it's fun to have this up and running again! and, its cool to hear from folks who are taking a peak. i still have things to catch up and get posted. claude and brigido, i have yet to post photos of our time together but will soon. and perc, i have a bunch of less than pretty sights for you too. (call me!! i love it when my phone actually rings and it isn't a wrong number!!) but, because i have to get my class wednesday translated into spanish, it will have to wait until i get more time. and speaking of the class, i think i mentioned i am working also at antonio lorena hospital. one week a month i still go to sipascancha, but the rest of the time i am working mornings at the hospital. they are all so thrilled to have a nurse from the states volunteering and even more thrilled to know my background is cardiology. so we have a class scheduled for wednesday for 2 hours in basic cardiology and ekg monitoring, and basic arrhythmias. it must be in my blood! and what a job to prepare a class in spanish!! they say they have a laser projector for a computer, so i am hoping this is indeed true! (based on the rest of their equipment, i am inclined to wonder...) but here are some shots of the hospital and some of the people i have the pleasure to work with.



The hospital entrance is opposite this view. from the outside its prettier than in the buildings themselves. each building houses a variety of departments. medicina, uci (ICU), ginecologia, etc.



Here are some of the folks i have been working with. the american is a med student/doc who ironically will be continuing his studies at OHSU in june. his name is raymond constantini. the picture is taken in the leischmania clinc. we were invited for desayuno! the nurse with the glasses is aurelia, the jefe enfermera (equal to the head of the nursing dept.), the heavier man is a physican, i'm sorry to say i can't remember his name, and the doctor at the head of the table is Dr Avila, the cardiologist. i just love him, he has a heart of gold, and the rest are either techs or nurses. and i'm terrible at remembering names. i work with dr avila 3 mornings a week or so and otherwise work in the emergency, icu and medical areas. most of what i have done is instruct the nurses from each dept in cardiology. and i fixed their AED...easy really, the battery needed charging.


We are entering the mens ward from this room. as i said once you are in the hospital, you can see it is very rundown.
dr avila told me it is the poorest in the country and serves the poorest of this area in peru. i was happy to hear after asking what the cost of tubals and vasectomies (because of the people in sipascancha who want these procedures) that they are free here. but i wonder how they afford to provide these services.


this sign welcomes you to the mens ward!


this is the other side of the entry to the mens ward.


here is the ward itself. this is what reminds me of an old hospital from the 30's in EEUU. there are curtains separating areas that have 2 beds. it is clean but dilapidated.


the utility room.


notice the sign saying 'cardiologia'. and this patient wanted me to photograph him!


here is a CHF patient with one of the nurses. he can't afford his meds so he is in often.


this patient also wanted his photo taken!


this lovely peruvian woman is the charge nurse of the mens ward. she is pictured in the nurses station.


another shot of the nurses station.

so thats all for now! i have alot of translating to do before calling it a night. i love you all!

this will be the last post for today! i wrote about juanita, the women i met on international womens day. here are photos of the day adela and i and her mother went to visit her. i felt this deserved an entry of its own.


juanita, i know its blurry but in the light of her small dark home, it was impossible to get a better photo.


adelas mom recommended ortiga for juanita and one of the kids ran out and picked it. she siad she should drink mates and use it when she bathed. (adela always had talked that when she was a child, her mother only used traditional herbal medicine of the andes.)


laurita, my namesake. 1 week old.


laurita in the clinic before we bathed her.


laurita and her sister



after seeing juanita and the baby the three of us and daniel, adelas son just sat for awhile outside the clinic and all we could say was 'que pena' (how sad.)

So its still april 17th and i am entering notes like a demon and pics too because it is freezing cold and rainy afuera (outside). What's going to come next are shots of my work in sipascancha, some of the other projects underway, etc. much of my time there is spent washing hands and feet. ha ha. most f the patients i see have diarrhea, gripe (like a bad, bad cold), and infections. some of the older people have problems with their eyes, after some injury years ago. hygiene, both personal and in the home are big issues. so they might get a bug bite and because they can be very dirty and then scratch, and voila, infection. or because many homes, almost all really don't have latrines, poop and pee is everywhere, the animals get into it, the people don't wash and voila, again, they have giardia, amebas, parasites and yes, worms. and if they don't boil the water, or cook their meat well, when they have it, there are more gi problems. and then there are the backaches from years of working bent over in the potato fields or carrying large loads. but they like massages! so we have classes in everything and when they come in so much of it is teaching about hygiene and using boiled water to their advantage. so here come the pics and i will try to add little notes this time.



I think i have posted this before. one day i heard these pigs (chanchos) grunting outside of the clinic.


This view is beautiful. the sun is going down. this mountain is behind the clinic.


This baby i also think i have posted before. he is completely wrapped up! he has a cold and his mother brought him in because he would't nurse. his little nose was plugged up. we showed her how to loosen the mucous so he could eat.


he is my buddy. his name is joel. i have toys in the clinic so he comes over after his class and plays outside. the car is his favorite. one day he sat on my lap while i was watching a dvd i was going to use for a class. we both fell asleep. the movie sucked i guess.


adela is the preschool teacher. she is a volunteer. she is great with the little ones.


my room. sparse and cold!


other volunteers and herbert, one of the other teachers. the girls are from germany, inga and annie.


this little dog was a ball of dirty fur forever. i once gave him a bath. i think he was shocked, as were the villagers. he's still little but one of the happier ones.


sambina is the wife of cosmos, who works in the greenhouse. she works in the kitchen.


sometimes i help in the cocina, here shucking abbas, a kind of bean. i also receive quechua lessons!


i don't know her name but she is the mother of the man who has the little tienda (store). she was embarrassed to have me take the photo. when i brought her a copy she laughed to see her own picture.


cynthia, one of my god babies. she was the first. i thought i was only going to cut her hair but as it turns out, once you cut a childs hair for the first time, you become one of the madrinas. she screamed the entire time.


Brian the son of gregorio the health promoter, yet another child who had to endure me cutting his hair and yes, i am also his madrina.


This was the set for a class in common childhood illnesses. one half was meant to be the campesino home and the other the clinic.


The play! we had fun. one of the teachers played the typical campesino father and inga, played the mother. their baby, a doll, had diarrhea and their other son had gripe. it was all translated into quechua by adela. they then returned home after seeing me and attempted to follow the instructions given them. herbert was hilarious.


the older child in the play.


this is a class in nutrition for the moms. it is taking place in the clinic. i am always impressed how many come and how interested they are in better lives for their kids.


gregorio, the health promoter translating into quechua during the nutrition class.


this was a class in personal hygiene. i made a puppet we named rita la enfermerita. with money donated i bought tootbrushes, soap, combs, and made a toothpowder from baking soda and salt. we did it for both the kids and then the adults. and part of it was also about cleanliness in their homes and land around their homes.


this day gregorio and i weighed and measured all the kids under 5 years of . the mothers have tarjetas or growth charts that we make the entries in and then we can talk about how their kids are doing and what changes might be needed in their diets.


gregorio is weighing a child here by their belt!


another child does not like this at all!


I don't know the oregon state board of nursing would feel about this, but one day i gave rabies shots to over 60 dogs!


This woman comes twice a month to teach about better management of their livestock.. and she brought just barely outdated rabies vaccine for all the dogs.


this is the dining room and also where we have classes and meetings.


Here we are having an english class for the women who will eventually work in the market that the project is developing. plans for the next week were to set a make believe market for me to shop in so the women could practice with a gringa!


the men are learning to make masks for the eventual market.



the weaving is beautiful. and the women absentmindedy spin the wool all the time with these wooden things. its then dyed naturally using local plants.
.


the clinic and my desk!


the exam room!


this is a picture of one of the necklaces i make to help the women practice the rhythm method of birth control. the red bead indicates day one and the first day of their period, the green beads indicate the days they can have sex without the likelihood of becoming pregnant and the white beads indicate the days they need to either avoid sex or her husband should use a condom.



who drew this??? me!! its about dehydration and diarrhea. bebida especial is 1 liter of bolied and cooled water, 1 tsp of salt and 8 teaspoons of sugar and we encourage it when anyone has diarrhea.


we used this to teach about nutrition. it was in this class i discovered how little variation the people have in their diet and why there is so much malnutrition.


another poster we used for the class on family planning. this illustrates how vaginal mucous changes during the womens cycle and that it corresponds with the 12 days of white beads when a women should avoid sex or her husband should use a condom. (but, i have since learned that antonio lorena, tubal ligations and vasectomies are FREE!! i was so surprized no one knew of this!!!)


Rita!!






All shots of the greenhouses built 2 years ago. now the community has green vegetables and the director has said the nutrition has improved since of the children. and there is cosmos, who works in the greenhouse. the kids help out by pulling weeds.


there is no shortage of potatoes, trust me on this. the villagers bring me potatoes to eat and even pay in potatoes. i have said when i get back to the states i do not want any potatoes.


these two dogs, mother and son, visit me everyday down at my room, becuase i feed them!


francisco drives us back and forth.


and you never know who or what else will be going with you.