Earthquakes suck

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Breakfast at the resort left a little to be desired. The coco puff like stuff mixed with the strawberry rice krispie like things made for a decent cereal bowl, but all the milk in this country tastes skunked. They say it´s because they feed the cows onions or something crazy like that, so it supposedly gives the milk a fishy taste. I think it all just went sour... Nasty. And it´s unheard of to just drink a glass of milk. In fact they look at you like you´re crazy if you ask for one, and they try to put it in your coffee for you. The eggs, though, have been the same everwhere we´ve eaten them: runny. And if there ever was a place I don´t want to eat runny eggs, it´s in a developing country (although ours probably have higher rates of campylobacter and salmonella). I even asked for them to be thoroughly cooked once, and they just came back less runny. eck.

We checked out of the resort early and hit the road for our first clinic visit of the day (no rest for the weary! This really is a working trip...) Fortunately, I was one of the few who didn´t have to battle with a nasty hangover the next morning. Our first stop was the hospital in Ica. It´s one of the main hospitals in the area. During the earthquake, they saw a lot of patients. However, the building had partially collapsed, not to mention overflowing with patients. They converted offices and outpatient clinics to ward rooms and clinic rooms. 1 year later, they´re still functioning like that. Almost no work has been done on the main hospital. The only work we saw while we were there is a couple of guys demolishing the Xray suite which was left unusable in the earthquake. We had a nice little tour of the hospital, including a few interesting cases and a very well-prepared case presentation by one of the 1st year residents. TB is so common there that if a patient comes in with pleural effusion (lungs with layer of fluid on chest xray), it´s TB until proven otherwise. One poor 19yr old girl had such a bad infection that her whole lung had filled with pus almost to the top (had an infection on top of the TB). They sucked 3L of pus out of her chest, and were still sucking it, with a bottle of nasty pus sitting on the floor by her bed. Sorry for the non-medicals. Just wanted you to get the full experience. 😉 If I don´t have TB by the time I leave this country I´ll consider myself very lucky. Don´t worry mom, I´m just kidding. I don´t have TB. It´s actually pretty hard to catch in the situations we were seeing people. Once on treatment, they´re not infective either, so all those pts in the hospital should not have been contagious.

Back on the accursed bus (the stop/go, jerky driving, and tons of horn gets old really fast), and off to lunch. Another good meal. I´ve had amazing culinary luck on this trip! I credit that entirely to Dr. Martin. Nothing fancy that time, just a chicken sandwich, but pretty tasty! Interesting that they add hard-boiled eggs to most of their sandwiches. Kind of weird. But at least they´re not runny...

Our next destination was Pisco, that I was actually pretty excited to visit -- mainly because I wanted to get a bottle of pisco from Pisco. And naturally, we didn´t get a chance to buy and pisco from Pisco. This town was the hardest hit in the earthquake. According to the locals, for every 4 buildings damaged in Ica, 1 was damaged in Pisco, though the town is much smaller so it was devastating. That was where the church collapsed. Driving down the street just shows massive destruction. Very little construction. The clinic there was a bit smaller. We didn´t see any patients, but instead had a lecture on the earthquake (which was probably the low-point in all of our educational activities. About a third of us nodded off at some point or another... very long and detailed with no pictures). When it was thankfully over, we loaded the buses and headed back to Lima, with a bootlegged copy of Master and Commander playing on our fancy bus (it had a kitchen! Albeit non-functioning, but still a kitchen).

Somewhere in there we visited a medical school (can´t remember if it was Ica or Pisco, but I think it was Ica). Many of the classrooms were damaged, but despite the damage, they actually still use some of them. Scary! As luck would have it, they had JUST FINISHED a new section of the school before the earthquake hit. Some survived, but much of it is unusable. We toured their anatomy lab (they´re all in finals, so not there). Same nasty formaldehyde smell. They had bodies just sitting out with no one around (for non-medicals, we would never do that in our country -- bad for preservation but also doesn´t show proper respect for the person who donated their body). What they had that we didn´t was fetuses dissected. Some from genetic abnormalities, and some probably from other untimely losses. On an academic level it was very interesting to see, but on a personal level, it was pretty freakish they way they preserved some of them.

When we got back to Lima, it was already after 8, so we just checked in, dropped off our stuff, and headed out to eat. I joined a small group going to an amazing italian place: La Trattoria. Not much different than italian in the states, but INCREDIBLE food! The walls are covered with magazine articles, pictuers, interviews, covers, all with the chef. And she was there that night too. Even served our food! It was pretty cool. About halfway into our meal (just before the main course came out), my sinuses rebelled and completely shut off. I couldn´t breath through my nose, which meant I couldn´t smell or taste. I was so bummed. I struggled through my ravioli (which I think tasted incredible), then was really depressed that I couldn´t partake in the amazing desserts (they have a whole other dessert menu and are known for their desserts). So I went outside, and found a pharmacy down the street. As many may know, you can get almost everything over the counter here. You have to be a little suspect about the quality (like I don´t think I´d buy my anti-retrovirals for HIV over the counter -- and no I don´t have HIV), but I figured Affrin would be pretty safe. I hadn´t used it before so didn´t know what to expect. Man am I a convert! I don´t know how or why I lived without it! Within seconds of squirting that stuff up my nose (which is a large part of what had kept me from trying it before), I could breathe completely normally. My sense of smell and taste was still a little blunted by the cold, but at least I could taste! Before I had the Affrin, when I was sitting at the table watching everyone contemplate and discuss which amazing dessert they would try, I was really getting depressed/mad. I think if I ever had a condition that prevented me from tasting things, I would have to try very hard to find enough joy in the world otherwise. How horrible. Then again, maybe it´s just me. I AM a good eater... The desserts were unique. Most were served with creative sugar sculptures, and all were very good. All in all not bad. By the time we were done and got back to the hotel, it was already 10:30, and I was still exhausted from sleep deprivation (no matter how hard I try I can´t seem to get enough sleep on this trip). However, instead of going to bed early, I was up really late putting together pictures from this trip (I put together a complication of everyone´s pics so we could all take it before we scattered). Yet another late night, but fortunately I could sleep in until 7:30 the next morning (ugh). Can´t wait to sleep for a whole day when I get home!

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