Huelga

Trip Start Mar 02, 2005

Trip End May 07, 2005

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Flag of Ecuador Cuenca, Ecuador
Tuesday, March 15, 2005

There´s a general strike (huelga) in Cuenca today. People are unhappy with the president. Seems he´s a bit corrupt and has been attempting to consolidate all of the governmental powers under his control. They closed down a lot of streets and thousands of people are marching with signs such as "No to the Tyranny" and "We want an independent judiciary." It seems to be a fairly peaceful protest. There are lots of police out in riot gear but I didn´t see any confrontations between the protesters and the police. Because of the strike I don´t have any work to do today.

Yesterday was my first day volunteering. I ended up spending the morning driving out to a very rural village in the mountains outside of Cuenca with a local doctor who works for a family health program. We basically just drove around and made house calls. It´s mostly very basic healthcare. We weighed children, checked their immunization records, gave them vitamins, talked to pregnant women about how they are doing, gave advice about birth control...It´s mostly a public health program. There are four doctors who work with this village and they have divided the families between these doctors so that each doctor has his or her own route of house calls to make each week. I say "we" but I didn´t actually do anything other than just follow the doctor around and observe her interactions with the patients. It`s very interesting to see how these people live and to get a sense of what sorts of health problems are of most concern to them.