First Day of IRCP

Written Monday Night

I've got a huge surprise for you guys. I am currently sitting in my bed! In pajamas! Pilar and Jimmy and Natalia are watching TV! This is the most exciting thing to happen in weeks. But naw really, it's amazingly comforting to be in a safe place, not out at a bar or a restarurant or even in a livingroom. Just quiet. Under covers. I know I say that almost every day, and I certainly say it more often to myself, but being quiet, warm, little is the feeling that keeps me going.

Partially why I want that feeling right now is because I've been pretty busy the past few days. I did go paintballing on Saturday and it was so so fun. We took taxis way to the north, by the Carcelen bus station. Our taxi driver was totally sure he knew where he was going, but ended up dropping us off like two miles down a steep hill from where the paintball place actually was. At least we got our muscles all warmed up.

We got suited up in jumpsuits and masks and the goofy looking guns with thiere little super-ball pellets. The arena was basically a lot with dead grass, wooden shacks, a beat up old car, and some oil drums. All covered with neon splats of paint. We dodged and shot and hit and yelled and it was great, the team, the adrenaline, the anger, the competativeness, the threat of pain. We played five or six rounds. Around round four I tried to make it to behind this barrel and tripped and twisted my ankel really badly. Of course I was the only girl so I tried to play it off but it was one of those where it actually does really hurt and you just have to lie on the ground for a while praying people don't judge you too hard.

So during the next rounds, which we played in some nearby woods with 12 Ecuadorian bros, I either lay in some weeds and contemplated life, or I huddled in a shrub being the "sniper." Everyone was very nice to me and didn't make fun of me or make sexist comments.

I went to a bar with basically the same people and we talked about our favorite books. Ender's Game seems to be on the tip of everyone's tongue lately. Maybe its a wintertime thing? I've had like 5 separate conversations about it. Anyone else outside of Ecuador reading it?

Sunday I did nothing. Almost honestly. I talked to Ma, Emily Hanne and Tina Cava, Jon Posn and Zak Rogo. I also read a book Iggy lent me, Ironweed up on my roof and pretended I was a hobo. This was a normal Sunday.

Today was monday and I started my work! I woke up ungodly early. Well, I didn't think it was that early, but Pilar was moaning the whole time. I almost ordered her to go back to bed, but she was like "you cannot eat alone! you cannot make your own coffee!" I tried to tell her that I've been at least mostly making my breakfast for like 6 years but she was hearing none of it.

Got my buses easy, slept all the way. Maybe I do have to leave the house a little early. Once I got there, Leci already had arranged the turnos for the day and I got all the charts out of the file cabinets. We weighed and measured everybody, loud and crowded but fairly straightforward.

Today was really busy, from my limited sample of days. Everyone seemed to need things writteen twice or a clinical history opened or missing thier card or forgot waht year they were born. And people didn't stop. Normally one or two or five people will come in a morning asking for various things, but there's not usally five waiting at the door.

Part of the problem was the influenza vaccine. There are free influenza vaccines for adults over 65 which is a good public health idea but is just another program to execute. Adults need cards and we need to take thier names and make sure no one is allergic to eggs. We administered over 30 vaccines today, me filling the syrenges and forms and an aid doing the acutal shot. It was really wonderful, actually. Probably 10 or 12 very old indegenous women came in to get shots. They were freinds so they all decided to take the time to come in together. One lady, the most sentient, told each woman where to go, took and stored her card, helped her roll up her sleeve, reminded her to breathe. It was very caring. I refused one woman, though, which might not have been the right thing to do. I think she had dementia or brain damage or soemthing, because she didn't know her name and wouldn't respond to anyone. I felt like vaccinating her would be without her consent, and the Leci was too busy to argue.

Around 1 we took a break for lunch. The doctor, a woman visiting her from Canada (another doctor and a future friend), the Leci and myself crammed into this woman's tiny house which is on the clinic property. For 1.25, she fed us potatoes, rice, spicy hotdogs, soup, juice and heavens be! salad! We snarfed down our food and returned to work.

There were more emergencies today that I remember. The first was a woman who had run her finger up in an industrial sewing machine about a week ago. Today, the finger was very swollen, infected, and covered in necrotic tissue. Gross! Cool!

The second emergency was far more scary. A man, tall and pale, brought in a woman, short and dark from the flower plantation where they both work. She was swathed in cotton and rubber, booth with holes, her hand clenching her thick rubber gloved fingers. Twitching constantly, her blood pressure was low, her right side was almost paralyzed and insenstive to pain. When we got her on the table, she had a seizure. She couldn't move her eyes past the midline, her right arm was stricken with cramps that made her cry.

I don't know much about medicine, but when I smell the pesticides coming off someone as the enter the room, I'm inclined to believe that the cause of this problem might not be one hundred percent genetic. It's good she came in, good that she was wearing long sleeves and gloves and boots, but that much chemical exposure cannot be good.

The SubCentro hasn't a single anti-convulsion drug in its pharmacy, so as soon as the doctora had checked her out as best she could, after a few rounds of arm pain-attacks, her friend and I lifted her up to put her in his car to take her to the hospital in Yaruqui. I don't know what happened to her. I hope she is ok.

After that, I was a little overwhelmed, so I sat on the playground in the yard of the clinic and helped one of the little girls that lives in that tiny house with her English homework. She was learning the differnce between "a" and "an" and "the." Have you ever thought about how hard "the" would be to say? we have so many way of saying it, "da" "thee" "thuh." She got it wrong almost all the time, but she does know a bunch of words, probably more than I could read in Spanish when I was 8. she also has a barbie doll named Cynthia who is "ocho, igual que yo! Ella es mi amiga por siempre!"

At four, I cleaned up my things and walked to the bus stop. An old woman who I had seen earlier at the clinic and I sat on the steps where the bus stops, eating ice cream silently. I feel like that might become a routine.