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La Y de la Laguna is a community of about 30 families situated on a hill overlooking a rapidly vanishing megadiversity zone. Its heart gives rise to two sopping trailroads, in the form of a ´Y´, falling towards about 12 communities known as ¨Al Dentro.¨ It also overlooks a distinctly ´Y´ shaped laguna. Thus begins my confusion concerning what has been my home the last month, and where I will remain the next five.
I arrived in La Y (pronounced ¨La Yeh¨) the 18th of April, or about 10 days before scheduled. The night of the 17th I got a phone call in Quito saying the rural doctor assigned to the clinic had a bellyache and decided to head home early, before the weekend rush. The next morning I rode my unprepared, reeling, but thrilled skeleton and loaded bike down the Avenida Colon towards the Trans Esmeraldas terminal. I say towards because I didn´t quite make it intact, had a spill at about 30km per hour, ending thankfully in minor road rash, bruised bones, the tainting of my only pair of pants, and a thorough testing of the helmet (always, always, always
La Y
This is the main chunk of La Y from the tower (zoomed). wear a helmet!).
Eight hours later I was standing in the open bed of an old Chevy truck, having a ¨conversation¨ with a few passengers, realizing what was to be the first of many subsequent trials of El Páramo (the region surrounding La Y): ¨¿That is Spanish you are speaking?¨ My love for (and dueling frustration with) these people grows by the day, but the majority speak like the first day of ventriloquy school, they have the static lips down but lack enunciation. Of course they think the same for me, so we have an missunderstanding relationship.
I spent that first night trying to prepare myself for the next day. The next day I spent preparing myself thoroughly for that night´s sleep. I´m not saying that my average of three patients a day in medical school outpatient clinics didn´t prepare me for the 15 I had Saturday or the 13 on Sunday... it was an interesting change of pace. Julie helped me tremendously those first few days, without her it would have been hopeless. Which reminds me that I have to introduce the clinic a bit
for any of this to make sense.
The clinic. The Subcentro in La Y is run jointly by the Ministry de Salud and the NGO I work for, a German-US based organization called Foundation Human Nature. FHN was started by a German 4th year medical student who stumbled on a family sick with Malaria (falciparum), whom he treated with prophylactic meds and promised to return to build a clinic. This he and some other volunteers did the following year (2001), and so the Subcentro was born. In time it has developed into a more sustainable, integrative approach to healthcare for the region, with yearly or bi-yearly vaccination brigades, a system of village health ¨vigilantes,¨ and a yearly assigned ¨rural doctor¨ from the Ministerio. La Y is now relatively packed with Gringos; here is the cast:
Julie: A kick ass volunteer nurse who has been thoroughly underutilized here, does a mean chair dance, and happens to live about 15 blocks from my house in Seattle.
Josh: A renegade environmental volunteer from Austin Texas. Titles: English teacher, builder of composts, library manager, and star of BOTH
the Eighties Townsquare Dance-off AND the Machete Strewn Corner Store Limbo Throwdown.
Karin: Volunteer coordinator and holder-togetherer of things. Wielder of the internet phone I sometimes steal.
Guido: Local indispensable laboratory tech, knower of all things local, and the only real semi-permanent element of this hodgepodge facility.
Mariana: Freshly departed, but recently the library coordinator and all around doer of things and lover of people.
Edwin: Salsa guru, dentist, and director of FHN Ecuador.
Katy: Local Ecuadoran nurse, machine in the mud, woman who has to deal with a new set of clueless foreign volunteers every couple
months and does it with a smile.
Aude: She gets us money and makes us al feel good when the drama arrives, in her kind, French-Spanish accent.
Dr. Juan: Local doctor interested in Emergency Medicine who told me Intraparenchemal Hemorrages are ¨superchevere¨ (really cool). He has been here one day of my first month. That´s all I have to say because of something my mama taught me.
The patients we see are largely sick children with occasionally sick adults, low back
The Haven Above
Above the casa. This is the place to be when the rain is blowing horizontally and the back porch is a no go. pain, machete wounds, and the occasional emergency (acute abdomen...). Common illnesses are loads of intestinal parasites (nearly ubiquitous), viral/bacterial diarrhea, typhoid, spattered malaria and dengue (undiagnosed dengue, nobody can afford the 5 dollar test), and the normal spectrum of low back pain and zebras (not the kind you should expect when you hear hoofbeats in Africa, the kind you look for with wide-net labs in the States).
A few more tidbits about life here: The back deck of the clinic overlooks the laguna and a misty, disappearing jungle. From there, flanked by a hammock and two mammoth heads of bananas, you can see toucans in the morning and hear howler monkeys barking (ever further) in the distance at night. The kitchen is the next thing you hit walking forward, where we enjoy 2 round, fried meals per day, and either make or buy our 3rd. On the way across the road to the house you hit the approximately 30 meter tall water tower built with an under-funded foreign grant. It will never pump water but makes a hell of a place for a lost foreigner to look out at his new home and
See The Toucans?
Me neither, but sometimes you can from here, right after the milk arrives from the cow in the pueblo. recollect/bury himself in the pain and victories of this place.
OK, just want to mention the brigada, then I´m done. Two weeks ago I had the pleasurably memorable experience of tromping out one stem of the ´Y´ as far as the community of Viche, which is about 5 hours of sloppy, knee-deep muddy fun from the furthest reaches of the camionettas. For one week we slept on floors, bathed in rivers and waterfalls, vaccinated, and treated patients in five communities, some of whom had not seen a doctor in 15 years, if ever. This is likely to be a relatively large part of my work here, as the concentration of medical volunteers will be pretty high coming on July. I can live with that.
I cannot wait to see all you Seattlites and Transplants (I am coming the 29th of May through the 7th of June for one last go with the graduating class). To the rest of you, I miss and love you all. A
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Mariela
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Hey! How you doing stranger? jaja
How is everything going andy? I sent you a mail, I don't know if you got it...hey I took a good look at your travel blog and it is great! My whole family always ask me about you, so does Ana and Claudia...I hope your are fine, alive and kicking! Please write to me so we can know about you! Kisses from your friends in Argentina (Buenos Aires) Mariela