Sand, Discos and Friends

Hola mis amigos!

Since last time, I have fallen even more in love with Peru!  I am now a combi expert and I think I have tried just about all the traditional Peruvian food! I frequent the outdoor market, eating two course meals for 5 soles (about 2 dollars), drinking surtidos (mixed fruit juices), and eating every interesting looking fruit and vegetable in sight! If only I could speak Spanish better, I think I would be like the locals! 

My personal life has been a bet hectic lately, super emotional, with a lot of confusion and little clarity.  Without going into detail (because who actually wants to hear a sob story?!), I think this minor (or major) bump in my life has put things into perspective.  I think that it's good to have a little jolt that makes you realize what is important in life, what relationships are worth pursuing, and what kind of life I would really like to live.  I guess what it comes down to is that, like most people, I just want a life full of love and laughter.  A life that doesn't take things so seriously but enjoys the simple moments, a life in community with others, a life serving those in need, and a life full of joy. 

With that said, I must admit that I have embracing the beauty that Peru has to offer.  Last weekend I went to Huacachina, a desert oasis about 5 hours south of Lima.  The actual oasis is murky, green, and smells a bit like sewage, but the sand dunes surrounding the oasis are amazing!  It felt like I was in Egypt or somewhere, definitely not Peru!  I took a dune buggy for a 2 hour excursion around the sand dunes.  It was both frightening and exhilarating!  I felt like a child, screaming and laughing (mostly at the older Japanese couple in front of me who were giggling like school girls)!  The driver stopped 4 times, handed us each a snowboard, and one by one we laid on our bellies, with our arms tucked under us and our feet in the air, and were pushed down huge slopes of sand.  It was terrifying!  About halfway down each slope, I thought, wow, one bad bump and I might actually die!  Luckily there were only a few minor injuries and a lot of sand in the face. 

I have also been salsa dancing as often as possible.  I was lucky in Huacachina where there were plenty of gay men eager to teach a gringa how to dance salsa.  I was tossed from gay man to gay man, each outdoing the other in moving their hips, in dipping, and fancy footwork.  Turns out I LOVE Salsa dancing! 

I feel like I finally am making friends with the people at the hospital.  While the language barrier is still very present, I feel like I am at least understanding them better and am able to laugh with them when they joke.  Today we celebrated Father's Day and our friend Danni's birthday.  We got very little work done because like any day of celebration, we spent the morning preparing!  It's so funny when they sing Happy Birthday because they start out singing in English all slow and boring and then start clapping and singing lively in Spanish. It's fantastic! 

Tomorrow my friend Dr. Tran comes to Peru! I am so excited to have a friend to share the city with!  First thing on our agenda:  Salsa dancing of course!!  Nate is coming in a week and then we are off to Cuzco and maybe Arequipas...so much fun ahead! 

Thanks for all of your support and love.  I miss you all very much and can't wait to be with you again state side!  Besitos!

Curry and Combis

This week has been way more exciting than last week now that I am working at Hospital 2 de Mayo.  For now I am just shadowing the nurses working on the Cough Project (a project that measures both of frequency of cough and the bacterial load in a cough as a TB patient progresses through treatment), but hopefully I will start to get to do a little bit more hands-on work.  The project actually reminds me a lot of what I am doing in my regular job in the states, but with a lot more paperwork!  The project uses incentives like money and food to recruit participants for the study and offers patients free doctor visits, x-rays, sputum collections, and blood draws.  It's a pretty good deal for the patient except for the fact that the study requires them to wear a device that captures the frequency of their cough (basically a fanny-pack with a microphone and recording device) 24 hours a day for the first 2 weeks.  It is so interesting watching the nurses interact with the patients.  They are so kind, so smart and so good at convincing the patients to participate in the study.  Nurses in Peru go to nursing school for 5 years and then an additional 2 years if they want to specialize.  For the first year out of nursing school it is a requirement for all nurses to work for next to nothing usually in one of the outlying provinces.  It's quite the sacrifice to be a nurse and they don't even make that much money!  It's so apparent that the nurses are nurses because they love what they do. 

Before I get to combis and curry, I just wanted to share one more thing about my experience at Hospital 2 de Mayo.  Tuesday was my first day working at the Hospital and we made a trip into the heart of Lima to find a patient.  We drove right into the slums of Lima (which are like these tiny houses stacked on top of each other on the hills) to a small clinic.  As we were driving down the street filled with dirty children, people selling fruit and vegetables, and piles of garbage, the driver, Jorge, proudly says, "Ah, this Lima! Isn't it beautiful!".  I have to admit I was a little surprised by his comment since I had to look away a few times because the sites were so overwhelming.  Marilyn, one of the nurses, always says that Jorge is Lima's biggest fan, and all joking aside, I think Jorge really does see the beauty in the slums.  I think that Jorge really is proud of his city and despite the enormous amounts of poverty, the filthy streets, the traffic, the trash, I think that he is right, that that is Lima and it is beautiful.

On a lighter note...

I successfully took a combi by myself today!  A combi is one of the craziest forms of transportation in Lima.  It's a minivan or small bus with a caller who yells the destination as the driver swerves around traffic.  You have to wave down the combi (hoping you are waving down the correct one since the signs posted on the combis are never actually where they are really going), then it barely stops in time for you to hop on and hold on tight!  It's insane, but somehow I got to the hospital! 

And curry!  Oh my did we have a feast last night!  Some of the guys staying at my hostel decided that they wanted to make curry so they gathered up all the people in the hostel and we had a nice family style meal!  It was so nice to have home cooked, familiar, and delicious food!  I was so grateful for their culinary skills!  It was really nice to sit down, laugh, talk, and enjoy the company of other travelers. 

I feel like I am starting to find my place here but still struggling greatly with the language.  It's so frustrating to have language as such a barrier.  I just hope that I can start to communicate with everyone better and soon!  I am feeling less and less lonely and more and more excited to be in such a great city!

Miss you all and thank you for reading...