Well, out of everything I have done here, this is the most extreme. We have just been caving, which involved actually swimming through fast moving water deep inside a network of caves, by candle-light. Check out the pics [View Full Entry]

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On top of the world Friday, the Spaniards Gemma, Cristina and I decided to give the puestos a miss and went to see some Mayan ruins only 40km from San Juan. We were dropped off by the camionetta at a fork in the road, the bus continued right, so we walked left up an emormous hill. The scenery was amazing as you can see from the pics. We continued and found some amazing ruins, that felt like they were on top of the world. After a few hours taking it in and a picnic, we headed back, only to find there [View Full Entry]

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AKA the Guatemetecan Midwife. These brightly coloured ladies are the fear of all medical students in Guatemala. It is the responsibility of the students during their public health rotation (which is what I doing), to monitor and meet with these woman twice a month in at their local outreach clinics, and once a month juntos in a school in San Juan. The students also have to monitor mala practica of these scary women and teach them basic facts about pregnancy, including when to push, warning signs before delivery for pre-eclampsia and malpresentations (breech etc), and after delivery [View Full Entry]

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Another weekend with the Spaniards. We only started planning this trip on Wednesday and left on Thursday........ I convinced Gemma that bringing her guidebook would be a good idea, it is also a lonely planet but in Spanish, saves me some work explaining. She agreed but them continued to leave it on the bus when we arrived! The bus journey to Puerto Barrios (the eastiest place to head close to the carribean from Guate), took 6 hours. We had all fallen asleep within two or three hours (they were playing the Dr Dolittle DVD in Spanish!) but woke up to scorching [View Full Entry]

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After saying goodbye to Erin and missing the other students leaving for the city (apparently it was a national holiday on Friday and Monday), I was introduced to two new medical students from Espana who had just arrived. Suddenly I became the most knowledgable extranjero (foriegner) and it became my job to explain the ins and outs of the centro de salud (health centre), basic needs such as where to buy food and anti-diarrheals and Guatemalan culture in my poor Spanish. [View Full Entry]

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Thanks to another favour from Ana Lu, we managed to talk our way onto a Guatemalan Air Force plane from Guatemala city to the sweaty rainforests of Peten. We squeezed onto little plane and sat lengthways with our backs to the windows, a pile of bags in the aisle. The windows were covered in white plastic so visability was limited but it was a quick flight and left me far less nauseas than the expensive jumbos! We had been told to find a pilot named Tenente Julio Ceran at the other end and thank heavens he was waiting for us on [View Full Entry]

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Erin, me, Shirley and Ana Lucia R (two Guatemalan Students) headed to Reu to stay at the finca of one of the other Guatemalan students (Ana Lu). After getting up at 4:50am Friday morning to help with a delivery (I delivered a the placenta, I am so proud sniff...!) we were dragged out dancing with Ana Lu! Of course we had a fantastic time in an Alfred Hitchcock themed bar, pretty bizarre! We met some of Ana Lu´s boyfreind´s friends most of them pilots for the Guatemalan Air Force. They got a bit over excited when they clapped eyes two white [View Full Entry]

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Whilst in Antigua for a breif visit this weekend, we were told that Volcan de Pacaya (45 minutes drive from Antigua), had erupted in April and that you could still see lava! We talked to our hotelier Saturday night at 22:30 and managed to wangle a bus ride and entrance to the ecological park where the volcano was. 5:15 Sunday morning we were up eating breakfast and then on our way with a bus full of other gringos to the volcano. We walked 5Km up, to about half way up. It was too dangerous to go any further. While we were [View Full Entry]

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Last week and Monday of last week, we have been visiting puestos or outreach clinic, in the countryside around San Juan Sacatepequez. They are generally run by a nurse and a comedrona (a midwife, but without any training, most of them have just had loads of kids themselves from what I can work out!!). Most of the work done at these puestos involves public health matters like family planning, vaccinations, and education about hygine, infections, clean water, insects etc. Each of the 8 students is assigned to a puesto on a specific day and hopefully I will be able to observe [View Full Entry]

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Medical Elective 2006 Here some pictures of the rural clinic where I am living, studying and working [View Full Entry]

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