Happy Birthday Dad!! Much love from both of us, hope you had a great day! Today we donned our special masks and went to brave the tuberculosis wards. Dr. Iglesias explained to us that there is thought to be a 100% exposure rate to tuberculosis in El Salvador, but not everyone develops the disease. The Saldana Hospital where we work was originally devoted entirely to TB, so it is considered the place to go in the country if you have a difficult case of TB. Most of the men that we saw were alcoholics who were malnourished, which makes one more [View Full Entry]

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November to April is the dry season in El Salvador which means that it is 85-95 every day and that it rains once every other month at the very most. True to the season, it has been beautiful and sunny every day since we've been here, except last night around 10 there was a downpour for about 30 min and the power even went out for a few minutes. Unfortunately the rain didn't last long enough to cool things down so today it was pretty humid out. Today we went to Chaletenango again and the drive seemed to be a little [View Full Entry]

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Jak przewidywalismy, Salwador nie zaskoczyl nas mnogoscia miejsc do zwiedzania i rozwinieta szeroko pojeta turystyka:) Zatrzymalismy sie tylko w dwoch miejscach i tylko po to zeby odsapnac po meczacej pozdrozy schoolbusami. Najwieksza atrakcja byl funt lososia wciagniety przez wrubla podczas kolacji w Santa Ana. AAA i jeszcze jedno - w Hondurasie najwyrazniej dzialaja nam telefony (przynajmniej smsy), wiec jakby co to piszcie, piszcie, piszcie... EEEE. Maly update - telefony przestaly dzialac po przejechaniu 50 km, i nie dzialaja nadal. Kto pisal, niech wybaczy brak odpowiedzi... ¡On [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday Dr. Iglesias told us that we would be observing surgeries at the hospital today. He also told us that while the OR is the one building at the hospital that does have air conditioning, there is a central control for all of the rooms, so if they are doing a C-section in one room, they have to turn off the A/C in all of the rooms, so that the baby doesn't get hypothermia. I'm sure many of you know that neither of us particularly enjoys surgery under the best of conditions, so the thought of being involved in surgery in [View Full Entry]

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This morning we started out at the hospital and Dr. Iglesias told us to bring an extra set of scrubs since we would be doing Ob/Gyn and might help to deliver a baby. When we arrived there were no deliveries or C-sections expected for the day, which was both good and bad news for us. While it definitely will be interesting to see how obstetrics works at a hospital with fewer resources than we are accustomed to, it also might be difficult to watch and a little bit gross due to the lack of A/C. We did see 2 women post [View Full Entry]

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Mange eg treffte paa min veg aatvara meg mot aa reise til El Salvador, landet som i mange aar var herja av borgarkrig og anna korrupsjon. Men eg tregar ikkje eit sekund paa at eg tok turen hit likevel. Der er riktignok mange byar med ulumske og til dels farlege nabolag, men dei lyt ein berre prove aa halde seg unna.. No hadde det seg likevel slik at eg maatte innom eit slikt nabolag eit dogn, berre for aa ha ein plass aa sove til neste dag. Eg maatte ein tur i minibanken for aa overtrekke kredittkortet, og traska rundt i [View Full Entry]

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Today we got up and got ready for work, but Dr. Iglesias called around 8 and told us that he wasn't feeling well so we wouldn't be going to work today. Katie and I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to go to the art gallery, El Arbol de Dios, that is a few blocks away. The gallery is owned by Fernando Llort, who is pretty much the most famous artist in El Salvador. He is most well known for designing the tiles on the front of the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador and for starting an art school [View Full Entry]

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Happy Easter everyone! As I'm sure you can imagine, Easter is a pretty big deal here so the whole country is pretty much shut down. Since there wasn't much to do outside the apartment, we spent the day studying and watching movies. I made mac and cheese for dinner which was definitely a little sad. We talked to Katie's mom on Skype and she was cooking something delicious (as she always is) so we definitely missed home a little bit today. But anyway we hope everyone had a great holiday, we miss and love you all! [View Full Entry]

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Thursday morning Mr. Iglesias picked us up early and we were on our way to the beach! As I've mentioned, the Holy Week is a big holiday here and pretty much everyone but the police have off this week, so the drive that should have taken about 30 minutes ended up being double that. We didn't mind the drive, though, as the trip was filled with interesting cultural experiences. First, we saw a pickup truck with 3 men in the back accompanied by 3 huge pinatas and we thought about following them to their party (because who doesn't love a good [View Full Entry]

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This morning we got into the car and were greeted by the smooth sounds of New Kids on the Block pumping from Dr. Iglesias' stereo. It was especially awesome for two reasons:1. this was not the radio playing but a mix CD that Dr. Iglesias had made and 2. Once we got going, he joined us in singing along. After some sweet rocking out in the car, we arrived at the hospital and went to the Internal Medicine ward again. Today our focus was on HIV/AIDS so we saw 2 patients with AIDS and a number of complications. One man who [View Full Entry]

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