First 2 weeks!
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2009
1
2
8
Trip End
Ongoing
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Friday, January 23, 2009
Ok, I know, I've been bad and haven't written anything in almost 2 weeks. But the days go by SO quickly! Let's start from the beginning or i'll start confusing myself.
So I arrived in Cochabamba last sunday afternoon, picked up by Diego, at who's house I'm living, and Marcelo, another friend of Caroline's (friend in Geneva). I was exhausted, tired, smelly, and totally overwhelmed. We went and had a drink, I learnt the typical Bolivian game (whose name I forgot but is kinda like poker but with dice) and tried my first bit of Bolivian food. Yummy! Food. That is an entire paragraph coming up.....hehe. Went back to Diego's, my new home for the next 4 months, and collapsed! No, I did shower first, but then slept about 14 hours
The park by my place
! It's a cute little apartment almost in the centre of town which is super handy, with a great view of the surrounding mountains.First day. Went to the hospital, met Dr. Teran, the main doc, who told me to come back tomorrow at 7am. So spent my first day walking around the city with Diego. Such a cool city! First we walked through "La Cancha", South America's largest open air market, and then just wandered in town a bit.
Biggest first impressions:
1. multi-ethnicity. amazing. so many faces, colours, clothing, yet all Bolivian. I still get amazed by it! And the indigenous population, the Quechua, have incredibly kept all it is about their culture with them strong. They still dress in the traditional dress, with long black hair braided into 2 braids, carrying their babies in brightly coloured pink, orange, green, blue shoulder scarves. They speak their language amongst themselves but also speak a mix of spanish-quechua, which considering I'm having a hard enough time understanding spanish, isn't on my to do list!! Most of them sell things, either in the markets or on the streets. There is one woman near a cute little café called "Café Paris", who is just incredible looking. Old, skinny, and wrinkled to the bone, yet so zen and peaceful, her eyes lighting upon you as if you were looking at a spirit
Fruit!
. Don't really know how to explain it. But wonderful. 2. Parks! Everywhere! Every few blocks there are little parks, where people sit and read, play the dice game, talk, gather. It's lovely. Quite serene.
3. Mountains! Cochabamba is a flat city, but surrounded by mountains. It's dreamy! Bare hills rising up, pure green, just waiting to be climbed! Unfortunately, apparently it's a bit dangerous to venture out alone into the hills, so I'll wait til I've met some strong body-guard looking guys to accompany me.
4. Internet. And phone shops. Everywhere. Communication central!!! (while I'm on communication, here's my phone number: +59179361422, you can call or text me anytime, i love hearing from everyone!!)
5. Bogenvilla (is that how it's spelt?). That plant of my youth. That used to hang over the walls of our house in Abu Dhabi. Brings back so many memories.
6. The heat! The sun! Hurrah! (Although this week has been quite rainy I must say, but only lasts a few hours. Kind of refreshing!) It's not quite believable that I'm at 2500m and it's 25 degrees most of the time! But it's not too hot, which is lovely. It's dry, and just right. I already got sunburnt the first day (before you tell me off, I was expecting to be in the hospital all day)
Out in the countryside
!Other things that I discovered in my first few days...hmmm. Oooh a great little camping shop that does book swaps. Yay! I'm already almost done my 3rd book, and it's BLISS getting back to reading all the time! I'll make a list of recommendations later, cause there are a few so far that have been great. And I love to share my book reading experiences. The town is really quite walkable, which is cool. There's one main stretch where there are tons of cafés, restaurants, and bars. Not been there much, but it's got a lovely atmosphere, with a large promenade in the middle with huge palm trees and benches. Discovered a café that does Sushi! Hurrah! Although it's called "Brazilian Café"...not really sure where they thought that one up! I also went driving outside of town a bit, into the countryside, which was a breath of fresh air. Discovered 2 of the biggest suburbs, which are really more like separate little towns. Super cute aswell. And then really out into the hills, where the houses and vegetation and farming really reminded my more of Africa than anything here has so far. Except for the millions of donkeys! (Martine I thought of you and Gabi!!). We were more on the lower side of the hills though, the other side is where the high (5000m) mountains are. I'm hopefully gonna go do a trek there one of these weekends. Yay!
Street vendor-ette!
People. The family I'm living with are great! Really lovely! At home, there's Diego, his younger brother Ramón (who's off to study music in Argentina in 2 months and plays AMAZING guitar!), and Rosi, their mum. She's an AMAZING cook! (More to come in the food section!). Their sister, Camila, lives in the city with her boyfriend, a cinematographer, and is 5 months pregnant! She is such a joyful, wonderful, gorgeous girl! Seriously, you're typical stunning south american beauty! Ramón's dad, Ramón, also lives in Cochabamba, and is actually a pretty famous journalist here. But they're such a wonderful family, so open, and friendly, and laughing, and welcoming. Really lucky to have them. Last weekend we went to Na Cunna, the one and only irish pub in Cochabamba that is owned by Ramón Sr.'s eldest son, as his partner is irish. Lovely, calm, chill place that has live music on the weekends, last weekend it was jazz. Super cool!
At the hospital, the interns (who are actually 6 years) are super friendly, but so busy working a million hours around the clock that I haven't had much of a chance to spend any time with them outside the hospital. The residents are a bit more cliquey and don't interact much with me, and the big snooty old doctors are, well, big snooty old doctors! But I'll get to the placement in a bit. I also finally went to the indoor climbing gym yesterday (it's TINY!) but if felt so good to get out and do something that I love doing so much
Cool countryside and clouds
! Also met 3 of the guys that go there often, which was another breath of fresh air...first of all cause they spoke english, and second of all, to meet people that you have a lot in common with! And guess what! I'm going climbing in the mountains tomorrow!!!! Yay! So excited.The first week, even up until now, was pretty tough. I've only just realised what a HUGE challenge I slumped onto my shoulders. First time travelling alone. First time being away for 5 months. First time in a different language. First clinical placement. A lot of firsts. I think the spanish is the biggest thing. 100% spanish. And nothing else! So it's a relief when my lovely amazing sisters call me and I just talk at about a million miles an hour to get all my pent up silly chat out! Haha. It's also a bit lonely, but it's getting better, my spanish will improve, I'm meeting people slowly but surely, and in no time I'll be feeling as comfortable as a button!
Hospital. To be honest, slightly disappointing. I'm pretty useless on 2 accounts. 1. my spanish, and 2. my lack of experience. The second was to be expected, but it was still a bit of a shock to just feel like a lapdog following around the interns not knowing where to be, what do to. The clinic is also pretty small so there aren't tons of patients, but I get to go to the clinic too in the mornings which is a nice change
Football field, sheep, and a jeep..
. Again though, it's just the beginning, and I'm sure I'll get into the swing of things. Had a bit of a kafuffle with my schedule at first...I'd gotten the impression (coming from a "yes" answer to my email asking...) that I'd be working 3.5 days clinic and have 1.5 days to follow classes in Geneva. But that's not what the Paeds doc had understood. So he wasn't the nicest when I brought it up, and didn't feel the slightest bad in saying "we're in bolivia here, not geneva, and here you'll work 6 days a week". Hmmmm. I wasn't very entertained, and combined with an overwhelming, lonely first week, I was slightly (to say the least) unimpressed. But I went to meet with the surgery doc who had done all the communicating, who realised that when he'd answered "yes" to my email, he hadn't actually read it...haha! So we came to a compromise...I work 5 days a week, and my study day is saturday. hmmmm not quite my idea of a weekend, but oh well, it's a compromise! gotta do as they do here to. So that's sorted, and now I can go galavanting on my weekends and work my ass off on week days to keep up with classes in Geneva!So Paeds. It's cool! I really like it! I'm in "Infectious Diseases" right now, which is what I like, so that's nice. As I said before, there aren't a lot of patients, but it's interesting. Dr. Teran is a very very intelligent man, and has a lot to teach. Since I arrived we've had a bit of an epidemic of Dengue fever with people coming back from the lowlands after the holidays
Donkey!
. (No Dengue or Malaria here, too high). What else...oh yeah (this will probably make no sense to non-medics, sorry!)...a little girl with ataxia caused by viral encephalitis, an amazingly hugely rigid belly following a ruptured appendix and 6 days of peritonitis evolution, sub-maxilar cellulitis causing the babies whole neck to swell up to the sizy of a watermelon (but no difficultly breathing as just the skin affected...don't worry non-medics), a young boy with a subdural haemorrhage and haematoma following a fall off a 3m room...then a few more usual things...pneumonia, pyelonephritis, hepatitis... I am learning patient presentation, diagnosis, follow up, evolutions, etc quite nicely. Although my placement isn't hugely structured, which is the only downfall. As I said, I'm basically just following around 2 of the interns, and when they are doing their write ups (which you can only watch so many times), I just study. Which helps in keeping my weekends free I guess!Ok last thing, as I'm getting a bit bored of writing so you MUST be getting bored of reading! FOOOOOOOD!!!
Firstly, Rosi. Wow, she's such a great cook! And she cooks everything. Her grandmother is Syrian so she cooks amazing arabic food, she lived in Mexico for a year so cooks amazing mexican food, and of course, she is an exquisite bolivian cook
Farms...
! It's a lot of meat, a lot of maize and potatoes, and a lot of spices. Very yummy. She adds in vegetables though, which is definately a nice addition. She makes fresh fruit juice every day, she makes home-made soy milk (flavoured with ground cinammon and cloves, yum!), her sister sent us home made Dulce de Leche, home made jams, ahhh so much fresh, fresh stuff! The market had an awesomely exciting fruit section, I just about went crazy. I bought 3 huge mangoes and 25 plums for $2 (2CHF)!! Yummm. Come to think of it, it might be one of those cheeky plums that I ate without washing that might have kept me in bed all last sunday emptying my body of every last thing in it!!Ok, that's really it. I think. If it isn't, I'm sure I'll talk about it next time.
I love you all and miss you all, and next update will be sooner, promise!!! (With photos too, which I actually might get up in the next few days).
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
