Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

*Tamara posting*

Thursday 6/21

It was an early day for me, getting up at 6:30. I got everything ready - it is necessary to pack a lunch as there are no restaurants in the neighborhood of the clinic. There were a lot of kids and families waiting in line outside the clinic when I got there. I assume they were waiting to get appointments to see the doctor/dentist or to use the library or computers.

The doctor immediately had me come in and help her, which was great! I learned how to fill out various forms with the child's name, ID #, dates, mark their height & weight (and BMI for older kids) on the graphs, etc. She had me take their height & weight and do the eye exams - all very straightforward. Even with limited Spanish, the children are very cooperative, know what to do, and don't complain.

The doctor saw the sick kids first - many with colds, other viruses, or infections that made their throat sore. I collected the medicines from the cabinet in the consultation room (also the doctor's office) and the doctor double-checked them before given to the child. Most of the medicine being given out was ibuprofen, antibiotics, vitamins, and anti-parasitics.

For taking the height and weight, I had to ask the child to take off his/her shoes, pants, and sweaters. Normally not a problem, but the one patient I was left alone with to get started while the doctor went away was a 17 year-old boy.. figures. No problems, I just felt kind of bad for the guy.

The doctor was really good at communicating with me - she would enunciate well and make sure to speak slowly for me. She also was great at showing me the problems that the kids had - parasitic sores on the arms, an enlarged testicle, lice/dandruff (I'm not sure). One young man had allergy sores all over his body. They were healed, but he is obviously very allergic to dust, animals, etc. He got a bunch of loratadine for it.

We also had two children with heart problems today - I got to see the echocardiogram readout from one of the patients. I was told it was normal, but they needed to do some more tests. Another girl was referred to another clinic to get an ultrasound because she was having very painful menstrual-type cramps. The clinic only does general medicine, and so refers these types of cases to another clinic or hospital with which they have a payment agreement for the foundation.

Most of the children who came in for their annual check-up (mandatory until about age 13) were underweight & too short. I would say the average was probably just under the 25% line on the graph. Many were given vitamin B supplements, as well as a little blurb from the doctor about eating correctly. I will have to ask and find out if the graphs have been designed for this area - certainly the kids are very small, but I'm just curious about how the figures were determined.

There were a few kids that were overweight - these were given the more complete list of foods they had to avoid. The normal speech was NO: salichipapas (kind of like hot dogs w/french fries), potato chips, sweets. The overweight kids had the additional NO ice cream or dessert.

The kids were really sweet, though a lot of them are rather shy (or maybe it's just a formality thing with the doctor). There was one sweet 4 year-old who came and stood by my chair and put her hand on my leg while her sister was being examined. It was really cute :)

While I was at 'work', Ted wandered around town on the bike. He tried to find a park that was going to have a summer solstice celebration, but wasn't able to get there. He instead ended up exploring the hills around town and going to a couple stores to try and find a space heater with no luck.

Ted has been drooling over the Suzuki Freewinds. They became popular in Colombia, and are also popular here in Ecuador. They are a very good-looking 650 single- a bit like a F650 or a DL650.

Friday, June 22

I have Fridays off from the clinic, so I had my Spanish lesson this morning instead of in the afternoon. My teacher thought this would be a good time to visit the local fruit/vegetable market and practice some Spanish as well as learn more about Ecuadorian food/cooking/etc.

We had a good time - I bought vegetables to make a soup and some flowers. The lady at the flower stand was really nice - roses here are $2/dozen, which is twice the normal price due to rain damage, etc. I had her make me a bouquet out of some red roses, white lilies, and filler material - all for only $5. It is really beautiful, and she was a dear. She insisted on giving me the extra filler flowers and a special nice-smelling flower as part of the bouquet for free. She has been working at the market for 48 years - no days off, though Sunday is a shorter day. It is nice to be able to talk to these people, and I am amazed at how hard they work for so little money. It is hard to know that I have it so easy and yet am not always very happy, while others seem to take life's lot and really make the best of it.

I made the soup this evening - it has a lot of new things in it. It turned out ok, a little bland because I didn't add any salt during cooking. Here are my ingredients: chicken thigh, onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, peas, yucca, potato, frejol tierno (young beans - the kind that would eventual be hard & dry), carrots, rice, and quinua (a type of small seed that is indigenous). I never make soup, so it was fun to try this - my version of the soups in the restaurants.

Ted took it pretty easy - he didn't sleep at all last night. He finished reading his latest book, A Visit to Don Octavio. We tried to get some more Ambien for him, but a prescription is required from an Ecuadorian doctor. Hopefully he will be able to settle in soon.

Saturday 6/23

We got to sleep in this morning, which was really nice. I finally was able to get Ted to watch The Princess Bride - he had never seen it! We took the morning and early afternoon easy since Ted had more trouble sleeping last night. He basically hasn't slept the whole time we've been here in Quito.

His stomach was hurting last night and has been bothering him a bit since we got here. I think we will switch to bottled water, since the volunteer coordinator told me that even though he's lived here his whole life he boils his water at home before drinking it. Hopefully that switch will help. I haven't had any problems, so it is hard to say what it could be.

Later this afternoon we decided to get out of the house and go to the old section of Quito. We took the Trole bus line (electric buses with dedicated lanes in some areas). We went to a few churches - one we really like because it looked very old and had an impressive gold-plated or gold-painted altar. This was the San Francisco church & monastery built in 1553. It also had very old wood planks that were very noisy and was under renovation with a bunch of scaffolding.

We walked up to the big basilica, but it was closed. We will most likely go back since the tower is open to climb up. It looks very old and gothic, but is in fact a new church (started in 1926) built partially out of cinderblock. Instead of gargoyles, it has ducks, anteaters, porcupines, etc. - kind of cute.

I noticed a policeman/soldier in one of the town squares with small machine gun - he had his finger resting on the trigger. It makes me wonder about accidental shootings and if he had the safety on!

Afterwards, we came back to our neighborhood and did a little shopping for me - I got a watch. (Usually I can rely on the bike's clock or the laptop, but I need it for my volunteering to keep track of time). We had dinner at that mall - a cute little mall that is a big spiral with the stores on the outside - kind of like the Guggenheim museum in New York. More grocery shopping on the way home, then a nice relaxing rest of the evening.