Hola,
There is so much to tell. Let´s see how much I can recall at the moment.
Today marks the middle of my third week here in Ayacucho de Huamanga. Only ten more days to go. As usual, time seems to be flying by.
Since my last entry (more or less), I´ve changed assignments. Since this program doesn´t require me to commit to a single activity, I´ve been jumping around a bit. In addition to the soup kitchen and the nursing home, I´ve worked in a medical clinic, visited the local prison, and visited a health center located in the mountains. Not sure where else I´ll go in the coming weeks.
In the medical clinic I served as translator for one of the non-spanish speaking volunteers who was a neonatal nurse (Mandi). That was fun and also challenging as I haven´t studied medical terminology. I could understand most of what the doctors explained, but I had difficulty expressing myself. At one point the doctor left and allowed Mandi to diagnos patients, which meant I had to do the translations. Some how we got by.
One morning I accompanied one of the nurses as she went to a neighborhood to seek out pregnant women who had missed their scheduled check ups. The way the neighborhoods are organized makes it difficult to find houses (and some people don´t know their exact address). We found three of the five women we were seeking, and met three other pregnant women who had not yet come to the clinic to get check-ups.
I also spent a couple of days in the pharmacy doing drug inventory. Counting inventory was boring, but I enjoyed chatting with the women who worked in the pharmacy.
The clinic, located in a very poor neighborhood, does a good job of treating the patients. They can handle basic needs, and then they refer patients to the main hospital for more complicated treatment. The place is clean. Privacy during patient examinations is non-existent as various people feel free to enter the room during examinations with no consequence. The pediatric doctor handled two or three patients at a time. Things appeared a bit disorganized at time, but everything seemed to work out.
One day I accompanied Mandi to the prison while she did an examination of a 1.5 year old boy who has cerebral palsy. Lenny is the boy´s name. Lenny was born in prison to a woman who is serving time for some drug related crime. She never received treatment for high blood pressure and an infection during her pregnancy, despite her visits to the prison doctor. Lenny was born with cerebral palsy. Despite his issues, Lenny is a beautiful child. He has a sweet temperament, and often cracks up with laughter. Mandi did an examination for a report that will be sent to a treatment center in Lima,Peru. If accepted, Lenny will go there to receive treatment for his cerebral Palsy. The sad part is that he will be separated from his mom.
Another day a group of volunteers took all the children who live at the prison with their mothers out for the morning. Children under the age of 5 years old can live at the prison with their mothers. And every Friday our organization takes the kids out of the prison to various places in Ayacucho. Last Friday we took them to the Zoo. Yes, Ayacucho as a zoo. And what a sad zoo it is. It has birds, a snake, a couple of bored pumas, some turtles, and several monkeys. But the kids seemed to enjoy themselves. My little boy was named Beckham. He was a sweet, calm boy. About 2 years old. He liked to stare out the car window as we drove through the city. On the way home he fell asleep, and had nightmares. What kind of nightmare does a 2 year old boy have?
The prision is not a scarey place. It feels more like a community, than a prison. There are about 1000 prisoners, both male and female. The inmates spend time making crafts that are sold outside of the prison. And sadly, for many of these people, the conditions inside the prison are better than their living conditions at home.
Most of the people in prison are there for drug related activities. The foothills of the mountains in Ayacucho is where 180k tonnes of coca leaves are grown. Pervuians consume 80k tonnes of coca leaves in the form of leaves. The make tea, and they chew the leaves for energy and hunger, as well as other health reasons. The remaining 100k tonnes are used to make cocaine. Some peasants make paste from the leaves. Cocaine is made from the paste. Paste is transported by people in backpacks. And so the prisoners in jail for drug related crimes are in there for production or transportation of paste. Coca production, as well as the production of coca paste and cocaine provide a major source of income in Ayacucho for hundreds of thousands of people.
Today a group of us went to a health center located in the mountains. This health center is the only health center within a three hour walking distance for several communities. Sadly, it´s the closest place for medical care for these communities. And the people are so poor that they cannot afford the medicine that is prescribed to treat their illnesses. One of the volunteers is a mid-wife in England, so she did examinations of patients. The rest of us gave demonstrations of proper hand-washing techniques. Most of the people know how to do this, they just choose not to do it. Many people in the mountains wash their hands once a day! and maybe they use soap. So we did a demonstration using paint to show how easily germs can be spread from person to person, and then reviewed proper handwashing techniques. Everyone left the clinic today with clean hands.
Well, I need to head back for dinner.
cheers,
Stacey
No comments:
Post a Comment