I'm so sad...We just got back from my last visit at el orfanato El Rosario. We just colored and hung out with them outside all afternoon. They love to just color. Some of the little boys were entertained forever by having tire-pushing races with scrap tires that were around! haha hilarious. I LOVE these kids and I'm so bummed I'm not going to be greeted by their smiling faces and kisses on the cheek anymore! I have really grown close to one little girl, about 11 or 12 years old, Haydee, in particular and she was so torn up today when I told her today was my last day. She drew me a picture saying "Te amo Zara! Que te valla vien!" (Which is funny because not only could she not spell my name, she misspelled the spanish, which is really que te vaya bien! meaning may you go well...) After I drew her a sign with her name and a little letter telling her I was going to miss her, but she would always have a place in my heart and I gave her my address to write, she literally wouldn't let go of my neck all afternoon telling me "Voy a extranarte mucho senoriittta!" I brought all my clothes today to leave at Rosario. I was supposed to leave just all of my clothes with the director to distribute, but I really really wanted to set aside a few that I knew would fit her to give directly to Heidi. Perhaps it is selfish of me, but there is something about actually seeing a child receive a gift and light up in person. So at the end when were leaving I ran back to the little house where Haydee lives in and gave her a bag of clothes and told her to put them in her room. She was soo excited, but so sad to tell me bye. Broke my heart. All the kids here share a little apartment like home-style dorm rooms and a little kitchenette with a little family of other children and one "mom". It's really a neat set up because they made it feel more like a community of homes than an orphanage. It is such a beautiful place. Also, right before we left I was talking to Doris, one of the older 16 year old girls, who I had helped with homework one day. I just complimented her green sweater and she jokingly said no I like yours better wanna swap? I had on my black mountain hardwear jacket that I had planned on leaving in Peru anyway but thought I might need to keep it until Cuzco and Machu Picchu because it will still be cold. But after she said that I could not keep it on any longer. Who cares if I get a little cold over the next few days, these kids wear the same ratty clothes every day. Doris especially wears the same sweater and same leopard print fleece pants everyday. I just told her sure you can have it, but she would not believe me and wouldn't take it at first saying, "Mentira, mentira! No vas a dejarla!" (Lie! like you're teasing, you're not going to really leave it!) Finally I convinced her that I really wanted her to have it, and she just lit up in shock. She gave me a big hug and a kiss and at that I left Rosario. :(

Last night was a lot of fun taking our two favorite doctors out to dinner. We had a good time Spanglishing with them and they were very appreciative. Dinner here is like in Italy, unless you ask for your check you will be there all night. I think we got there at 7:45 and didn´t leave until 10:00! We talked to them more about medicine in Peru and all the differences with the US. They told us more about how there really aren´t specialties in medicine in Peru, except for in Lima. Lima is the only place where all the specialists will go. In Huancayo and other central highlands pueblos all the doctors pretty much do it all. Also, Yumpo told me that here doctors can only work 4 hours a day because the government only pays them for 4 hours a day! ´They can work more than that, but they won´t get paid. Also, they are on call 8 times a month. It´s horrible! It´s crazy how busy Dr. Yumpo is. He literally answers his phone during his rounds about 10 times per morning at least. They all do this, they will just stop right in the middle of a patient and answer their phone every time it rings! Crazy. I realize now though it is because he also does a lot more since he can only work 4 hours a day, such as HIV programs, TB programs, and other things. Also, they were telling us about how the university here in Huancayo, which is more than just the med school has closed down for at least 7 weeks because the alumni have stopped supporting it financially. So sad, because this would never happen in the US. The students don´t even know what to do with themselves. It was fun to be able to have real in depth conversations in Spanish for several hours, because though Yumpo speaks some English, Dr. Suazo only speaks Spanish.

Today was my last day in Daniel Carrion hospital. Only 4 of us made it because the rest of our group is sick and didn´t come this morning. Our group is dropping like flies! I feel completely better now thankfully, but starting yesterday several others got sick to their stomach. I am wondering now if it may be a 24 hour stomach virus that I caught and then spread...hope not. One girl does have my cold now though, I feel bad. I hate that everyone is getting sick here at the end. We did rounds with Dr. Yumpo in women´s internal medicine. One lady who was struggling so bad yesterday with most of her lung capacity gone from past TB and now pneumonia died over the night. :( We saw more similar kinds of cases with pulmonary and cardiac problems. I never got to see a surgery, which is kind of a bummer. Only about half of our group got to, but I did get to see lots of interesting cases and learned a lot about the different kinds of health problems here. After Carrion, we went to the special needs school one last time to hang out a bit and mostly just say bye. This was probably my least favorite part of our schedule because I never felt like we did much good there, but just cause them to get all excited, fight, and more chaos. They always loved to have us but it is just so unruly! It really makes me sad how poor of care they get, and how few people they have to attend to them. I thought I might punch a special needs kid today, there is one bully who is bigger and older than the others who is just awfully aggressive and constantly tries to fight and hit the other kids. Today he was no different and was even flipping people off. I seriously almost just knocked him out. haha The others are pretty sweet. Sad also because at their snack time there were several whose parents didn´t send them any food for lunch so they only got a tiny piece of bread from the school. Awful.

This afternoon I think only 3 or 4 of the 9 of us feel well enough to go to Rosario! We are giving a lesson on controlling anger and just playing as usual. I´m going to be so sad to say bye to the kids at Rosario. We have really begun to form relationships with these kids and get to know them, since we see them like every other day. I´m going to try and get the orphanage address and send letters to some of the ones I have gotten to know, because I can´t just invest all this time in them and then just flat leave and never keep in touch with them or do anything for them again!

So everything started to look up last night when I was dreading getting in an ice cold shower to make things even worse, when miraculously I had a legitimately HOT shower for the first time since I've been here! Ahh, soo wonderful! Then this morning I woke up feeling fine and had my appetite back. Thank God! This morning, we went to Daniel Carrion hospital. I decided to bring some of our many school supplies we have here to the hospital to give to the small pediatric ward, because the last time I went up there I noticed how awful it was. The kids are just sitting in beds in pain with literally no entertainment, no TVs no nothing! So today before we did internal medicine rounds, we went up there and handed out paper, markers, colored pencils, clay, cars for the little boys, and Disney princess stickers for the little girls. They instantly brightened when walked in with all of this, especially the moms were relieved and so appreciative to have something to distract their kids. There were a couple sweet young little girls, 2 and 4 year olds, and their moms, who I particularly talked to for a while. They had both fallen, and the 4 year old  (who was precious and so happy and spunky) had broken her leg really badly and had her legs suspended up in the air at a 90 degree angle and had been there for 2 weeks and still for 1 more week before they were going to cast her leg. Poor thing, but yet she was just as smiley and sweet as ever. One little boy, poor thing could not even talk because his face was so messed up from falling from somewhere really high. This morning made me realize again how much I LOVE pediatrics and really think this is the area for me, because I am just energized and get joy from interacting with child patients and trying to bring them some smiles, even though their cases are sometimes sad. I really realized this when everyone else in my group couldn't wait to leave the ped's ward because it was too sad for them to look at some of the kids, when I felt like I could have stayed much longer! After this we continued with women's internal medicine rounds with Dr. Yumpo, the one we all love so much. We saw many of the same patients, plus a new woman who was poisoned intentionally by her husband, awful! One of the older women, Dr. Yumpo said basically has no good lungs left because of awful pneumonia and her trachea had shifted blocking one of the lungs. Sad because he said there is basically nothing more they can do for her here and she has no financial support from her family so it's not like she can go to Lima to get better care. Basically, she is just buying time til her death. Today was the first day I heard someone speak Quechua, the indigenous Incan language. It was the 96 year old woman we saw last week who was moaning and groaning in pain. Tonight we are taking Dr. Yumpo and Dr. Suazo, the two nicest and most patient doctors with us, out to eat at a restaurant on the plaza. 

After Carrion, we went to EsSalud, the insurance hospital. Today, I was in the psych ward, which turned out to be hilarious when one of the nurses suggested we turn on music and dance. Oh my word! HILARIOUS! Another Peruvian surprise, you never know what you're going to experience here. We all were in a circle dancing to reggaeton and salsa and two of the younger girls were getting down! The men were hilarious because they are so drugged up that they move so slow and act like 5 year olds, so fun. They grabbed us and had us dancing with them in the middle. And then the crazy head nurse had the two young girls sandwich a young male nurse and then made me join the sandwich and act like I was smacking his butt in the air...She was yelling "Castigalo!!" (Punish him!) WOW they don't hold back here...hahah I guess she was trying to make it like a discoteca in the psych ward. But they had a great time. Always an interesting experience in the psych ward. 

After lunch, Lena and I went to the plaza to a cafe and got the best cafe helado (coffee milkshake type thing) that I have ever had at Cafe Grosella. Sooo good. Then just 5 of us girls went to the HIV shelter because the rest were sick, probably from the Chifa (peruvian chinese) restaurant they went to last night, thank God I didn't go already feeling sick... We just helped the kids with homework. They have sooo much homework here for young children. I love helping them with homework, especially with English. After that we just played lots of volleyball, which they love. Alex and I won the competition of who could keep the ball going the longest! haha they looove "volley". Then we taught them the short lesson on handwashing. We gave them all lots of pencils for each of them, and colors and glue and scissors for the group, since they are always doing homework, and they were sooo grateful! They were so careful to put them away and guard them. These children are some of the most well-behaved, precious, and intelligent children I have ever met. We are about to have a lesson from the med students on Health History 2 tonight and then we are taking out Dr. Yumpo and Dr. Suazo as a thank you to a restaurant we really like, Restaurante Detras de la Catedral. 

Wheww, today was a rough day. Starting around 3 am this morning I woke up feeling awful and proceeded to hug the toilet for the rest of the night til about 7 am. Apparently, I ate something bad on our excursion yesterday. I can no longer brag about being the last one standing in our group to not get stomach sickness. Now officially every single one of us has had food troubles! Ahh, can't wait to get back to American food where we don't have to worry about that. So today has been pretty rough because after last night I had nothing left in me, so I have been very weak all day and unable to do much. I think I've had a total of like 5 ritz crackers all day. Everyone went out to eat tonight, but I just couldn't do it, so Elena made me soup, which is good because I was able to eat some. I am actually feeling much better, just tired. Not really sure what it was, but you just never know around here. So today pretty much consisted of laying around, moving from my bed to the roof for part of the day to get outside a bit, and some cards, which we play like everyday! Anyway, hopefully I have no problems tonight and tomorrow I'll be back to normal. Only two more days in the hospital and Wednesday we take the HIV kids out of the shelter to a recreational park all day and then help cook for them! And then Wednesday night, Lena and I are off to Machu Picchu! And Sunday, HOME! :) and :(

Today we went on a long hike to the Huaytapallana glacier, which was soo awesome!! We had to drive about 1 1/2 hours away on a horrible bumpy dirt/rock road...We weren't sure if we were going to ever make it at first because we had to wait about 40 minutes where they were doing road maintenance once and then had to get out of the bus one time and walk up a bumpy road a ways because one road was closed and the one we had to take was really bumpy and dangerous in one section so he made us get out and then they drove the bus over it! haha rough start, but then we finally arrived in the middle of nowhere at a little restaurant where we parked and began our hike. I seriously have never been in a more remote place in my life. Peru has so many remote areas in the mountains, it's crazy! We first had to use a bathroom at the restaurant which literally consisted of a hole in the ground you had to stand over, so that was lovely. One thing I will not miss about Peru is the bathrooms, awful!! The hike started out really difficult immediately and really steep! We had a precious little Peruvian guide because we had heard you can't hike it without a guide because it can be dangerous as there are no real marked trails, which turned out to be very true. We first had to climb directly up and over a steep mountain to get to the glacier which was on a mountain on the other side. They don't do it like Colorado here with lots of switchbacks, oh no, they just go straight up, its like doing a million lunges up a mountain! We were so out of breath all the time because it was so steep and the altitude was really high. This was by far the most difficult hike I've ever been on because it was so steep at parts and because the trail was so rugged. At times there was not even a real trail, we just walked through rock quarries. Thank God for our guide, we would have never made it without him! We finally made it up to the peak of the first mountain we had to climb over in about 1 1/2 hours, which had an incredible breathtaking panoramic view. The Andes mountains are so different from mountains in North America, so so rugged and remote, not a sound around except for ourselves. We sat here and caught our breath again for a bit, which was much needed! It took us about 3 hours total to climb up to the glacier itself, they don't all it a glacier but rather playa de nieve (snow beach!). From the peak of the first mountain it wasn't as bad to the glacier, although much of it was just hopping over rocks, not a trail. Only a couple of us, me and the 2 guys and a peruvian couple that was with our tour group went up on the glacier because the rest wimped out. But our guide was very cautious and knew exactly where we could walk and only let us go on that certain area. It was unbelievable! I've never seen anything so enormous in my life. It was a massive amount of snow and glacier all over this one huge mountain ,which popped out of nowhere because all the other mountains are so dry. The peak of the glacier mountain extended so high up that you couldn't even see it because of all the clouds covering it. The peak is over 15,000 feet, but where we were on the glacier was around 14,500 according to our guide. Air was very thin! We just walked around on the glacier for a bit then I pretty much crabwalked it down because it was steep going back down and slicckk. I wasn't trying to fall into the several open crevices nearby! So so cool. I've really never seen anything like it. The only thing living up there were some birds and some cows near a couple gorgeous lakes below the glacier. The views the whole way back looking back were amazing as well. Betsy, the girl who went to Texas A&M and her boyfriend came with us. I really enjoyed them coming they are soo sweet! Good to meet some good ole fellow Texans deep in the heart of Peru! I also loved talking to our sweet guide, who was practically sprinting up the mountain while I try to keep up huffing and puffing and trying to talk in Spanish to him. It's unreal how unaffected by the altitude the Peruvians are, doesn't even phase them! Great experience, so awesome to see all the crazy different types of natural terrain in Peru. However, the whole hike took about 6 hours so we are totally exhausted now!

our team at the Sicaya Dia del campesinos festival

one of the winners of the fattest cuy competition! ridiculous, this is what they eat

poor cuy

Maite, precious girl at Rosario at the birthday fiesta, we attempted to make balloon animals

Maria Eloise

balloon sword fights

traditionally dressed woman at Sicaya festival, you see older women dressed like this everywhere, and mom's carry their babies in those little clothes on their back

Today was a fun day! We went to the dia del campesinos (farmers) festival in Sicaya, the rural village outside of Huancayo this morning and had a booth with posters and information we made about nutrition of cuy (guinea pig) and quinoa (a grain from the Andes that is much better for you than rice, higher in protein)--My job was to teach about quinoa. We also had posters and info on how to purify and filter water using bare essential resources. We also had an example and showed how to make a water faucet to wash hands and such out of a reused big water bottle upside down for those who do not have any running water. Also, we taught about the dangers of the smoke from cooking with a wood fire inside the house, which many people do here and in small houses it is even worse. It can cause damage to the lungs and heart and cataracts in eyes, and even lung cancer. It increases the risk of TB because it decreases your immune system. The festival was crazy, I think everyone in the whole town was there and it lasted all day. It is a very rural farmer's hardworking town, and so all the kids even got out of school for farmer's day. Mostly people just walked by and looked at our posters and we handed out flyers with all the info and talked to them some if they wanted. Mostly though all the school kids especially would come just hang out at our tent and google at us because we are the only white people around and maybe that they've really ever seen. Most of their questions weren't about our information, but rather about us and the US! I had 2 little boys who hung around our area for hours and they just drilled me on questions about the US, I mean they went through every animal, every plant, every type of food asking me if we had that in the US too! So curious and so cute. We got to walk around and try all the different ways cuy and quinoa were prepared. Not so much a fan of cuy, I think I'd rather have it as a pet, but they are actually really nutritious for you. It probably didn't help that they had pens and pens of alive cuys for sale for people to buy, reproduce, and eat! We also saw them cooking the cuy on open fires, nasty. They even had cuy judgings to judge who had the fattest cuy and then dressed the winners up in traditional peruvian attire, hilarious! I'm going to be glad to get away from all the nasty dogs here too, they are everywhere on the streets! And I think the cat population in our little house compound grows everyday! We probably have about 15 cats in our little gated houses area.

After a long day at the festival we went to Rosario orphanage and helped with a big fiesta for all the children who had birthdays between January and now. I think they have like 65 kids total there, so it was tons of fun! We dressed up like silly clowns with some of Elena's friends who go around and do that and dancing for kid's parties. We did games and dancing competitions and they had a huge cake and lotttss of candies. They had a great time and it was fun to see them be able to have all the fun they wanted to. We leave tomorrow morning for our glacier hike, which should be fun! Thankfully, I'm breathing a little better, so hopefully I'll make it up there!

This morning we got to sleep in a little more since we don't go to the festival until 9, which was really nice. I went up on our roof top to read this morning, which is such an awesome view in the morning because the sunrise is so strong. The mountains are panoramic all around and all the houses here are built on top of each other with rooftops for laundry so you see all the people up and about on their roofs doing laundry and such. It's a very communal way of living here. privacy not so much a factor.  The only thing I could hear was roosters and a local church service singing nearby really loud, which was neat. It's awesome to see these people constantly praising God amidst all the dusty roads, collapsing roofs and extreme poverty. Wow. They are not praising God for all the prosperity and material things they have, they are praising God for life alone. Pretty awesome. Peruvians as a whole are very happy people, always greeting you with a smile, a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. For example, yesterday when we did our Everyone is Unique lesson with the kids and moms at the HIV center, at the end we got everyone, moms and kids, to go around and say an adjective or quality about themselves, either personality trait or talent, and almost all the mom's just said "Soy alegre!" (I'm happy!) Yet, they all have HIV, they all have no money, no house to themselves, they make artesan crafts during the day at the shelter to sell and make some money. So awesome to see people who can truly enjoy the real blessings and joys of life without any need for anything material!! God is good. In everything, God is good.

This morning at Daniel Carrion I did rounds in the men's internal medicine ward. We had no one with us today, so I just had to ask questions to the med students because it is so hard to hear the doctors with their masks on and like 20 people around each patient. No joke, it's crazy how many people follow the doctors around. Today we saw a lot of cardiac problems, and more pulmonary problems like pneumonia. We're getting good at reading pulmonary x-rays by now, that's like all we ever see in internal medicine. It's crazy because they have no place to read x-rays here and the lighting inside is horrible but they just kind of hold it up and look at it...We also saw one younger teen who had supposedly tried to kill himself by drinking a lot of some poisonous liquid and had his stomach pumped. Quite a few of the patients are diabetic and have complications from that. The diet here definitely promotes diabetes. Also, the reason why we all have to wear masks in internal medicine ward is because apparently tuberculosis is really common here. Dr. Jumpo told us this is a problem because the rooms have poor circulation, just a few windows open for air, and also many of the patients are not sure they have TB for a long time because they don't have the fast prick test we have, they have to do a culture which takes 30 days...

After the hospital we went to a friend of Elena's school to do the lesson on handwashing and dental hygiene. This school was a more well-off "private" school in Huancayo than those that we usually go to outside the city. The children ranged from age 2-5, they start school so young here! Oh my goodness they were the most precious children I've ever seen! After our lesson, we taught them a few songs in English, like Heads, shoulders, knees and toes and they sang us a song they had prepared, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...hilarious!! We then went into their classrooms, I went with the 4 year olds, and taught them some basic English like colors, numbers, animals, basic body parts, and family names. They were really smart and some already new colors and numbers. They were soo excited for us to be there and they presented each of us a little gift at the end and said in English, "Thank you for visit." I think we almost all shed some tears they were so sweet. We hardly did anything for them, yet they were so so appreciative. I think we each got at least a couple kisses and ciaos from each of them before we left! I really enjoyed this morning.

This afternoon we are going to the HIV center to do a lesson on everyone is unique and promoting self-confidence in individual talents and such. We have some crafts and activities planned. We have been working hard this week on different lessons for the Dia del campesinos (farmers) festival in Sicaya tomorrow where we will have a booth and teach the community about the nutrition of quinoa (my part), nutrition of cuy (guinea pig), basic methods to filter and sanitize water for poor people with bad water and no real resources, and the dangers and harmful side effects of cooking with open wood fire in houses. Should be fun/interesting. We have already booked with a "tour" group, our driver, Henry's friends to go hike to the Huaytapallana glacier on Saturday, which is an all day hike. Hopefully I'm completely better by then because I think the glacier is at over 14,000 feet! I can't believe I only have like 5 days left in Huancayo...Our group was talking and it seriously feels like we live here now. We don't even think twice about where we are going when we walk back to our house or our daily routine. It's going to be a serious adjustment to be back in America living with all the luxuries we have and knowing that when you speak English everyone understands you! haha This trip has been like a week in a day and a day in a week all at the same time. Our days often seem long and busy, but at the same time the weeks and time fly by!

Yesterday we went to Daniel Carrion hospital in the morning again, but this time the doctors were really on tiempo peruano and were taking forever to show up for their rounds, so instead of doing rounds some of the med students taught us how to take blood pressure and we just practiced that forever. That was cool to learn, and a lot trickier than it looks especially with the older equipment. We then went back to Rosario orphanage to do the emergencies and prevention for the other kids who are not in school in the afternoon. In Peru children either go to colegio (school) in the morning or the afternoon, there are two waves depending on your age and the school. After lunch we went back to Rosario to give a lesson on the importance of exercise and eating healthy to the children and a lesson on nutrition to the mothers. This was a fun lesson because we had planned out a sort of field day for the children after the lesson to go with the physical fitness idea. We had all kinds of little relays with balloons, and other silly things, a simon says exercise warm up game, pull up competitions and just other fun running active games like freeze tag and red light, green light, and of course futbol in the end. I don't think a day will go by without all the little boys wanting to play futbol. One thing I have learned with working with children especially in Spanish, you can plan all you want to and put tons of time into a plan, but when it comes down to it nothing ever works out as planned. We are constantly having to be flexible, adjust, and just improvise random games and activities on the spot that just work better because it is often chaotic!

Last night, Lena and I went to a dance studio/exercise class gym nearby to do a dance workout class that Betsy, the volunteer we met from another organization recommended to us. Though it was nearly impossible to find (gyms are pretty much nonexistent here and nobody knew where it was) it was soooo much fun! We had a blast and it was a killer workout! It was basically like a Zumba class, just real Latino dance and not called Zumba, and the instructor was this young guy who was an awesome dancer. We met a few other gringas from Belgium who are actually living here full time and working for another volunteer organization. How in the world you end up in Huancayo, Peru from Belgium I have no idea! We are definitely going back to his class on Friday and maybe Monday night, so fun. We are thinking of trying to learn a Zumba song to teach the psych patients at EsSalud next week! After we went out to eat at Anteojitos, a place we had gone before, which has great wood fire pizza and live Peruvian music. I am starting to feel a little better, but still have a cold and pretty congested. Kind of a bummer. But thankfully I have still been able to do everything, so it could definitely be worse.

Ice cold shower when you are sick with a bad cold in the cold weather=miserable!! Of course tonight would be the night when our shower is not the slightest bit warm...burrr. Today was a good day besides the fact that I was even more sick. At the hospital this morning I got to follow Dr. Jumpo who is by far the nicest doctor at the hospital and speaks some English, so we learned a lot this morning. We were in women's internal medicine ward, which was a lot of cardiac patients and mostly pulmonary, like pneumonia. There was one 96 year old woman there who had an MI which caused a lot of brain damage, so she couldn't talk or eat or anything. The saddest thing I have seen thus far was this one like 80 something year old woman who is pretty much just withering away on her death bed. She was so so skinny and her poor cheek bones and mouth were so sunken in, you could not even understand her at all when she tried to talk to the doctor. She had a pleural stroke and was just wimpering like a baby in pain. Sad. All the women were pretty old and they are mostly the traditionally dressed indigenous women with long braids.

This morning we went to the special needs school which went a lot better because we each separated to play with them separately rather than all in one room. I entertained the sweetest girl Jackie, who cannot really use her legs to walk without help or her arms, not sure exactly what is wrong with her, the whole time. She and this little toddler Victor, who has downs and is swollen up and chubby like a little balloon wobbling around everywhere. He is hilarious because he thinks he is like 10 and can do everything that the big boys can like climb all over the slides and stuff. They are so hilarious and precious.

After lunch we went to Rosario orphanage and did a lesson on emergencies, prevention and how to handle them, such as burns, electrocution, earthquakes (which are really common here), and other basic emergency situations. After we just played and I helped a few little girls with homework. It was one of my favorite little girl's birthday the other day, and so I simply made her a card and gave it to her today and I swear she was so so happy to get something like that. They are the mostly loving and affectionate kids. We just sat around after playing and braided the girl's hairs and pour attention on them which they looovee! I have a feeling that they don't get much attention on their birthdays.

Tonight we are going to watch a dance company put on a concert from the US that we got invited to, and probably meet the US ambassador for Peru. Again, hopefully tomorrow I will be feeling better. Peru is the worst place ever to have an awful cold because they don't believe in toilet paper, you can't find it anywhere in bathrooms! ahhh

Today I started internal medicine rounds at Daniel Carrion, this week I am in the men's ward. It was good and we got to see lots of different things but it is really hard to hear and understand because we all have to wear masks in internal medicine so hearing the doctor's speak spanish is very difficult. Thankfully our psych intern friend Pierra came along with us and I got to ask her lots of questions about the patients. I was really disturbed by one patient in the men's ward today. He kept groaning and grunting like the sound of a cow the whole time like half asleep. When I asked someone what was wrong with him they told me he has prostate cancer, possibly cancer in his kidney, a urinary tract infection and his bones hurt really bad. He is in so much pain and groans like he does because apparently at Carrion they don't have much pain medicine to give out, only at the specialist hospitals, so he is just in a ton of pain. Sad. Unfortunately, starting yesterday I started having a really sore throat and this morning woke up really congested and sick, but hopefully with some rest I will be fully back again soon because I don't want to miss any days, but I also want to be careful not to spread my sickness around at the hospitals. I think I got sick from the HIV shelter because a lot of the kids there are always sniffling and sick, and Elena, our coordinator is sick too.

After Carrion, we went to EsSalud, the insurance hospital and today I was in the pediatric ward where we took balloons around and made them into animals for all the patients (or at least we tried to haha) they loved it! This afternoon we went to the HIV home and just helped the kids with their homework for a couple hours, which was good. They are all so smart and such hard workers! Kids here learn things in school much younger than we did because they graduate high school at like age 16 and go on to the university if they are going to. Most of the med students we follow around at the hospital are younger than us because they go directly from high school to med school, like 18 or so, crazy! We also taught the HIV kids a basic lesson on contamination, with germs, food, dirty water, wounds and such. They are so so sweet. Today has been a rough day because I am feeling pretty awful, but even though I have a cold at least I think I am still the only one who has really not gotten stomach sickness and nausea from like the food and altitude!  Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Today we went to the Sunday market in Huancayo, where artisans from surrounding towns come and set up stands to sell their crafts. It was so fun, we just walked around for hours shopping. I tried picarrones (Peruvian donut which is just straight fat fried but really good with honey!) Everything here is so cheap! I stopped and talked for a long time with one young 14 year old girl, Gabby, at her jewelry booth. She and her young brother were there by themselves selling all of their awesome jewelry, which they all handmade themselves. She was sitting there making it as we talked. It's so sad because everything is handmade and the artisans are so talented, but everything is so cheap that they can't make any money! Our friend Pierra met us at the market and shopped with us helping us barter and not get ripped off, which was great. After the market we all came back and just chilled. Today was the hottest day in the afternoon since I've been here so I actually went up on the roof and laid out in my swimsuit and took a nap, so nice! Then this afternoon I took a jog around the city, only the second time since I've been here...the altitude and the rice are catching up to me. Today was a nice relaxing day with no real agenda for the first time ever. Can't believe we only have a week and a half left in Huancayo, I feel like I live here now, it's going to be weird to leave.

Actually from today...It was really nice to have a day with no real plans today. We woke up pretty early still because we're so used to it and we hiked up to Torre Torre, these awesome natural rock formations on the side of a mountain on the edge of town. The walk up to them through this really poor "neighborhood" was kind of sketchy as we had been told it was a dangerous neighborhood, but we had a big group and it was all fine. It was a really fun morning because we didn't really know how to get to Torre Torre, we just continued to ask our way around to find the paths. Once we got up there it was a really awesome view of the city in the valley and it was cool because we just made our own paths all around the formations and climbed all over them! We were all by ourselves until a few peruanos came up there and again we felt famous because they instantly wanted a picture with the gringos! It was quite the adventure, but we all made it back alive and well. Then we went out to eat lunch off the main square in Huancayo at a great little restaurant called Restaurante Detras de la Catedral. I had the best salad (here salads are not really lettuce but avocados!! my dream..) and an awesome lucuma (a famous fruit here) juice smoothie...We were pumped to have some really good food, plus this super nice european white looking man, Daniel (a limeno), who was the manager came out and started talking to us in english!! He gave us all kinds of advice about the area and history of Huancayo and Peru. He also gave us some tips about the glacier climb and which tour group to use, because apparently it's pretty intense and you need equipment. He told us that in like the late 1980's and early 90's Peru had all kinds of terrorism problems with the group called El Sendero (The Shining Path) especially around rural highland areas like Huancayo. Apparently, car bombs and other terrorist acts made it impossible to travel between the small village towns around here. He was explaining that this is what contributed to such poverty here because when this was happening the richer people fled the area but all the more impoverished people stayed here. It was very refreshing to be able to speak to a native who spoke English so well, and I think he was thrilled to talk to a bunch of white people because they don't come around here much!

This afternoon we went to a meeting thing that the KuraMe local EsSalud hospital volunteers invited us to today where we got to watch the girl who attempted to teach us Marinera actually perform the dance with a partner all in full costume. Sooo impressive! Tonight madre Elena cooked us trucha (trout) from a local river which was really good and then we are about to go to a movie at the mall here tonight. 

Torre Torre view of Huancayo (Lena from Chicago, goes to UC Berkeley)

haha goofing off trying some yoga on the rocks! tree pose, about to fall off!

Torre Torre from a distance, where we started

Marinera dancer friends

the path we had to walk up to Torre Torre through the rough neighborhood

from the festival on Friday at the school in Sicaya, Samaniego Vivas, sooo cute

the young class's little dance

other school in Sicaya that we taught lessons to on Friday, La Florida

i wanted to just take all these kids back with me in my suitcase!

the boys so into all the games we were making up

From yesterday, 6/17/11...

Today started out a good day with the normal madre Elena’s Friday morning banana panqueques for breakfast and her amazing hot chocolate, (which is nothing like normal hot chocolate, it has like cinnamon and just so good when it’s 40 degrees out still)!! Soo good…we always get so pumped when we see this rather than the normal bread and the occasional egg…but usually just hard bread and more bread…

Last night we had a fun night full of Latin dancing with Pierra one of our Psych student intern friends from the hospital. This morning we went to a new school in the rural highland village community of Sicaya called La Florida to teach a lesson on handwashing, dental hygiene and then we gave fluoride treatments and toothbrushes. The kids at this school were very young and very precious, some kids go to “kindergarten” starting at age 3 here! They are all so receptive and well behaved and are just so excited to have us strange gringos there! After we played some games with them outside. Just simple games like pato, pato, gonzo (duck duck goose), red light/green light, and some other fun running around games we kind of made up as we went along but they LOVED! It’s amazing how easily entertained these kids are, they don’t need video games and crap, they were dying laughing and having the time of their life just playing the simplest games. Again, when we did the fluoride treatment, we noticed how awful their poor teeth are already! I guess because of the bad water, which does not have fluoride in it and then really just not brushing their teeth. They are always so excited to get the toothbrushes we give them.  These kids out here are so dirty with filthy clothes but they are so gorgeous and so loving, they just want to hug all over you!

After this we went back to the school from last Friday to take soap and go to their 46th anniversary celebration that they invited us to. Quite the event! It lasted like all day, starting with a mass service, which was really sweet, led by an ancient sweet old nun we have met and then I guess like the town priest. Then many people talked forever, and then the different age groups of kids performed cultural dances from their regions in traditional clothing, which was soo adorable! Then at the end, the kids we had played with last week came and grabbed us and made us try to do their dance with them which was hilarious because it was very difficult! We felt like celebs today though, because all the parents and families were taking pictures of us and coming up after asking if they could take pictures of their kids with each of us! Really I’m not sure if some of these people have ever seen white people before out here. Elena, our coordinator, made me go up and say a few words for our group in Spanish in a microphone to all of the people at the festival and give them the soccer ball we got the children…crazy!

After being offered trucha (trout in full fish form still) cooked by some local women, we quickly left and went home for lunch! After lunch we went to EsSalud and the KuraMe Peruano volunteers attempted to teach us for fun the Marinera national Peruvian dance, which was really hard and quite hilarious! Tomorrow afternoon at 4 we are going to watch one of the girls we met who is like a national champion Marinera dancer actually dance the traditional dance with a partner in full costume, it is so impressive! After this we went to the med school where a med student taught us a class on taking health history of patients and its importance in diagnosis. Sad night because Clare, my roommate from Canada left us to go home! L We have all gotten so close, and I especially have to her so it’s going to be weird around here without her. But we had a great going away meal of lomo saltado and our madre even made us pisco sours (the famous Peruvian drink) and chocolate chip cookies! In the last 24 hours we have gotten quite the workout from dancing, so needless to say we wiped out early last night.

The hospital this morning was kind of boring because the men´s surgery´s rounds went really fast and then we just went up to internal medicine, which is what we start in next week and had to wait forever just for a doctor to even show up, so we didn´t do much. It´s crazy how kind of unorganized everything is here, especially for like the med students which we go around with some, they are always just waiting for a doctor to follow too. However, considering the few resources they have to work with at this hospital, the doctors all seem very smart and seem to do the best job they can with what they have to work with. Just a more rugged, basic old fashioned style of medicine.

After Daniel Carrion, we went to EsSalud the insurance hospital and me and three other girls went to the Psychiatric ward today and I taught yoga to the Psych patients! So hilarious/challenging! I´ve never really taught yoga before, much less all in Spanish, much less to a bunch of Psych patients so it was quite entertaining, but we had so much fun and so did they! Especially the younger girls loved it, but even like middle aged men were trying to do it with us..hahaha Clare got some good pics of this. I LOVED the psych ward, they were all so so sweet (very drugged up as well). There were 3 younger girls a little younger than us, 2 of which have schitzophrenia and one 18 year old girl who I talked to a lot who is recovering from anorexia and bulemia. She has been there a month and is planning to leave within the next few weeks and return to the university. I asked her about how she felt and if she felt like she was better after her stay and she said oh yes and was very positive about it. It was really interesting though because supposedly all these girls had struggled with depression too and they were soooo complimentary of us telling us how beautiful we are and the one with eating disorders kept complimenting my body, which is sad because when we would try to compliment them they were like oh no we are not pretty...There were also some men there for I´m not really sure what, some addictions, a couple schitzophrenics. One old man was soo sweet and just crazy! He kept talking to me all about America, how many stars and stripes we have on our flag and then told me all these elaborate stories about his brother who is an engineer in Italy, Africa, Peru, and Europe...He said he is not there because he is sick, but just because he works in the sciences and his mind needed a ¨break¨...haha he was so funny. I really hope I get to go back and work with them again because I just loved them all! I also talked to Elena about maybe doing yoga at this home she goes to some for formerly abused mothers and children, which I think would be a lot of fun and good for them. This afternoon we are going to the HIV shelter to give a lesson mainly to the moms on healthy communication and then we are going shopping for materials for the school we visited last week to take tomorrow and some soccer balls. The school has some sort of festival tomorrow which they invited us to, so we will be there from 11 for the rest of the day. In the morning we are going to a new school to give the same lessons on washing hands, brushing teeth and give fluoride treatments and toothbrushes. Tonight is Clare, my roommate from Canada´s, last night here! :( So we are going out salsa dancing tonight!

Clare and I started the morning out early doing laundry (much needed after the jungle) at 6:15 on the roof with freeezzingg water! So much worse than even playing golf in the snow...I have a new found appreciation for the wonderous washers and dryers and those who do this all the time, like all the kids at Rosario who do their own laundry outside in the mornings! This morning we went to Daniel Carrion hospital and did more men's surgery rounds. Same stuff pretty much, except I saw one guy who cut his hand bad with an ax, one alcoholic who was sleeping on the railroad tracks (which supposedly is pretty common here?! crazy) and when the train came he woke up jumped up and fell off, broke his femur and lots of ribs, one of which punctured his lungs, so he has all this blood draining out of his thoracic cavity. It was pretty crazy.

Next we went to Rosario Orphanage to measure all the kids heights and weights, which we will finish this afternoon with the other kids. Elena, our site coordinator, keeps track of this over time in order to help with their nutrition. It's so precious how EVERYONE here greets you with a kiss on the cheek, even when they first meet you. And now that the kids know us they always come running to us soo excited when we get there and throw big ole hugs and kisses on us yelling SENORIIITA, so adorable!

Tomorrow is my last day in the surgery rotations so hopefully I will be able to go watch a surgery, I lost paper rock scissors this morning, so 2 of the guys got to go :( This weekend, our plan is to just stay around Huancayo and go to the Sunday market where all the artesans from nearby villages bring in all their crafts. One of the med students we met, Pierra, a sweet girl, invited us to come with her to a big concert Friday night with lots of bands and salsa and Latin dancing! Oh and I made the mistake of telling Elena that my mom teaches yoga and that I have done yoga in the past so I am now in charge of teaching yoga to the Psych ward patients at EsSalud, the insurance hospital, tomorrow morning! Should be interesting...

Last night we finally ventured to leave the house and our whole group went to a cool place with a live band and salsa and latin music and dancing..so fun! This morning back to Daniel Carrion and I had a much better experience. We followed a really nice doctor today on his rounds through mens surgery. He was very nice and was sure to explain everything more in between patients. He also was teaching some of the medical student interns so included us in all his little lectures today, so I learned alot about infections and how to classify wounds in order to know how to treat them with antibiotics or not, how much and for how long. He also explained to them and us about hemorroids and how to tell if something is just a hemmorroid or an abscess or a fistula (in English im not sure), and a lot of other random facts. We saw some more crazy cases today, another nasty anal abscess up front and personal, a construction worker who fell from like 30 feet, and someone with kidney problems who had all kinds of internal bleeding, a man from a small pueblo nearby who got stabbed by a bulls horn in his prostate area-it was awful! and more appendicitis complications. He also took a lot of time explaining to us why Peru, particularly this central highlands region, has the common health problems they do. He said that appendicitis, though it is common in the US too, is different here and usually comes with worse complications because the people who live so isolated from medical centers try to just treat themselves for a while first and take antibiotics they have without consulting doctors first, which in the end causes complications like peritonitis (not sure what this is in English!) He said that the problems of 70% of patients in this area are caused by malnutrition as well as compromised immune systems from other things like AIDS, diabetes, hypertension and other common diseases here. I talked to him about nutrition around this area and how so many people mainly outside of the city in the central highlands villages are just so isolated from water and other things that they are very malnutritioned. Sad that this ends up complicating all of their basic health problems. Anyway this morning was good.

Then we went to the special needs school which was pure CHAOS!! so much respect for people who teach special needs, but here it is crazy they have like 4 teachers total for like 25 children! And they are crazy, the boys get very aggressive and are always trying to fight so its kind of frustrating.

Then we went to Rosario and did lesson on protecting environment and recycling and played lots of futbol!

This morning we went to Daniel Carrion hospital, I am in men's surgery this week. We got to follow a really nice doctor, Dr. Suazo, in external consultations, who explained a lot to me in Spanish. We had a nice warm up by getting a full on naked man butt view and check up of an abcess like in his butt crack...freaking nasty!!! But the doctor took out several people's sutures from appendix surgery and explained a lot to us, what I could get from Spanish at least. However, I felt like I was for sure going to pass out and hit the ground and have to get cared for in that nasty hospital at one point when he was cleaning a woman's wounds from some rough surgery she had had in a rural town after a tree had fallen on her abdominal area, which was all torn up...it was nasty, and I for real had to fight off passing out. The feeling would not go away after her so I'm not sure if it was her or if it was just standing up for so long without sitting down, but it was close and miserable. I finally had to leave and find a bathroom just to sit down for a minute! It was bad, and I left my poor partner who speaks no Spanish stranded to try and understand! Weird morning, but I did talk to the doctor and I think we may be able to watch a surgery with him on Wednesday, let's just hope I don't get the same feeling or I really may pass out! Surgery is not for me I don't think...

After, we went to the nicer insurance hospital, EsSalud and went around the pediatric ward just bringing crayons and coloring books to the patients and talking to them and coloring with them. I went into one room with a precious little 2 year old boy and his mom and an 11 year old boy and talked to them for about an hour. One had been poisoned by a bad spider bite, and the little boy had some sort of bad arthritis that he had to have several surgeries on and is in the hospital for 30 days getting treatment! Or at least that's what I could understand..It was fun to bring some distraction and fun to the kids as well as the moms there.

This afternoon we are headed to the HIV shelter to do a lesson with the kids on staying in school and professions and then just hang out with them.

precious kid at the school where we gave fluoride treatments on Friday

the school that we taught hand washing, dental care, and did fluoride treatment out in a village

jungle trip! Catarata Velo de La Novia (bride's veil)

my roomie at our homestay, Clare from Canada

our group! at Catarata Bayoz where we went swimming and jumping

the road to the jungle, this happened a lot, tons of sheep!

and a llama

We just got back from a weekend in the high jungle about 4 hours away from Huancayo. Henry, our driver who drives us around to our volunteer sites, took us this weekend everywhere and he knew all the spots to go way off the beaten path. He is such a sweet little man! We had another girl who we met here at the HIV center who is volunteering here for 5 weeks with another organization from Texas A&M who came with us. We left early yesterday morning, and the drive through all the mountains and highlands and changing scenary to the jungle was absolutely breathtaking!! The landscape here is so gorgeous, but it is sad how terribly impoverished and dirty all the scarce little "towns" are amidst all the beauty. When we passed through all the highlands mountains we constantly passed all these indigenous people with tons of sheep and donkeys and llamas in the fields. Several times we had to stop for a huge herd of sheep to cross the road! It's crazy how remote some of these people live, soo far from everything! We saw some just like little hut like houses out in the middle of the highland mountains and people working the fields all over the mountain sides. Such a rugged, remote style of life. You even see little kids all over the place in the middle of nowhere herding sheep and working. We passed through several towns on the way, Juala, Tingopaccha, Huaricolca, Tarma, and then finally arrived to San Ramon, where we went to the first waterfall, like a 30 minute hike, which was gorgeous but didn't compare at all to the two we went to today. Then after we went to this weird like tourist trap native town, where some of the Ashinka native tribe live in the middle of nowhere and they grab you and take you and dress you up like them in native clothes and then tell you their story in Spanish and Ashinka, which I had to poorly translate for our group! Then they just kinda dance around with you and ask you to make a donation...then they want you to shop through their handmade crafts, kind of a scam, but kind of sad because they are so poor and that's how they depend on trying to make money.

We ate lunch at this restaurant along the Chanchamayo River which runs all through the mountains there in the jungle. It was good typical food from the area. We went by a coffee plantation as this area is where coffee is mostly cultivated and proccessed in Peru. Then Henry took us to the little town of La Merced to spend the night in a hotel. The next morning we left early and drove around deeper into the jungle for like 1 1/2 hours and then hiked up to another awesome waterfall winding through steep steps and slick rocks. But it was so so gorgeous and just sort of pops out of nowhere. Then we hiked to another bigger waterfall, with  a bunch of different cascades and went swimming under the falls and then jumped off one smaller fall into a pool area. It was so awesome! And we were the only people there at first because it was still morning. We spent quite a bit of time there, and then we just drove back and just got back. Fun, but tiring weekend. Now we still have to plan our lessons for tomorrow, and we have a new volunteer joining us tonight who has been in Trujillo with another FIMRC volunteer group.

So my internet has stopped working at the house so it's going to be a little more difficult now unless it comes back. So yesterday afternoon we went to San Juan Diego, the shelter for children with HIV, which was so awesome!! The kids there were sooo sweet and soo well behaved. First, we did a lesson on nutrition and health for the moms, which went really well. Then we just hung out and played with the kids and colored and talked about healthy foods and really just played outside and games. These kids were so smart, several of them even knew some english. It was so precious how excited they got just when we gave them stickers! Two of them, a brother and sister, I really just want to steal and take home with me!! It is so so sad though because all of these children and their moms have HIV. The moms asked us if we could come on June 29 to basically babysit the kids all day while they prepare for some religious festival, so we are probably going to take the kids to a movie in town...loooove these kids.

This morning we went to a school out of Huancayo in a very poor mountain village called Sicaya. We went around to all the classrooms and gave lessons on washing hands and brushing teeth properly. We did a funny skit which they all loved, and then we actually did fluoride treatments to all of the children and gave them all toothbrushes. We have been purchasing supplies as we see need with all of our donation money. Cool to see where our money is actually going. So sad how horrible all their teeth already are even the youngest ones at like age 4 or 5. Also I saw a lot of them had like scabies all over their hands. After this, we stayed in the older kids class who were learning English for like an hour just individually helping them with their English and going over their notebooks. So precious how much they loooveed this, they want to learn so bad, and it's hilarious to hear them try to read and speak English. I had a lot of fun really teaching them using both Spanish and English. They were so good and attentive and really really loved having us there. We stayed there from like 8:30-12:30 and we checked all of the school rooms to see if they had first aid and places to clean hands and such and the bathrooms. AWFUL! all they have is like a couple holes in ground basically for toilets that don't flush and sinks but no soap or toilet paper or paper towels. So next Friday we go back and bring them all the health supplies that we took note that needed. Then we played with them, volleyball and soccer. Volleyball is huge among girls here and they were soo good! Oh, when we first got there they were practicing a cultural dance from their region for a festival they invited us to next Friday and we started dancing with them trying to learn, it was hilarious! By the way, we are absolutely the ONLY gringos (white people) here, we have literally not met any others in Huancayo, so that's kinda cool. Only Spanish here, that's for sure.

This afternoon we went to the insurance hospital, which is a much nicer hospital where people who pay for medical insurance can go and we taught our first aid lessons to some volunteers from Peru who volunteer at that hospital that will be working with next week in the psychiatric and pediatric wards just going around bringing balloons and being loud and bringing fun around to patients! There were about 30 volunteers who all spoke Spanish and were around our age, and were really cool. Then later we went to a lesson at the Huancayo med school about the health care system in Peru with some of the med students from like 5-7, which was interesting but mostly in Spanish so difficult to understand! A very long day, but I loved this morning because I felt like we really did a lot of good, especially since we are able to see the need and fix it next week. We are exhausted and about to pass out and we are leaving at 7:30 tomorrow morning to go to the jungle for the weekend about 3 hours away, so I won't be able to have internet again until next week.

 on the bus ride to Huancayo, typical look of towns/cities, pretty impoverished

our casa in Huancayo!

our house...inside the gates

the cool part, the sun balcony on the third floor roof! the only warm spot in the house & the laundry room!

one of the sweet girls at Rosario Orphanage, Heidi

So this morning we went to the hospital and I did more rounds in women's surgery just following the doctors and med students checking on post-op and pre-op pacients, nothing really new today. Except we finished early so I went up with them to the small pediatric surgery ward to do those rounds, and the children were so precious. Most all of them had appendicitis and were either about to have surgery or already had, there were two precious little girls that I talked to a little bit, and one screaming boy! It is so sad how they just have everyone crammed in the wards, i mean sometimes even a bed at the foot of another bed because there is no room. One of the med students today told me that the reason why they have so many intestinal problems and stones here is because their diet, they consume so many carbs and drink hardly any water because it is so unclean here anyway so they just drink sugary drinks and juices all the time. Also, supposedly the high altitude causes the digestive system to enlarge and move slower? Anyway, after this we went to a special needs school and just played outside with the kids for about an hour and a half. Wheww, exhausting! They were really cute and funny, but it is just so sad because many of them were both physically disabled and mentally hardly there at all. Lots of CP and down syndrome children among others, about 20 kids there, and lots of balls flying around and just chaos! This afternoon we are going to the HIV Center to give a lesson on nutrition and health to the moms mostly and some kids too, then I think also just play with the kids who live there.

So yesterday afternoon after lunch we went back to Rosario orphanage, which is what we will do most days and taught a lesson to the moms on drug addictions and how to watch for these and prevent this with the children and teens (which are not actually the moms of the children, they are women who volunteer to work for the orphanage and live there 6 days at a time to care for the children and be like their moms--the children come from very rough family homes of violence or drug addictions)...Anyway after we just hung out and played for like an hour and a half with the kids, futbol, basketball and such which they looooveed! They are not used to so much attention, although they wore us out quickly in this altitude! One 16 yr old girl, Doris, asked me to help her with her homework, which was pretty difficult bc I had to help her read through a tough poetic play in Spanish! ayyy...But she is very sweet and smart and wants to be an engineer, I just hope she gets the opportunity to go the university. We are very busy, hardly have time to ourselves because when we get back we eat and then have to plan, create, and translate into Spanish our lessons for the next day at night. But my group is so awesome, we are having a great time. It's crazy how none of us except 2 knew each other before, we are from all over the country and we all get along really well, we have been laughing like nonstop!!

After cool showers in the cold mountains, sharing 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms with 9 people and doing my own laundry by hand on the rooftop balcony, and being woken up by dog fights in the middle of the night, I feel like I am truly living the vida peruana now! haha But it's great, I talked to our host mom for a while this morning and she is so sweet. There are like 5 "houses" all connected like a compound here and she said they are all her family. So everytime we come in the gate I feel like we see someone new!

This morning I got to do rounds in the Daniel Carrion (poor) hospital in the women's surgery unit. A sweet med student from here, Ansley, took us around with the doctors. It was crazy. All the women who have had surgery or about to are all in ONE room, it truly looks like an army ward off the movies...The medicine here is so old fashioned, NO computers in the hospital, it seems so unsanitary, dirty beds and blankets, literally just the bare essentials. Most of the surgeries done here are just gastrointestinal so I saw lots of cases of intestinal calculos (stones), which apparently is really common in women here because of their diets. I saw one women who was abused badly by her lover with ribs broken, one 86 yr old indigenous Incan woman whose intestines were all blocked with hair from her food and she has pneumonia in her lungs! There are many indigenous people in this hospital, which is obvious by their traditional Peruvian dress, with wool woven shawls and the hats and rugged rugged faces. Ansley told me that many speak just Quechua or both. She spoke no Spanish so really I just would ask her what I did not catch from the doctors which was a lot and she would explain more in Spanish, then I would explain in English to my partner from FIMRC! Then we went to Rosario and did lesson on First Aid to kids, lots of fun, I basically had to wing a lot of it in Spanish, but I can already feel myself getting more comfortable just speaking. The kids loved participating and volunteering with CPR and choking and such. We go back this afternoon to do more lessons to Moms and kids and play with the kids more. We have decided we want to go buy the kids some nets for their soccer goals and basketball goals and some more balls, because they have like 2 basketballs total and no nets. We played soccer with basketballs! So hopefully we can find that for them and give it to them before we go.

After nearly inflicting 3rd degree burns on myself from the hostel shower because apparently only the hot water faucet worked not the cold, and you had to do a dance to even get water to come out, we finally got on the bus to Huancayo, which was an awesome comfortable bus! About 8 hours later we made it to Huancayo, with only really one girl in our group getting altitude sickness on the way...just so happens that she was sitting behind me and we got the pleasure of getting vomit on us...lovely...But the scenary was awesome, beautiful mountains and rivers, but we passed through some horrible slums and poverty on the way, especially outside of Lima for a while...wow living in Peru in the mountains of the central highlands is very primitive and very rugged...We were met by our very sweet host mom, Elena, and our host home is neat. We are joined to like 4 other houses with other families and lots of dogs and some roosters! haha Although Huancayo is a "city" and there are about 300,000 people who live here it is very rugged and impoverished living. Today we went to the hospital for the poor that we will do rounds in every morning. Totally different than hospitals in the US. It was very very primitive, no elevators, saw people being carried up stairs on old timey stretchers to surgery. It is ALL espanol!! All women and all men no matter what they have are kept in like one room for each gender, sanitation not so much a concern! I talked to some Peruvian med students who will do rounds with. We are split into groups of two, and I am in surgery for the first two weeks, then internal medicine the next two. Really only me and one other girl speak Spanish out of all 9 of us, so it has been interesting, everyone has been depending on me to understand and translate, which is hard but kinda cool! After the hospital, we went to Rosario Orphanage to give a lesson on drug addictions which we had to come up with ourselves last minute last night and on the bus ride...en espanol! haha a quick welcome i had to translate all of our ideas into a lesson in Spanish, but it surprising went well and we played a fun game of charades with the kids that they loved! We go back this afternoon to give drug addiction lessons to moms at the orphanage and another group of kids...my group is awesome, we all get along really well and are having a good time!

Made it safe and sound to Lima after an exhausting and long night of flying through the night. Arrival was a bit overwhelming as I was on my own, and had to manage and speak Spanish enough at 4:30 am working on no real sleep to find my driver out of a mob of drivers trying to get me to use their taxi services! Loco! But I found him, and one other guy and I then got dropped off at a super sketchy looking typical hostel in an alley, when I began to think what the heck am I getting myself into...But then I happened to meet 2 girls who were on their way back from volunteering with FIMRC in another location, Trujillo. Such a blessing! They were awesome and told me about how awesome their experience was volunteering with FIMRC, and we explored Lima together all day. Lima itself is a very rough huge city, although we are near the Miraflores district which is the "nicer" area. Mostly we just walked along the coastal cliffs and parks along the road. Turns out my hostel is not scary at all, and I have been meeting and hanging out with all kinds of interesting people from literally ALL over the world on all kinds of different journeys. I mean from Holland, Germany, China, Bolivia, and then boring us from the US. So many different languages are going on around this common room it's crazy! It's super kinda gross living, but it's a cool environment, everyone just sort of hangs around. Some of them have been traveling the world going on a year now...crazy. One guy from Germany who has been traveling the world for a year said something that really stuck with me, "This world is the only one we have here, so I want to see all of my world!" Right on...We have all just been sitting around all night swapping stories. We leave tomorrow morning at 11:30 for about an 8 hour bus drive to Huancayo through the mountains reaching 15,000 ft above sea level at some points! Whewww pray the mate de coca tea saves us from the menacing soroche (altitude sickness) of the Andes! Excited to get started working with FIMRC Monday!