Chone

I´ve now been in Chone for three days. Here´s a picture of what it´s like: firstly, there are boatloads of dirt and mud everywhere. Fortunately, this part of the year is the coolest and driest, so walking to and from the hospital (a 30-minute jaunt) isn´t too bad. But for the first and probably only time in my life, today I saw a machine plowing a city street. Anyway, tiny tiendas of various sorts populate said streets, and everywhere you look you see stray dogs of all sizes and colors, people of all ages sitting outside in cheap plastic chairs, and of course, mud of all consistencies. There is a thriving bus and taxi system here, so you can´t walk anywhere without hearing the jubilant notes of popular Spanish tunes blaring through diesel-fueled rumblings. Sometimes I hop on a bus, mostly so I can experience the town´s scenery with the soundtrack of Latin America in my ears. It´s fun, at least the first few times.
At the hospital, I´ve been able to observe some surgeries and interview a few patients in the Emergency Room, which is more like an outpatient clinic than an ED. I´ve seen a C-section (my second birth-- a boy!), a combination cholecystectomy and ovarian cystectomy, a breast reduction, a wrist ganglion cystectomy, and a cleaning and escharotomy for a third-degree leg burn. I´ve also tried to decipher a lot of patient charts and looked at a few neonatal chest radiographs.
Tomorrow, my friends Sarang, Jesel, and I travel four hours to the beach, Porto Lopez (¨The Poor Man´s Galapagos¨) to meet the rest of the people in our program who went today. Sorry, no time to upload photos-- should have some up by next Wednesday. Ciao!