The blog returns! I safely arrived in Peru a few days ago now and am only now getting a chance to update everyone. Elyse and I started our jouney on Saturday morning and left DC to fly to Miami. We made it with no problems and while in Miami we met up with a fellow volunteer, Todd, who was on our next flight with us. We flew a rather bumpy flight from Miami to Lima, but made it record time and arrived early into Peru.
All of our luggage made it to Peru, as well, and once we oriented ourselves with the airport we set up camp in the food court area where we had to spend the next 8 hours. We got there around 10 PM and our next flight was at 6 AM. You´d be amazed at the creative ways one can manage to sleep in an airport! I did manage to get about an hour of sleep with my head on a table, and then another half hour on a bench once we could go to the domestic flight area. Once we got there we met up with most of the other volunteers. Everyone else looked equally sleep deprived. We departed for Ayacucho around 6 AM and got here by 7. The Ayacucho airport is literally just one room, with one baggage belt, and two doors to leave by. Itty bitty! The flight here over the Andes was beautiful.
Once we arrived at the house, we were given our room assignments and some information, but all of us really just wanted to go to sleep! Elyse and I joined up with our room mate, Janelle, and we all slept for about 3 hours. We got up in time for lunch and began meeting the other volunteers. Everyone was extremely welcoming and kind. They gave us lots of tips about what to do in the city, about our placements, everything. We spent the rest of the afternoon at one of the staff member´s homes. He lives out in the country, about a half hour from here. To get to the house, we did have to forge a river Oregon Trail style, which was pretty exciting. But once we got there, we laid by the river and read and just enjoyed the scenery. When we arrived back at the house, we ate dinner and even watched a bit of the Yankees-Angels game. I was beat by 9 and went to bed.
The next day we felt much more refreshed. We started the day with a bit of a history lesson, and learned about Ayacucho and its people. Ayacucho is Quechua (the native language) for ¨the soul´s home.¨ We all piled into the van next, and checked out a few of the various placements. I was very excited to actually see the community and the people. In the afternoon we were given a city tour by Poncho, who is like the official tour guide for all CCS-ers. He brought us all over the place -- markets, workshops, you name it. That evening, after dinner, we went out into town and enjoyed our first Pisco Sours, the official drink of the region. It´s really good!
Tuesday was our first day of placements. I really had no idea what to expect. Luckily, Janelle was in the same clinic as me and she is a nurse, so I knew I could learn from her. We walked into the clinic and Janelle went to the lab and I went upstairs to the OBGYN office. The doctors on Grey´s Anatomy would have definitely called me a member of the gyn-y squad. We had many women come in that morning, all ranging in various degrees of pregnancy. One woman was starting to have contractions and another was bleeding pretty badily. I don´t know if she lost the bay or not, I couldn´t understand what was going on. The nurse let me listen to a fetus´s heartbeat, which was pretty exciting! It was a pretty fulfilling first day for me. That night we went out to Via Via and enjoyed hot ciders and desserts while sitting over the main square in the city.
Wednesday morning we went back to the clinic. We started by going into a room where two women had given birth over night. The one woman was the one I saw yesterday with contractions, so it was pretty neat to now see her infant baby next to her. We moved back to the OB office and observed there for a little while. They seemed to be having some sort of Planned Parenthood type day, so I went with one nurse and saw different patients to give them cotraception. When we returned home, I was informed that the clinic was offering flu vaccines the next morning and they wanted us to come there at 7 in the morning. Alright! Early night to bed then!
We were taken on a field trip Wendesday afternoon to the Wari Ruins and to the small town of Quinua. It was about an hour drive through the mountains--beautiful scenery! As soon as we got out of the van, many small children ran to our van (I guess they were excited to see ¨Gringos¨). We walked around a monument area at the top of a hill and got lots of beautiful pictures. We walked down towards the town, and stopped in several pottery workshops. There is a really neat tradition in that part of the country where residents put clay churches on their rooftops to signify that they arew Christian and religious. They are everywhere and range from simple to large and elaborate. As we were walking through the stores we were suddenly attacked with not only rain but a crazy hail storm! It was like golfballs falling from the sky. And they hurt! I took a video of it, but can´t upload it now. Ill add it eventually. After we took shelter in a store for a while, it eventually slowed down and we traveled to the Wari Ruins. The Wari were a tribe that existed here before even the Incans. It was really interesting and the ruins were pretty inredible. By this point we were all pretty tired. We left there around 5 to make it home just in time for our 6 o´clock Spanish lesson. Elyse and I spent the evening in, and watched a few episodes of The Office in our room. My wake up call of 6 AM was rapidly approaching...
Janelle and I traveled with two nurses early this morning offering flu shots to local residents. Instead of having a clinic or anything like we do at home (i.e. going to Target for a flu shot), we knocked on people´s doors and offered them. I was excited to actually be out in the community. We returned to the clinic in about an hour. It was a fairly quiet day there. We spent most of our time in the ´´ER´´ which is just a small room for people who need immediate attention. We had a few school children who had somehow crashed through a window come in. They were cut up and bloody, but nothing too bad. I helped clean up one. Another woman brought in a baby who seemed to be having breathing difficulty. We spent the remainder of the day making cotton balls.
As much a I enjoy trying to learn about the medical practices, the language barrier is incredibly hard. NO ONE at the clinic speaks English. It´s very hard to try to learn because of this, and I often find myself either in the way or not able to help when I wish I could. I spoke to Marisol today, and she said next week I can work at a Wawa Wasi, which is Quechua for Baby House. It´s a government funded daycare system. I think I will be of much more use here, and I can teach the small children basic English and play with them and help the Mama out. I feel like I will be giving back to the community much more in this capacity. I will still be at the clinic tomorrow and am very grateful for my week there.
Tomorrow the nine of us that started together are heading to the coast. Pancho is bringing us to go sandboarding (essentially sledding on sand dunes!), to see the Nazca lines, and to go to an island where there are.....penguins!! I can´t wait. I´m so excited to see the penguins and to be away with my fellow volunteers for the weekend.
I hope to get to update my blog when we return on Monday. I am having just a really amazing time so far. I am so happy to be helping a community however I can, and to be experiencing an entirely new culture firsthand. Theres really nothing else like it! I hope that everyone at home is doing well. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures sometime next week!
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