Disclaimer: This entry is less on my travels and more my thoughts and musings. Consider yourself informed. Getting to work at the Centro for Recuperative Nutrition was like getting to work at a live-in WIC clinic. Great career experience (plus we were indoors with AC, could I ask for anything better?) and it also gave me the opportunity to put to use some of my dietary advice for hypertension and anemia more-so than when working with the other populations because there seemed to be a greater awareness of their dietary correlations. Still, it is frustrating trying to explain to many people that their conceptions about anemia are inaccurate. Most individuals just want to receive something, though I don’t think even they know what it is they want. As a result, most put down anemia as a ... read more

This is hot, frustrating and tiring work, but I wouldn’t prefer it any other way. Monday morning finds our team heading out to El Poste, an indigenous Tsatchila community about an hour outside of Santo Domingo. As we arrive to our worksite we find ourselves once again facing some difficulties, but we’ve gotten used to things not being ideal so coming up with solutions to unusual dilemmas is now the norm. Of the three permanent structures in the area, one is being used as a school-room leaving us with a four walled structure for the examination rooms and an open aired shelter for the pharmacy and triage station. Ants cover the floor of both structures (I have never seen so many ants in my life) but a push-broom takes care of that. If you’ve never found ... read more

The fumes of disel fuel and cigarette smoke asault my senses and I walk through the terminal. The surrounding landscape is blotted out my the darkness of night, and illuminated only briefly as the lightening sillouettes the mountains against the sky. I am in Quito. It would be unfair to characterize a visit to Ecuador as a step back in time. Ecuador is a land of contrast and change. Old traditions coexist with imported vehicals and internet cafes. The high altitudes of the Andes fall down towards the sealevel of the coast. A land rife with continuous political upheavel and yet the conversation rarely turns towards politics. Politically charged graffiti covers many of the side streets and building walls near our hostel in the Historic District, accusing both of Ecuador’s recent presidential candidates of being corrupt ... read more

The head must bow and the back will have to bend, Wherever the people may go; A few more days and the trouble all will end In the field where sugar-canes may grow; A few more days for to tote the weary load, No matter, 'twill never be light, A few more days till we totter on the road, Then my old Kentucky home, good night! Our last day here in Lexington before we offically become homeless citizens of the states. Amid the endless rush to pack, we broke ourselves away long enough to walk through campus one more time so that I could take pictures of places that I would like to remember. It's peaceful here once all the students are gone--trafiic lets up, no more crowds chattering away on their cell-phones clogging up the ... read more