Monday, May 21, 2007
I am sitting in this coffee shop. There is an old man I know in here. His name is Tom, he comes every day around this time.
Sometimes I walk by his apartment and jazz is playing very loud.
He just came over and talked about the philosopher he's reading.
Sometimes I feel suffocated by this neighborhood and all these people. I live in an urban semi-village, or something like it. I can't walk outside my door without running into four or five people I know.
This makes me feel crazy some days. I think, I have only been here for five years and I already know so many people. And I'm meeting new people every day! Sometimes I think I should move away just so I can get some mental space and not feel bad because I should be calling so and so, keeping in touch with blah. Facebook baffles me: why would you want to put even more energy into a completely different network of relationships? Who has that kind of time?
On the other hand, on other days (like today) I feel incredibly grateful that anyone else will talk to me. It is good to be recognized by other humans.
Sometimes I walk by his apartment and jazz is playing very loud.
He just came over and talked about the philosopher he's reading.
Sometimes I feel suffocated by this neighborhood and all these people. I live in an urban semi-village, or something like it. I can't walk outside my door without running into four or five people I know.
This makes me feel crazy some days. I think, I have only been here for five years and I already know so many people. And I'm meeting new people every day! Sometimes I think I should move away just so I can get some mental space and not feel bad because I should be calling so and so, keeping in touch with blah. Facebook baffles me: why would you want to put even more energy into a completely different network of relationships? Who has that kind of time?
On the other hand, on other days (like today) I feel incredibly grateful that anyone else will talk to me. It is good to be recognized by other humans.
Friday, August 04, 2006
If you click on the link in the last entry and scroll down you can see a map of the city. I live on the far left edge of the map, just west of Polanco.
Woot!
Woot!
Today we climbed a pyramid. On top of a mountain.
I am tired. At the top, there were these weird ferret creatures that tried to eat us.
We have two new roommates, one from Columbia and one from nearby in Mexico, bringing us to six: me, Sharla, Kim (Northwestern), Amy (Nova Scotia), Armando y Davíd. It's getting a little crazy. Our rooms are all interconnected and we share a bathroom. Amy (in the little room on the roof) has to leave her room, go OUTSIDE, walk across the room to Sharla's room, climb the iron staircase into our room, and then pass through Armando and Davíd's room to get to the rest of the house.
On Wednesday night we were all at home and there was a huge hailstorm. Hail! So weird. All that day had been unusually hot; I was sweating that morning on the Metro in my lab coat. Then toward evening it started to cool and it was storming by 8:30. By 9, there were huge pellets of hail. Our house has a lot of glass windows and skylights (our host dad owns a mirror and glass business) so we could see, and hear, really well.
Until of course the power went out, after which we complained about how bored we were for approximately ten seconds and then went to bed.
In the morning, the streets looked like the aftermath of a terrible accident at the Frostee Freeze factory. So bizarre, walking through Mexico City and seeing huge piles of ice. The leaves of the trees lay shredded on the ground making the streets smell like fancy tea.
There are currently huge demonstrations going on in the central square of Mexico City right now... the supporters of the candidate that lost are demanding a recount. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5236884.stm
It's like a combination streetfair/campout. I went downtown yesterday and encountered a) free popcorn for Lopez Obrador supporters; b) man in yellow spandex costume yelling "Voto por voto, casillo por casillo" [vote by vote, polling booth by polling booth I think]; c) parade of people holding up ginormous Mexican flag.
While all this goes on... our power is back but now all the water that comes out of the faucets is brown.
Going to go sleep now.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
This entry is long-overdue, everything is long-overdue. I want to come home and I miss my friends a lot. On the other hand, I also want to come back to Mexico and unsuckify my Spanish and work in the hospital where I'm doing my research project.
OK dorky confession: I love my research project. I love the detective work of molecular biology. Right now I'm trying to figure out what caused an outbreak of a certain strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria so I'm comparing the genotypes of patient infections to see if they're related (and thus, passed from patient to patient by a health care worker or unsanitized equipment). Soooo cool.
PREMED SPECIAL
I'm trying to squeeze in as many chances as I can to see patients here because it's so much easier than in the states. Thursday I woke up ridiculously early to go to an infectious disease clinic at my hospital before class. Today I skipped Spanish class to go to an HIV clinic. I got to sit in on three patient consulations. The first didn't actually have HIV, but she was a hospital employee who had specifically asked to see the doctor I was following that day because she had some weird leg infection which could possibly be tuberculosis. Tuberculosis! It's everywhere. Someday I will fill you all with factoids about the imminent danger of TB and how you will surely die! Anyway, the next patient was a 40 year old man with HIV and a history of nonadherence to his antiretrovirals. They made him sick (he got something called Gilbert's disease which turned him yellow - jaundice) so he took it upon himself to take a three month "vacation" from his ARVs.
Unfortunately, antivirals are like antibiotics - if you don't take them super regularly, you risk developing resistant organisms (because you kill off all the weaker organisms and any mutants can fluorish). The patient is now resistant to three major ARVs, and he's starting to develop minor opportunistic infections (he came in today with shingles on his back.) He HAS to take antiretrovirals, but he still doesn't want to. The doctor was trying to convince him - I couldn't understand everything but the general idea was, you don't have any other options.
Then I saw a 25-year-old with HIV and depression... should also be starting antiretrovirals soon but has been nonadherent with his depression treatment, so the doctor didn't think he was prepared to take ARVs faithfully. He came today with pretty clear signs of hypothyroidism (resulting in low energy, weight gain, hair loss, and depression plus lab tests) so he's got to be treated for that too.
The fact is that he is 25, depressed and has a terminal illness. The doctor was doing a great job at counselling him, encouraging him to take his meds and seek help for his depression, but it was a hard sell - you could tell the patient wasn't buying it.
So it was kind of an intense day. It was weird to just be there, observing. I feel so out of place with my broken Spanish and wrinkly lab coat. At the same time, though, the doctors treat us like real medical students - which totally catches me off guard. Today during one of the consulations Dr. Tonio handed me the stethoscope and asked me to listen to the TB patient's lungs. OK, I thought - they frequently let us try out various things. Then he casually asked me if I'd heard anything unusual and I realized that he was actually asking me to listen to the patient's lungs, like for real. Whoaaa.... so I told him what I heard (which just turned out to be noise from the patient's clothing) and he quickly checked again. But people do take us seriously here, which is scary. Not half as scary as it will be when it actually is my responsibility though - no one to check and make sure I didn't screw up.
That's one of the things that has really freaked me out about going into medicine, even though I know that it freaks out every prospective doctor, or should. How would I deal with that responsibility? How would I deal with failing in that responsibility which I imagine all doctors do sometimes? One thing I like about research is that if you make a mistake, you can fix it. Sure, it might be a huge pain, and you might have to redo all your work for the last six months, but that is a lot easier than raising someone from the dead.
It can be argued that research has the potential to do a lot more harm (or a lot more good) than medicine, because it can affect hundreds of thousands of decisions about patient care. BUT... in research you have time to fix your mistakes, you're working with a team. Screwups are still bad but at least you don't have to tell someone that their son or daughter died because you messed up.
Such morbid thoughts! Anyway, actually I am really excited. Being in the hospital has been an incredible experience, that has revised YET AGAIN my future plans, as discussed at nauseous length earlier in this blog.
Signing out!
OK dorky confession: I love my research project. I love the detective work of molecular biology. Right now I'm trying to figure out what caused an outbreak of a certain strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria so I'm comparing the genotypes of patient infections to see if they're related (and thus, passed from patient to patient by a health care worker or unsanitized equipment). Soooo cool.
PREMED SPECIAL
I'm trying to squeeze in as many chances as I can to see patients here because it's so much easier than in the states. Thursday I woke up ridiculously early to go to an infectious disease clinic at my hospital before class. Today I skipped Spanish class to go to an HIV clinic. I got to sit in on three patient consulations. The first didn't actually have HIV, but she was a hospital employee who had specifically asked to see the doctor I was following that day because she had some weird leg infection which could possibly be tuberculosis. Tuberculosis! It's everywhere. Someday I will fill you all with factoids about the imminent danger of TB and how you will surely die! Anyway, the next patient was a 40 year old man with HIV and a history of nonadherence to his antiretrovirals. They made him sick (he got something called Gilbert's disease which turned him yellow - jaundice) so he took it upon himself to take a three month "vacation" from his ARVs.
Unfortunately, antivirals are like antibiotics - if you don't take them super regularly, you risk developing resistant organisms (because you kill off all the weaker organisms and any mutants can fluorish). The patient is now resistant to three major ARVs, and he's starting to develop minor opportunistic infections (he came in today with shingles on his back.) He HAS to take antiretrovirals, but he still doesn't want to. The doctor was trying to convince him - I couldn't understand everything but the general idea was, you don't have any other options.
Then I saw a 25-year-old with HIV and depression... should also be starting antiretrovirals soon but has been nonadherent with his depression treatment, so the doctor didn't think he was prepared to take ARVs faithfully. He came today with pretty clear signs of hypothyroidism (resulting in low energy, weight gain, hair loss, and depression plus lab tests) so he's got to be treated for that too.
The fact is that he is 25, depressed and has a terminal illness. The doctor was doing a great job at counselling him, encouraging him to take his meds and seek help for his depression, but it was a hard sell - you could tell the patient wasn't buying it.
So it was kind of an intense day. It was weird to just be there, observing. I feel so out of place with my broken Spanish and wrinkly lab coat. At the same time, though, the doctors treat us like real medical students - which totally catches me off guard. Today during one of the consulations Dr. Tonio handed me the stethoscope and asked me to listen to the TB patient's lungs. OK, I thought - they frequently let us try out various things. Then he casually asked me if I'd heard anything unusual and I realized that he was actually asking me to listen to the patient's lungs, like for real. Whoaaa.... so I told him what I heard (which just turned out to be noise from the patient's clothing) and he quickly checked again. But people do take us seriously here, which is scary. Not half as scary as it will be when it actually is my responsibility though - no one to check and make sure I didn't screw up.
That's one of the things that has really freaked me out about going into medicine, even though I know that it freaks out every prospective doctor, or should. How would I deal with that responsibility? How would I deal with failing in that responsibility which I imagine all doctors do sometimes? One thing I like about research is that if you make a mistake, you can fix it. Sure, it might be a huge pain, and you might have to redo all your work for the last six months, but that is a lot easier than raising someone from the dead.
It can be argued that research has the potential to do a lot more harm (or a lot more good) than medicine, because it can affect hundreds of thousands of decisions about patient care. BUT... in research you have time to fix your mistakes, you're working with a team. Screwups are still bad but at least you don't have to tell someone that their son or daughter died because you messed up.
Such morbid thoughts! Anyway, actually I am really excited. Being in the hospital has been an incredible experience, that has revised YET AGAIN my future plans, as discussed at nauseous length earlier in this blog.
Signing out!
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Update: grateful wallet-owner dropped by gift. Thank you wallet owner!
It's 6:30 am, I haven't slept, I'm leaving for Michocoan (state west of Mexico City) at around 9 in the morning. I think.
I decided not to go to Acapulco, and I am rather pleased with myself. Instead I'm going by myself to two colonial cities in Michocoan to look at old churches and lakes and handicrafts and just generally feel superior for not being at the beach.
Tonight I'm staying in Patzcuaro, Sunday night in Morelia. Here are some links, I am too tired to remember how to link these in html. http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/regiones/patzcuaro/index.shtml, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morelia
I am also hoping that this weekend will be something of a retreat. I need - well, not a break exactly - I need a weekend of reflection. I need to let my brain get worn out enough again to be able to hear God. I need to be without television, the internet or other English speakers.
Ah, OK, so tonight: both my NU roommates had left for Acapulco, so I went home and passed out at 8:00 pm, but then woke up at 10:30 and was persuaded to go out with my two Texas A&M roommates, my new Canadian roommate, and ten other Texans. Whooo. Uneventual except for the ride home (relatively early - it's 6:56 and the Texans still haven't returned). A friend of my roommates gave us a ride, along with his best friend who was completely passed out drunk in the backseat. He had to be propped up with the arm rest so that my roommate could sit on the other side. I was sitting in the driver's seat and the driver was telling me how he met this guy in prison when they were both 12 - "and he was that night just like he is now - that's why I am almost like crying when I'm telling you this!" "Beto - Beto, wake up man, there are ladies!" [To my roommate in the backseat as passed out guy collapses again onto her lap] "I'm sorry, I'm sorry - are you OK? You can just pet him if you want - he's very how you say? Very docile."
Very tired. Going to sleep now.
It's 6:30 am, I haven't slept, I'm leaving for Michocoan (state west of Mexico City) at around 9 in the morning. I think.
I decided not to go to Acapulco, and I am rather pleased with myself. Instead I'm going by myself to two colonial cities in Michocoan to look at old churches and lakes and handicrafts and just generally feel superior for not being at the beach.
Tonight I'm staying in Patzcuaro, Sunday night in Morelia. Here are some links, I am too tired to remember how to link these in html. http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/regiones/patzcuaro/index.shtml, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morelia
I am also hoping that this weekend will be something of a retreat. I need - well, not a break exactly - I need a weekend of reflection. I need to let my brain get worn out enough again to be able to hear God. I need to be without television, the internet or other English speakers.
Ah, OK, so tonight: both my NU roommates had left for Acapulco, so I went home and passed out at 8:00 pm, but then woke up at 10:30 and was persuaded to go out with my two Texas A&M roommates, my new Canadian roommate, and ten other Texans. Whooo. Uneventual except for the ride home (relatively early - it's 6:56 and the Texans still haven't returned). A friend of my roommates gave us a ride, along with his best friend who was completely passed out drunk in the backseat. He had to be propped up with the arm rest so that my roommate could sit on the other side. I was sitting in the driver's seat and the driver was telling me how he met this guy in prison when they were both 12 - "and he was that night just like he is now - that's why I am almost like crying when I'm telling you this!" "Beto - Beto, wake up man, there are ladies!" [To my roommate in the backseat as passed out guy collapses again onto her lap] "I'm sorry, I'm sorry - are you OK? You can just pet him if you want - he's very how you say? Very docile."
Very tired. Going to sleep now.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
This one goes out to James Kath:
Today during Spanish class we learned about how to express conjecture and supposition, like “I wonder… I suppose… what could be…” To demonstrate, our teacher brought in a sealed cardboard box and had us guess what was inside, using the future and conditional tenses and all that. So everybody was like, “Cuantos pesará?” [how much does it weigh?] “Será muerte?” [Is it dead?] Then in a flash of inspiration I raised my hand and asked, “Será el gato de Schroedinger?” And then I spent five minutes trying to explain Schroedinger’s cat and relativity, in Spanish, to a room full of totally unimpressed premeds and my Spanish teacher. It’s my feeling that these concepts should be more widely known.
Today during Spanish class we learned about how to express conjecture and supposition, like “I wonder… I suppose… what could be…” To demonstrate, our teacher brought in a sealed cardboard box and had us guess what was inside, using the future and conditional tenses and all that. So everybody was like, “Cuantos pesará?” [how much does it weigh?] “Será muerte?” [Is it dead?] Then in a flash of inspiration I raised my hand and asked, “Será el gato de Schroedinger?” And then I spent five minutes trying to explain Schroedinger’s cat and relativity, in Spanish, to a room full of totally unimpressed premeds and my Spanish teacher. It’s my feeling that these concepts should be more widely known.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Several tidbits:
Wednesday: roommates & I went out with Marilu (the guide/friend of my roommates and I) for coffee and lots of instruction in Mexican/US slang.
Thursday afternoon: went with friend in search of photography exhibit in the city square. Failed to find it but ended up at another weird art thing, listened to the communists/Lopez Obrador (the losing presidential candidate who wants all the votes recounted) supporters in the square. Felt very chic and urban.
Thursday night: went out with Marilu, some of her friends and the roommates. Went to club. Dancing, people singing along to band in Spanish. One of Marilu's friends asked us if we were "springbreakers" and then told us about all his adventures in Cancun. Guess what: not all Americans in Mexico are "springbreakers".
Saturday afternoon: went out in search of a certain coffeeshop/bookstore. Got horribly lost, por supuesto. Witnessed a mugging.
Rather: as I was walking a guy ran past me super fast and my first thought was "I bet he stole something" and then my second & third thoughts were full of self-recrimination for jumping to conclusions. Then half a block later I found a wallet with its contents scattered all over the ground, and a day-planner covered with mud. A street vendor wandered over too and helped me collect the various credit cards (only $2 cash left - the guy must have dumped it and left). I asked the street vendor to use my cellphone to call some of the numbers in the day-planner, but none worked, so I just took the wallet to the coffeeshop with me and stared at it for a while. Read some Aztec mourning poems, felt sad (this was for class.) (reading, not feeling sad.) When I got home I asked Adrian (my host dad) to call for me. He got in touch with the guy's secretary, and he came by later to pick it up. (Didn't get to meet him though.) He is grateful and supposedly was going to drop off a "surprise" for me but didn't.
This weekend for one reason or another I took eight different taxis. I am awesome! Taxis here are cheap and supposedly horribly unsafe. They are also a great opportunity to practice Spanish. Summaries of two conversations, vague translations in brackets []:
Taxi driver 1 (listening to us speak English) (slow, halting): How are you today?
Me: Fine, thank you!
TD1: [I worked in Idaho for a while, on a work visa.]
Me: [Ah! How nice!]
[pleasantries]
TD1: [You know, the United States is not like here.]
Me: [It's another world]
TD1: [Yes, it is like another world. For example, you have to follow the rules - the police are very strict.]
Me: [Not like here] (general Laughter) [They are very...] "corrupt" [also]!
TD1: [Yes, ha ha, very corrupt! Yes, in the United States, the police make you follow the rules. It is very different.]
Me: [Wait, where are we?]
Roommate 1: I think... I think we missed our street.
Me: Shoot. [I think... the street... the street is not here.]
TD1: [What?]
Me: [We passed the street. Jose Moran.]
TD1: [Oh, we will turn around.]
Various comical encounters with one-way streets, culminating in our taxi driver driving an entire city block in reverse, totally failing to observe the spirit of the (one-way-street) law.
TD1: [You see, things are very different in Mexico!]
Me: [Yes, you definitely cannot do that in the United States.]
TD1: [Ha ha, yes!]
We are dropped off several blocks from our home. We tip him but not much. We walk.
OK this post is getting long. Here is the mega-summarized version of convo number 2:
TD2: [asks where we are from, upon hearing Chicago digresses into long story about his Catholic boyhood education, in which one of the nuns knew someone who was from Chicago]
Me: [polite inquiries as to current situation, leading to]: [Do you like taxi driving?]
TD2: [It's ok, but it is very tiring, and dangerous. Mexico City is very dangerous you know!]
Me: [Cleverly retell story of mugging nearly witnessed]
TD2: [Tells his own tale of robbery.] [The city is full of thieves!] We pass poster of Lopez Obrador. [Like that one!]
Me: [Ha, ha, did you just say you think Lopez Obrador is a thief?]
TD2: [Yes, they are all the same, I think, all politicians all over the world.]
Me: [In the United States it is the same!] [Brief discussion of US politics encompassing Jeb Bush and Barack Obama]
Summarizing is convenient because I can omit how totally retarded I sound when I speak Spanish, and how many times I break my flow by saying "like" in English.
Truthfully that all sounds very exciting but I am feeling incredibly lame right now, sitting at home waiting for my roommates to return from playing pool, because I did not go because I am extremely lame to the max. Also, my roommates and everyone whom I like in the program are going to Acapulco this weekend and I again am not going for reasons that change from day to day. I keep telling myself that I need a break from being with other Americans, but maybe I am just being superuber lame. My plans for the weekend include: climbing a mountain, going to mass at the cathedral. Maybe I will paint a picture or learn to cross-stitch in preparation for my sojourn at the convalesence home.
Wednesday: roommates & I went out with Marilu (the guide/friend of my roommates and I) for coffee and lots of instruction in Mexican/US slang.
Thursday afternoon: went with friend in search of photography exhibit in the city square. Failed to find it but ended up at another weird art thing, listened to the communists/Lopez Obrador (the losing presidential candidate who wants all the votes recounted) supporters in the square. Felt very chic and urban.
Thursday night: went out with Marilu, some of her friends and the roommates. Went to club. Dancing, people singing along to band in Spanish. One of Marilu's friends asked us if we were "springbreakers" and then told us about all his adventures in Cancun. Guess what: not all Americans in Mexico are "springbreakers".
Saturday afternoon: went out in search of a certain coffeeshop/bookstore. Got horribly lost, por supuesto. Witnessed a mugging.
Rather: as I was walking a guy ran past me super fast and my first thought was "I bet he stole something" and then my second & third thoughts were full of self-recrimination for jumping to conclusions. Then half a block later I found a wallet with its contents scattered all over the ground, and a day-planner covered with mud. A street vendor wandered over too and helped me collect the various credit cards (only $2 cash left - the guy must have dumped it and left). I asked the street vendor to use my cellphone to call some of the numbers in the day-planner, but none worked, so I just took the wallet to the coffeeshop with me and stared at it for a while. Read some Aztec mourning poems, felt sad (this was for class.) (reading, not feeling sad.) When I got home I asked Adrian (my host dad) to call for me. He got in touch with the guy's secretary, and he came by later to pick it up. (Didn't get to meet him though.) He is grateful and supposedly was going to drop off a "surprise" for me but didn't.
This weekend for one reason or another I took eight different taxis. I am awesome! Taxis here are cheap and supposedly horribly unsafe. They are also a great opportunity to practice Spanish. Summaries of two conversations, vague translations in brackets []:
Taxi driver 1 (listening to us speak English) (slow, halting): How are you today?
Me: Fine, thank you!
TD1: [I worked in Idaho for a while, on a work visa.]
Me: [Ah! How nice!]
[pleasantries]
TD1: [You know, the United States is not like here.]
Me: [It's another world]
TD1: [Yes, it is like another world. For example, you have to follow the rules - the police are very strict.]
Me: [Not like here] (general Laughter) [They are very...] "corrupt" [also]!
TD1: [Yes, ha ha, very corrupt! Yes, in the United States, the police make you follow the rules. It is very different.]
Me: [Wait, where are we?]
Roommate 1: I think... I think we missed our street.
Me: Shoot. [I think... the street... the street is not here.]
TD1: [What?]
Me: [We passed the street. Jose Moran.]
TD1: [Oh, we will turn around.]
Various comical encounters with one-way streets, culminating in our taxi driver driving an entire city block in reverse, totally failing to observe the spirit of the (one-way-street) law.
TD1: [You see, things are very different in Mexico!]
Me: [Yes, you definitely cannot do that in the United States.]
TD1: [Ha ha, yes!]
We are dropped off several blocks from our home. We tip him but not much. We walk.
OK this post is getting long. Here is the mega-summarized version of convo number 2:
TD2: [asks where we are from, upon hearing Chicago digresses into long story about his Catholic boyhood education, in which one of the nuns knew someone who was from Chicago]
Me: [polite inquiries as to current situation, leading to]: [Do you like taxi driving?]
TD2: [It's ok, but it is very tiring, and dangerous. Mexico City is very dangerous you know!]
Me: [Cleverly retell story of mugging nearly witnessed]
TD2: [Tells his own tale of robbery.] [The city is full of thieves!] We pass poster of Lopez Obrador. [Like that one!]
Me: [Ha, ha, did you just say you think Lopez Obrador is a thief?]
TD2: [Yes, they are all the same, I think, all politicians all over the world.]
Me: [In the United States it is the same!] [Brief discussion of US politics encompassing Jeb Bush and Barack Obama]
Summarizing is convenient because I can omit how totally retarded I sound when I speak Spanish, and how many times I break my flow by saying "like" in English.
Truthfully that all sounds very exciting but I am feeling incredibly lame right now, sitting at home waiting for my roommates to return from playing pool, because I did not go because I am extremely lame to the max. Also, my roommates and everyone whom I like in the program are going to Acapulco this weekend and I again am not going for reasons that change from day to day. I keep telling myself that I need a break from being with other Americans, but maybe I am just being superuber lame. My plans for the weekend include: climbing a mountain, going to mass at the cathedral. Maybe I will paint a picture or learn to cross-stitch in preparation for my sojourn at the convalesence home.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Madeline and I on the steps of the MAS clinic, in the little village of Tlapa where we spent four days last weekend. (Madeline would be the former professional figure skater. Seriously.)We left for Tlapa early Thursday morning. The drive was six hours, hot and bumpy and up and around mountains. Dude: mountains.
Things about mountains: being able to see the shadows of clouds. Cities, spread messily in valleys, crawling up the sides of hills, with the houses looking poorer and more unfinished as you go up. Little shops built beside the road - only there's not enough room, so they extend the roadside with a concrete foundation supported in the front by the edge of the road, and supported in the back by extremely shady-looking concrete supports.
We stayed in a "half-star" hotel which was actually quite nice except for the fact that nothing in our room (curtains, toilet, sink) worked. But hey, TV! Friday morning we were driven through the bumpy, dirty streets of Tlapa to a clinic (where the pic was taken), and promptly told to come back the next day, so we went to visit a school instead, where I personally made 20 children cry.
More on that: our service project (one of the reasons we were in Tlapa, in addition to just seeing what life was like outside of Mexico City) was to check on the nutritional status of some of the children seen by the clinic. So we measured height, weight and blood iron levels. On Friday I was part of the blood-drawing team: six of us in lab coats and rubber gloves, taking blood samples from 85 extremely scared, non-English-speaking kids. Worse: we had no idea what we were doing, and there weren't enough extra supplies for us to practice on each other. The two med students from the Universidad Panamericana explained the procedure (swipe the finger clean, jab, fill capillary tube with blood, comfort child) and we got started, in teams of two (which turned into teams of 3 or 4 as the kids got progressively more freaked out and harder to handle.)
Imagine: the room filled with screaming children, being held by their mothers; us prying open clenched figures and praying under our breaths that they'd stay still long enough so we'd only have to jab once in order to get enough for the sample ; everyone speaking in broken Spanish. Top five phrases used:
1. No llores! [don't cry!]
2. No te va a pasar nada. [nothing's going to happen to you.] (this one was a good one for the kids who were dragged in by their mothers screaming "They're going to cut me!")
3. Está bien, está bien. [it's ok, it's ok.]
4. Es muy rápido. [it's very fast.]
5. Te duele un poquitito. [it's going to hurt a very, very little bit.]
It was a little traumatic (more for the kids than for us, but for us too.) I kept wondering whether I would want to do this for a living. Actually I felt pretty good about how the morning went considering the circumstances: I like panic, mayhem. I function better when everyone around me is freaking out. (I think) As in, when everyone's gloves are covered with blood and the room is filled with shrieks and we're all looking at each other stunned like, how did it all come to this?
It's this feeling that makes me wonder if I shouldn't be a doctor. Shouldn't I be a little more horrified that I am in this place, a gringa doctor with no experience, forced into this situation where I CAN'T provide the best possible care? Am I getting some kind of vicarious thrill from the panic when I should be horrified that the situation even has to be this way? After a weekend of chasing thoughts like this around in my head I got tired. My brain needs a nap.
Normally, I use other like-minded people's brains as extensions of my own, which keeps me from getting caught in the hamster wheel of myself. Even in Uganda, most of my processing was done with the help of e-mails from home, with online chats with my advisor, eventually with long car-ride discussions with my host dad. Here I haven't found a similar network of brains to use. I haven't been nearly as home-connected as I was in Uganda, partly because I need to less - it's less overwhelming, less lonely, less foreign - and partly because I don't have time. So I tend to get stuck and stop processing things at all and start to go rotten inside, like an egg.
Buuuut this happens at home too. I need to learn tricks and disciplines to help get things moving again I guess. Like mental laxatives.
I am sorry for that horrifying image.
