Despite a few conversations with customs officials – some more anxiety inducing than others – we arrived with all of our supplies and medications. Suffice it to say that our letters from the Peruvian consulate were enough to get us through – when supplemented with good luck and our innocent faces and Spanish skills.
Yesterday we went to Lamay to see the clinic where we’ll be working. It’s better outfitted than we originally thought, which is to say that there is a doctor there every day, and a stash of medications. Currently there is also a dentist – who told us that if she’s going to see more than one patient per day, she has to inadequately sanitize her lone set of instruments. There is an empty room which would ideally be an OR, and a second empty room with lead walls, awaiting an XRay machine and an ultrasound. The pharmacy is stocked for two months; with our medications, we can give their limited budget a little more of a cushion.
Apparently the mayor has been announcing the arrival of the specialists on the radio, so we can expect a good turnout. The mayor and the doctor we met yesterday asked for a list of medications that our specialists would need. We did not know what to tell them – our cardiologist would probably like an EKG machine, which we do not have.
We had planned to start seeing patients today, but a national transportation strike kept us here in Urubamba, where our hotel is. We’re at La Quinta Eco Hotel, which really feels, as Rachel said upon our arrival, “like paradise.” It’s run by a local man who is on the board of Peruvian Hearts. He is incredibly kind, and we’re very spoiled by internet access, hot water, and terrific breakfast.
Given the strike, we spent the morning preparing for tomorrow and the afternoon exploring the town. We separated our bulk antibiotics (amoxicillin, doxycycline, metronidazole, bactrim) into roughly appropriate doses, and we had some ad hoc seminars on dermatology and infectious disease, given by our intrepid faculty. Tonight we’ll have a Spanish refresher session; alas, our knowledge of Quechua is still extremely limited. Dr. Tarbox and I each have the same Quechua phrasebook, which we read and re-read on the flight to Lima, but my word total remains at one (yacu = water).
The afternoon was spent at lunch (quinoa salad for me, alpaca meat for the adventurous meat-eaters of the group) and exploring the town. Those of who find it difficult to live without nut protein (me) bough some cacahuates (mani here) and some fruit – fruit with peels. There were a lot of good-looking vegetables and fruits at the market, but, frankly, I do not want to put our stash of cipro and imodium to use just yet. Avocados and bananas it is.
Local snacks in hand, we took a leisurely walk that turned into a hike; the hike turned into getting mostly lost in the windy dirt roads and farm fields that make up the edge of Urubamba. We tried to navigate by mountain (the hotel is in a valley), with some success. The way back involved picking our way between cow manure, loose stones, and various farms.
It is dry and dusty here, and cold at night – really, as soon as the sun starts to set, which happens around 5:30 pm. It was 30 degrees F when we arrived in Cusco yesterday at 6:30 am. Paranoid about my carryon being weighed, I brought little warm clothing and am looking forward to going to the Pisac market this weekend for some legwarmers and sweaters. Fortunately I do have a warm hat (thanks, Alicia!!) that almost looks Peruvian. The dryness is remarkable to someone who has lived most of her life by the Great Lakes, and it is likely exacerbated by the fact that I’ve been taking acetazolamide to prevent altitude sickness. Besides my constant thirst, the other consequence of the pills is that my hands and feet and even face tingle; for most of today I’ve felt like I just woke up from sleeping on my arm. I am waiting for it to get back to normal, but that has yet to happen. The altitude is something else. After we’d climbed 200 feet up a gentle incline this afternoon, my chest burned, and I was short of breath with even our slow pace.
It’s great to speak Spanish again, and I brought Lituma en los Andes, which seemed like the most appropriate thing to bring. (When in the Peruvian Andes...).
For those of you at home: Robin Kirk’s The Monkey’s Paw and Daniel Alarcón’s Lost City Radio are both great reads – the former is nonfiction and chronicles the years of civil war and civil strife of Peru’s poorest. The latter is fiction but basically chronicles the same thing. Both are, as my Spanish friends would say, duro (tough) at times, but well-written. Their vivid descriptions seem, thus far, to be spot-on.
Hasta luego………..
~Anna
Yesterday we went to Lamay to see the clinic where we’ll be working. It’s better outfitted than we originally thought, which is to say that there is a doctor there every day, and a stash of medications. Currently there is also a dentist – who told us that if she’s going to see more than one patient per day, she has to inadequately sanitize her lone set of instruments. There is an empty room which would ideally be an OR, and a second empty room with lead walls, awaiting an XRay machine and an ultrasound. The pharmacy is stocked for two months; with our medications, we can give their limited budget a little more of a cushion.
Apparently the mayor has been announcing the arrival of the specialists on the radio, so we can expect a good turnout. The mayor and the doctor we met yesterday asked for a list of medications that our specialists would need. We did not know what to tell them – our cardiologist would probably like an EKG machine, which we do not have.
We had planned to start seeing patients today, but a national transportation strike kept us here in Urubamba, where our hotel is. We’re at La Quinta Eco Hotel, which really feels, as Rachel said upon our arrival, “like paradise.” It’s run by a local man who is on the board of Peruvian Hearts. He is incredibly kind, and we’re very spoiled by internet access, hot water, and terrific breakfast.
Given the strike, we spent the morning preparing for tomorrow and the afternoon exploring the town. We separated our bulk antibiotics (amoxicillin, doxycycline, metronidazole, bactrim) into roughly appropriate doses, and we had some ad hoc seminars on dermatology and infectious disease, given by our intrepid faculty. Tonight we’ll have a Spanish refresher session; alas, our knowledge of Quechua is still extremely limited. Dr. Tarbox and I each have the same Quechua phrasebook, which we read and re-read on the flight to Lima, but my word total remains at one (yacu = water).
The afternoon was spent at lunch (quinoa salad for me, alpaca meat for the adventurous meat-eaters of the group) and exploring the town. Those of who find it difficult to live without nut protein (me) bough some cacahuates (mani here) and some fruit – fruit with peels. There were a lot of good-looking vegetables and fruits at the market, but, frankly, I do not want to put our stash of cipro and imodium to use just yet. Avocados and bananas it is.
Local snacks in hand, we took a leisurely walk that turned into a hike; the hike turned into getting mostly lost in the windy dirt roads and farm fields that make up the edge of Urubamba. We tried to navigate by mountain (the hotel is in a valley), with some success. The way back involved picking our way between cow manure, loose stones, and various farms.
It is dry and dusty here, and cold at night – really, as soon as the sun starts to set, which happens around 5:30 pm. It was 30 degrees F when we arrived in Cusco yesterday at 6:30 am. Paranoid about my carryon being weighed, I brought little warm clothing and am looking forward to going to the Pisac market this weekend for some legwarmers and sweaters. Fortunately I do have a warm hat (thanks, Alicia!!) that almost looks Peruvian. The dryness is remarkable to someone who has lived most of her life by the Great Lakes, and it is likely exacerbated by the fact that I’ve been taking acetazolamide to prevent altitude sickness. Besides my constant thirst, the other consequence of the pills is that my hands and feet and even face tingle; for most of today I’ve felt like I just woke up from sleeping on my arm. I am waiting for it to get back to normal, but that has yet to happen. The altitude is something else. After we’d climbed 200 feet up a gentle incline this afternoon, my chest burned, and I was short of breath with even our slow pace.
It’s great to speak Spanish again, and I brought Lituma en los Andes, which seemed like the most appropriate thing to bring. (When in the Peruvian Andes...).
For those of you at home: Robin Kirk’s The Monkey’s Paw and Daniel Alarcón’s Lost City Radio are both great reads – the former is nonfiction and chronicles the years of civil war and civil strife of Peru’s poorest. The latter is fiction but basically chronicles the same thing. Both are, as my Spanish friends would say, duro (tough) at times, but well-written. Their vivid descriptions seem, thus far, to be spot-on.
Hasta luego………..
~Anna
