Bolivians. And still, there are miles and miles of undeveloped land full of minerals that is absolutely gorgeous and unique. I can't wait to show you the pictures!
No comments:
Post a Comment