Otovalo Market

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Bueños Todos!

Life in Ecuador is amazing. The first few days went so slow we all felt like we have been here forever, but now it´s been about a week which means 1/4 through! We had our first health brigade at a school yesterday which was good. We had teams of 3 and 8 teams staffing to 3 MDs and we saw about 100 kids plus some adults and some curbside consults. We were all stuffed into one room and did this nonstop for two hours. If you calculate it out, we spent less than 15 minutes with each patient...the US govt would be so proud. a lot of them were well child checks. We were supposed to give albendazole to every child since they all complain of belly pain and probably have parasites, but we ran out after 30 kids...that was frustrating. Afterwards we had some time off for lunch in Otovalo and then Spanish class again. We have broken into smaller groups now of four people. I am in the lowest group haha as expected. BUT it is awesome learning! I am learning a lot and feeling more confident. It definitely is Spanish immersion...the teacher is not allowed to talk to us in English. Last night, the doc running this program had a bday party for his son who is in the states but turned 8 yesterday. He had his son´s friends come dance and then break a piñata! I had some wine yesterday out of a screw top carton for $2.45 a glass and it was amazing! It was vino rojo...so good!
Today we toured the hospital and itwas pretty interesting. They have a lot of facilities, but not many patients...most beds were empty. ALL surgeries are FREE!! I guess thats the advantage of a nationalized medicine. The hospitals are not very sanitary...there´s definitely no antiseptic at doorway entries. Also the residents here livein Quito and commute to Otovalo...about 1.5 to 2 hr commute. Thus, they work 24hrs a day for 4 days in a row then have 3 days off! The MD showing us around trained in surgery and lives in otovalo, but for his residency he did 24 hrs on and 24 hrs off every week for 5 years! Crazy. Since most of the specialty surgeons live in quito, he is often paged for all the emergency surgeries so he does everything from obgyn, uro, gen surg, trauma, etc.
Then we went to the otovalo market which is held every saturday. It is just a huge marketplace set up along the streets and you bargain for what you want. I think seeing my mom do it in India throughout the years definitely helped! I got tons of great things for decent prices I think.
Tomorrow we have off so a bunch of us are going horseback riding! Then maybe the superbowl?
O yeah I had some helado (ice cream) today which was maro (blackberry-ish) and it was great! We also tried this fruit that is like called something like guavamachete bc it looks like a huge green pea pod in a machete shape and the inside is very interesting. Its like oval furry looking things with big black seeds. It is like eating cotton or something with a little bit of pulp. Very interesting.
I learn new words every day and usually end up trying a new food every day! It is great!
Hope everyone is doing well!
Nidhi

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Comments

[Nidster]

*Bienvenidos a Todos!....my first hello made no sense...still lots of learning to do!

[Nidster]

Correction to my hello
*Bienvenidos a Todos! ....still learning!