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Published: September 27th 2006
Travelling is all about learning new things, and the first thing I learnt this morning is that it is unwise to decide to wash your hair in the shower BEFORE checking that the hot tap isn´t just there for show. It would have been warmer to bathe in a mountain stream in the middle of the night, which I may have to try if things don´t heat up a bit by tomorrow.
But anyway, today was my first at the hospital. For the first week I´m in the General Medicine Women´s ward. There are 16 beds, half of which were donated by the German Red Cross. It looks like something from a film, sort of Victorian era. It´s one big room with very high ceilings, no curtains between beds and lots of matronly nurses. Just outside is a garden where they grow the medicinal plants. There´s quite a range of pathologies - from pericarditis and aspergillosis to scleroderma and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura! The hospital itself is absolutely FREEZING - the enormous windows are contantly open (I think to avoid the build-up of any nasty smells or infectious agents). It´s a tad difficult to follow what´s going on all the time, as most of the patients are speak Quechua and not Spanish. Needless to say, Quechua is not one of my strong points.
The weather is very variable - one minute is warm and sunny and the next the skies just open and you can´t go out for the next 45 mins.
In other news, the shy five year old orphan called Liliana who lives in the same house as me came and chatted to me today and when I took her photo and said she was very pretty, she wrapped her arms round my neck in a quick hug before running off!
Right, well thank you if you´ve read this far!
¡Hasta pronto!
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Shanaz
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Ah, the joys of cold showers
I know that feeling only too well - the moment of horror when the freezing water hits you but it's too late to do anything about it... The little girl sounds adorable and the hospital sounds like one of those ones from an old war film - you gotta upload photos soon! (Are you allowed to take photos in the hospital?!) I got my own (little) taste of Latin America today - had to go to the Brazilian Consulate for work to pick up passports for two people going to Brazil next week (unfortunately neither of them me) and was surrounded by people chattering away in Portuguese. Thought of you. Oh, and in other news - Mon passed her exams! Yay! She's off to Canada tomorrow. S.x