Vida en Vinto, Bolivia

"Life in Vinto, Bolivia"

hello all, and apologies for the lack of postings!

to start with, i'll give you an idea of what the days have held since we arrived...

6 july: arrived in Cochabamba (the larger city in the highlands of Bolivia) safely and rather miraculously after getting 2 seats on a "full" flight. We were met at the airport by one of the Hospital Administrators named Paul, wearing a llama sweater and holding a sign saying "Hospitals of Hope". He was a welcome sight. He took us the 30 minutes to the HOH complex outside of a smaller town called Vinto to the HOH guesthouse.

We met our housemates, other volunteers who have been here varying amounts of time, mostly college students (Josh, Stephanie, Stephanie, Jean, Katherine and Pepper), rested, settled. The guest house is beautiful, we have our own room and bathroom. There is a common kitchen and the first night we had a great meal of tacos :) and went to bed exhausted, but well.

7 july: more resting and relaxing, and actually, preparing for the BIG group from the US, Canada and one guy from the UK to arrive in various installments later that day and the next. This is a team from MMI (Medical Ministries, International) composed of surgeons, nurses and a ton of 'general helpers' (more college students, teenagers, older folks). Most are staying in the guest house with us, which makes things very full/tight, with others staying at another house off site. We became part of the welcoming crew and 'house managers' since we had been there all of a day before the others. It's been a blessing, though, to have arrived before them, and to be sort of "independent" from the larger group, as we have more freedom to go about without obligation to the group activities/dynamics.

8 july: Sunday, mostly spent preparing for the week to start, with surgeries and patient care dynamics, etc. The hospital is fully functional with bolivian staff, however the surgery team brought a large influx of patients, with much more complicated issues, and so the preparation and management of this has been tricky, and a challenge for the Hospital staff.

9 july - 13 july: the work schedule here at the Hospital has been grueling, actually. we spent each of these nights (aside from the last, Friday) up all night at the hospital. I thought i'd be getting more rest here than at home ... but last week that was not the case. The LORD certainly has had His designs for us to be here at the same time as the surgery team, because the role of pre and post-operative management has fallen to us. Julie just finished her Internal Medicine residency which makes her perhaps the most qualified one here to manage critically ill patients, of which we have had quite a few. I have had the blessing, joy, and pleasure of working with her to manage these patients, talk through things, and learn learn learn.

We have had some frustrations and challenges working with the Bolivian staff physicians, as their approach to management differs quite a bit on some things, and our US practice of medicine has conflicted with theirs on a number of occasions. Toward the end of the week, a lot of these issues were sorted out (slowly!!!) but it is still a challenge to communicate over another culture and language in addition to the culture of medicine being different here. (Julie has likened it to 1950's medicine in the US).

i'll give some patient stories in the next entry.

14 july - 15 july: 2 glorious days off! we slept, ate great food (out! in the city, with a small group of the 'original' volunteers - so lovely! see pix below), and tried to regroup to sort out what the 2nd week should look like. we spent time in the city shopping, exploring, and trying to learn more about the people and culture here. it's beautiful here. and the people are dear and sweet. they are very proud of their heritage, their city, their country and children.

16 july: Week 2 begins. more of the same in terms of management of patients....

so there's a bit of an update. and at this point i'm only as far as reflecting on what has been happening, more than how i'm feeling about it, or more of my thoughts. i am in need of some time to process and reflect and pray and then i'll be able to share more.

one question i've been asked several times: how is the Spanish going?

it's going. always wish i were able to communicate more freely, more smoothly, with better grammar... but overall, it's going very well. i feel like most days i understand more, and am able to use what i hear to improve my own skills. i am one of few "spanish-speakers" among this large group of americans, so i do a lot of translating. amazing, really. a gift from the LORD.

thanks for your prayers. please continue. this has been a hard 10 days.