On Friday, we attended our final public health class. We discussed how El Salvador is constantly living in risk. We learned about the natural disasters that cause so much damage and the violence from gangs. Our teacher then related both of these topics back to public health and how such tragedies cause problems with health. We presented thank you gifts to both our teacher and our translator.


We walked back to the Casas after class to leave for our trip to El Mozote. We ate a quick lunch and hit the road because we had a 4-hour drive. We stopped on the way at this huge rest stop. They had a nice grocery store and all kinds of other shops and restaurants. When we finally got to our hostel, it was getting dark. We played a few card games while we waited for dinner. The dinner was okay; eggs, beans, plantains, and tortillas. I ended up getting sick from the food, for that night and the next day. It was not fun. At the hostel, we all shared 4 big rooms with beds, and lots of fun bugs! The 25 of us shared one toilet and sink area. They were both disgusting.


Saturday morning we started out with a tour of a civil war museum. I sat next to the bathroom so I did not get to see much. Next, we drove to Fidela’s house. Fidela is the daughter of the ONLY survivor of the massacre at El Mozote. We attended the Catholic mass dedicated to Rufina Amaya, the survivor. Rufina passed away in 2007 so we spent the day with her daughter learning the story.

The massacre at El Mozote killed over 1,000 men, women and children. It went on for days and the soldiers burned most of the town afterwards. These soldiers were all from the right-sided Salvadoran government (to whom the US donated over 1 million dollars PER DAY!) The government was fighting the leftist group, FMLN. The US supported the Salvadoran government to prevent the left “communist” group from taking power and to prevent having “another Cuba”. I have been learning about the civil war every day since I have been here so there is a lot to tell but too much to type. The Salvadoran government preformed hundreds of massacres like the one at El Mozote.

We ate lunch at Fidela’s house before we drove to the actual massacre site. Fidela walked us through every moment of her mother’s escape. First, we saw the memorial dedicated to the victims and Fidela told us her side of the story. Rufina was in the third to last group of women who were lined up to be shot. A few of the soldiers were not looking, so she ducked behind a row of pineapple bushes. Rufina said that about 20 seconds later the woman that was standing next to her in line was killed. Somehow the soldiers didn’t notice she was missing from the line and didn’t hear or see her in the bush. The soldiers brought out the next groups of women and murdered them all too. Rufina stayed in those bushes, and the apple tree behind them, for about 3 days. The soldiers started to burn down the city but they still did not find her. Eventually, she ran through the woods to her grandparent’s house. Fidela showed us the tree, roads and dirt paths that Rufina traveled. It was all very interesting and I really enjoyed walking the Rufina’s path of escape. There are so many more facts about the history; I wish I had more time to type them! Sorry!

After the tour we visited the mural and plaques dedicated to the children who were killed. Next, we made our way back onto the bus and headed for a nearby river to go swimming. We got off the bus and had to walk about 25 minutes to get to the actual area where we could get in. The river and surrounding area was beautiful. I only put my legs in because it was not very hot outside and I did not want to be wet for the bus ride back to our hostel. Plus, we didn’t really have a shower at the hostel. The “shower” was just a bucket of water that you could use to rinse with after using soap.

We took Fidela and her family home and returned to our hostel for dinner. They served us pupusas but I did not eat any because I had no interest in getting sick again. Some of us played a few card games and then I did some reading before bed. We woke up at 6 am the next morning so that we could leave on the bus by 7 am.

Kevin and Trena, the directors of the program, invited us to their house to watch the World Cup final. We ordered pizzas and had lots of chips and soda. We all had a great time but I am still upset about Holland losing! Poor Holland!

Later that evening, two women from a local organization came to Casa Silvia to give a jewelry-making class. They brought a huge variety of local beans, seeds and beads for us to work with. I made this really great necklace with these triangle shaped seeds and some colored beads. We even had to drill the holes in the seeds! I also purchased two necklaces and two pairs of earrings that the women already made.

On Wednesday, I wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t go to my praxis site. I felt better by lunch time so I ate lunch with everyone and then went to Spanish class. During our class we did a little presentation and I thought I did well on it. But, at the end, he read our grades out loud again and I only got a B which was one of the lowest in the class. I was really disappointed because I thought I sounded better than the other two girls who did my same part. Whatever.

Allison and I went for a run after class then we ate dinner. We went to our Wednesday reflection and pigged out on Trena Treats. Like I said, I am getting fat here haha.


I returned to my praxis site on Thursday morning. Olivia and I went back to the dentist office. Dra. Orantes’s first patient was a 9-year-old boy. He had one tooth that was completely decayed so she had to extract it. Before she did the actual extraction, she cleaned his teeth, used a fluoride protective solution and filled a cavity on a different tooth. The extraction was very interesting and she did it all so smoothly. Olivia said the dentist at the other clinic would just yank and yank in an unorganized fashion until it popped out. We have seen her work with other children and every one of them as cried; this little boy didn’t make a peep. He was so cute and innocent haha.

Our next patient was a 3-year-old little girl. She was adorable. She was probably one of the cutest little kids I have ever seen. She was all smiles until the dentist opened her mouth. I do not think I have ever heard someone scream so loud. It did not help that the dentist filled her cavity with no pain medication, but I also think she was just scared. After the little girl, her 18-year-old brother got his teeth cleaned and the dentist gave him a referral to an orthodontist.

The last patient was a 6 year-old boy with a tooth that was decayed much worse than the first boy. Dra. Orantes explained to his mother that she was going to have to extract the tooth. The mom asked her like 100 questions, got angry and then turned to the boy and said, “They want to pull your teeth out.” Okay, you do not say that to your 6-year-old son. So, of course, the boy started crying and running away. The dentist could not do it that day now because the boy was too scared. Dra. Orantes was really frustrated and was telling us that during that whole conversation she was trying to be discreet so the little boy didn’t know what she was going to do. I would have been angry at that mom too.

Dra. Orantes left around 10 am again so we went to the physical therapy area again. There was an old man there, who Jackeline told us, was the first soccer coach in El Salvador. I guess he is famous around the country. We assisted him with his exercises and he counted in English, instead of Spanish haha. He was so much fun to talk to and work with. I am glad that we got to meet him.

We had to leave our praxis a little early because our Spanish professors were taking us on a field trip that afternoon. We left at 12:30 on our bus, with a pizza lunch to-go. The pizza was homemade and amazing. We drove about 2 hours to the “Museo de Café” (Coffee museum). We took a tour of a huge coffee plant. Ironically, the gourmet coffee that they harvest there is all sold to Starbucks! They sell it to Starbucks, unroasted, at $1.60 a pound. I think Starbucks sells it for around $12 a pound! WOW. My Spanish professor told us that around 80% (If I am remembering correctly) of the coffee that Starbucks sells and brews is from El Salvador; that is so interesting! We saw all the different areas and there were so many that I don’t really remember what each area did. When they store the coffee beans they still have a thin layer of coating that is a golden-peanut color. They call it “gold coffee”. You can easily pull off the covering and the actual bean inside is a light green color. So when they send the coffee to Starbucks, they send the green beans. I remember seeing in one Starbucks store, a display of the stages of making coffee and it looked just like what we saw. The most interesting part was touring the tasting room. The official taste-tester showed us how he did it all. He has been one of the official international coffee testers for years. I guess he travels to judge coffee at international competitions haha. First, they place just the coffee grounds in a cup to smell the aroma. Next, they add hot water and smell the aroma again. He does this thing called “breaking the cup”, with a spoon. The coffee grounds originally settle at the top, he smells it, then breaks the cup by pushing down the grounds, and then smells again. Finally, he tastes it, except he does not swallow the coffee. He slurps a small bit into his mouth, moves it around and then spits it out in this big urn shaped thing. He did that a few times with each cup. The whole process was really interesting to watch. I got some great photos of the factory too!

When we returned to the Casas we went down the street for pupusa night with the becarios. And that’s about it…Adios!

On Friday we had our public health class in the morning. We talked about primary health care and what the healthcare system here provides to its population. Afterwards, the program leaders brought us lunch at the UCA. We ate in one of the shaded seating areas outside. We had these awesome chicken-salad-like sandwiches with pears, cookies and passion fruit juice (the best kind of juice that our cooks make). We then hopped on our bus to go to Las Palmas. It is a very marginalized community with over 6000 people in an extremely small area. The leaders of the local church gave us a tour and explained how they were trying to better the community.

After Las Palmas we took a tour of the big private hospital. There is such a huge difference between the private sector and public. That hospital was fancier than most American hospitals that I have been in! Everything was top of the line and some of the amenities were even over doing it.

We returned to the Casas for a break between our tour and salsa dancing lessons. The salsa dancing lessons were at an actual dance studio with an instructor. We had a great time and I learned so much! We then got back on the bus and drove to dinner. We ate at this beautiful restaurant overlooking the whole city. It was like a 30-minute drive up the mountain but the view was amazing. The food was amazing too! We had fresh vegetables, chicken, rice and this awesome pineapple juice. There was a live band so we all danced some more salsa. When we returned to the houses, which wasn’t until 11:30 or so, and a group of us wanted to go out again. We took a taxi to the Multiplaza. It is basically a huge mall but at night there are a lot of clubs and bars. Hannah’s cousin (who is from here in San Salvador) told us to go to a place called Envy. We kept walking to find it but we entered some other club because the bouncer called us over. He let us in without paying the ten-dollar cover charge. It was fancy and all high-tech with plasma televisions and crazy lights. Everyone was dressed so nice and we all looked scrubby. Most of the men had their skin-tight dress pants or white jeans on with a suit coat, tie and expensive shirt. The girls were all wearing expensive risqué dresses with the highest heels. We were all so out of place. We danced for most of the time because the DJ started playing American music as soon as we walked in. As always, everyone was starring at us and it probably did not help that we were screaming the words to the American songs. One man approached my friend Stacey and pulled a flower, made from a napkin, out of his jacket. It was hilarious and probably the highlight of my night. The majority of the crowd was older. There were a lot of couples that looked about 25 to 30 years old. Then there were many single men, they all looked over 30, just watching the girls. We were probably the youngest people there. I wish that we would have gone to Envy because it probably would have been a younger crowd. We had a great time, despite the harassment from the Latino men haha.

At 9 am on Saturday we left for our weekend trip to Ataco. When we arrived at the house that we would be staying in, we were all amazed. It was so beautiful and it was huge! We even had hot showers! The land surrounding the house was amazing too. After exploring our mansion, we went into town for lunch. We walked through this store and out in the back there was seating for their café. The cooks had us come right into the kitchen and they served us buffet style. I ate this chicken vegetable soup and it was great. The flavor was so unique, I loved it. After lunch, we finally got to shop for local crafts. We went to about 5 different artesian stores. I bought jewelry, handmade crosses, and bags. I have a lot of gifts to give out when I return. I had so much fun seeing the locally made crafts and buying way too much stuff haha. We eventually made our way back to the house and we decided to go horseback riding. We each had a guide walking alongside the horse so we did not really do too much. They took us up the mountain a little more so we took some great photos of the surrounding area.

We all cooked dinner together and made these awesome brownies. I took my first hot shower in three weeks and it was beyond amazing! My roommates and I went to bed early because we were tired and we had comfortable beds. The next morning we went on a hike downhill to an area where we could swim. We thought it would be just a creek but it was actually a pool. The water was not chlorinated or clean but it was still a pool. They even had a slide and diving board haha.

After our hike we made our way to the bus and began our 2 hour ride home. We stopped at two more shops on the way and I, of course, bought more gifts. When we got back to town a small group of us went to the artesian fair in town. The vendors would not leave us alone. “Come in! Come in! Look at this and that and that!” I was getting extremely frustrated because if you even went close to their stand they would get right in your face with their products. Anyways, they had some great crafts but you had to bargain the price. They would start out high and unless you were an idiot, you had to fight with them.

Since it was the Fourth of July, we all went out to eat pupusas as a small celebration. We went to “the best pupusaria” in town and it was packed. We could not even sit together. The pupusas were great and better than the other ones that I have had. After dinner, we went to the Mexican restaurant for drinks. These two boys from Notre Dame met us there. They are doing a program through their school and they are here for 8 weeks. The program sends pairs of students to different third world countries. They were the only pair in El Salvador and they were working with an NGO project called Pounds of Love. They travel the countryside with a doctor and nurse giving check-ups to children and checking their weight. The program returns to the same areas to re-weigh the children and to encourage healthy eating habits. Both of the boys were pre-med and super nice. They are probably coming with us this next weekend for our trip to El Mozote.


Monday was my first day at the local clinic. It is only a 5-minute walk from our house to the entrance. The clinic is large and they have a lot of specialists. They have three dentists, two physical therapists, a pharmacy, an eye doctor, radiology, and an ear, nose and throat doctor. My friend Olivia does not speak Spanish and she is a pre-dental student so I went with her to the dentist area. I was able to translate for her and we saw some cool things. We observed two root canals, a filling and a cleaning. The dentist was fairly sterile; she used gloves and a mask but she only rinsed off the tools before using them on the next patient. The equipment was old but it worked well and Olivia said everything was so much better than the other clinic she had been at the past week. The dentist area closed at 10:30 so we went over by Claire in physical therapy. We observed the physical therapist with two patients and she explained to us their injuries. She said that most of the patients could not pay as much as the appointments cost, so the clinic, and the NGO’s that run it, pay the remaining balance. We all liked the physical therapist, Jackeline, a lot and we talked to her for 45 minutes after her patients left. Her husband and father currently live in the US. Her dad has been gone 9 years but he flies back every year to stay for 3 months because he has permanent residency in the States. Her husband has been gone 7 years and Jackeline has not seen him since! She said that they talk on the phone everyday for hours. Right now, she is awaiting her permanent residency card from the US so that her daughter, her mother and she can move there too. Her mother already received hers and Jackeline is expecting to receive hers in November.

We usually give English lessons to the clinic staff but we did not prepare anything for Monday.

After the clinic, we returned to the Casas for lunch and then Spanish class. During our break in Spanish class we went to Mister Donut again haha. After the break we had an exam that none of us really knew about. It was not difficult though. He allowed us to use our notes and our reading book. After class, Allison and I went for a jog then we prepared dinner. Monday nights are the night that I signed up to help make dinner. All we have to do is warm up the food that the cooks already made and then wash dishes afterwards. Monday nights are also our cleaning parties and then after that is Avisos , which is like announcements.


On Tuesday, Olivia and I returned to the dentist office for some more observations. We saw the dentist do a small filling, cleaning and then two crowns. The crowns were interesting and the dentist taught us about them as she was doing it. The dentist was done at 10 so we went over by Claire in physical therapy again. We observed two different patients and then we chatted with Jackeline again. At 11:30, we taught our first English class. Most of the staff that we had spoken to said they just really wanted to have conversations so they are forced to speak in English. We split into two groups and Claire and I talked with the two physical therapists and two social workers. First, we talked about our childhood and vacations, and then we had the four of them discuss the same. They all did really well and we helped them along the way with proper pronunciation and verb usage. Next, we had them talk about their houses and next-door neighbors. They had a hard time remembering and understanding the word “next-door neighbor”; it is somewhat weird when you think about it haha.

It was Katie’s birthday so we had a surprise cake for her at lunch. I left a little early for Spanish class so that I could go on my computer. I saw that Holland beat Uruguay and I was so excited! I cannot believe that they are going to be in the final! THAT’S SO EXCITING!

During class, our teacher took us out for ice cream for Katie’s birthday, more desserts, oh god! I seriously thought that I was going to lose weight here but I have gained weight. Every meal is 90% carbs: tortillas, tons of rice and we usually have some kind of dessert! I need to work out so much when I get home!

After class, we went on the internet for a bit then went home for dinner. That evening, a medical school intern came to talk to us about her experiences. She has a scholarship through the Casas so she agreed to talk to us twice (she spoke to us last Wednesday at reflection night too). She spoke about the gang presence in the hospitals, the violence and the disturbing diseases she witnesses. She also talked about the unwritten rules that the interns have to follow so they do not get in trouble. For example, if you are on duty to watch the emergency room door and someone comes in with a level 1 injury, it is your fault, and you have to buy everyone dinner as punishment. She described how all of the head doctors are men and all the women have to dress nice, smell nice and look good every day. She also mentioned that if you were an ugly doctor, the men would give you the ugly jobs. You can really see the machismo here. If she is asked out for drinks after work or for the weekend, she has to say yes or there will be a punishment. Her stories were very interesting and I enjoyed hearing her speak.


I will be home in about 9 days. That is so strange! The time has gone so fast!

The last days at Maternidad

For Wednesday, we were placed in the pathology department. This area contained woman with high-risk pregnancies, cancer or other diseases. We met one woman from Africa. Every nurse we talked to told us about her because she could speak English. She didn’t know Spanish and she had only been in the country for one month. She is from the north of Africa (a country bordering Ethopia). She explained that she was here as a refugee and living in an immigration house. I do not know why she was in the hospital. We walked around to come other rooms to chat with other patients. The doctors and nurses in this area didn’t even pay attention to us so we didn’t get to observe anything. We met 3 nice women in one room. Ana was pregnant with twins and was supposed to go have a C-section that day; it was her first pregnancy! She was very pretty and spoke slowly for us. The doctor came in and told her she would have her C-section at 1 so she could not drink or eat anything else. A few minutes later, a nurse entered with pills. She told Ana to drink water and take the pill even though Ana explained that she could not. The head nurse came in and yelled at her to take the pill. Ana told us that the doctors and nurses do not communicate well and that neither of them inform her of anything that is going on.


Around 10 am, one of the head nurses came over to get us. She had scrubs in her hand and told us we were going to the surgery department. We were going to observe a c-section first hand! We were all really excited; we changed into the scrubs and went downstairs to the operating area. It was old and dirty, like everywhere else. Everything was very out dated and unsterile. There was one room for various operations and two for c-sections only. There were about 5 women in the waiting area; they were all pregnant and waiting for c-sections. One of the nurses from the area showed us how to wash our hands. We literally spent 30 minutes going over it. He showed us twice, going into INTENSE detail about every single aspect: the direction of the water, how to rub around your fingers and when to add more soap. He was driving me crazy; he was an ass. Claire went first and she didn’t exactly replicate how he did it so he shook his head and yelled no. He had to show us again and then made her redo it. I went next and did it just like him so he didn’t say too much to me. He made Claire do it a third time because she didn’t exactly do it right the second time! He was nuts. I would have understood the necessity for precision if we would have gone right into surgery after but he was just doing it to show us!


He then showed us how he set up the operating room with the equipment. Everything was wrapped up in blankets/clothe and labeled with a piece of tape with writing. He then unwrapped some of the things to set up for the next surgery. He added water, iodine and alcohol to some dishes and added cotton swabs etc etc. He did some other boring stuff and he took forever to explain it all. FINALLY, they wheeled a woman into the hallway that was going into surgery. They left her laying there all alone in the dirty, dark hallway. No one even paid attention to her or explained what they were doing. Since the hospital is public and free, the majority of the staff does not explain anything to the patients, they just do it. After the nurse guy set up the rest of the room, one of the doctors wheeled her in. once again, no one explained anything to her. At one point, we were in the operating room alone with her as she just layed there. One of the doctors hooked her up to heart and breathing monitors. They told her to turn on her side and they just stuck the needle in her spine for the epidural. The obstetrician entered the room and the fully sterile nurse assisted the doctor with her scrubs and gloves (you know, how the one who is already sterile helps the new staff entering the room with their sterile gear). The obstetrician was a female and she looked only 28 years old. Next, they cleaned her stomach and female areas, and then rubbed it all down with iodine. Before I knew it, they had made the first incision. They began to cauterize to minimize bleeding (causing a lovely smell haha). The doctor kept ripping her skin and fresh with just hands. She ripped away the fat and skin from the uterus and then cut open the uterus. She cut the actual sack around the baby and all the fluid squirted out. The doctor searched for the baby’s head with her hands and started to pull him out. We left the room to get out of the way because they would grab the baby right away and take him to a heated examining bed in the next room (plus I felt kind of light headed from the heat and the smell). The baby was huge and his mom was very petite. I am not sure why she had a c-section but that could have been a reason. I know this was her second child and she had a c-section for the first one too.


We left at noon, like usual, and returned to the Casa for lunch. The main dish was ‘stuffed green peppers’ and they were awesome! I had to walk to Spanish class all alone because everyone left without telling me. I was pretty creeped out because it’s a twenty minute walk. Later that evening I went for a run with Stacey and Allison. We ran up this large hill into another neighborhood. The houses were extravagant! They looked just like mansions in California. It is still amazing to me how some people live in huge slums while across town there are some of the wealthiest people, and it all takes place in a third world country!



Thursday was our last day at Maternidad. We started out in pathology again. We sat and chatted with the girl from Africa for almost 3 hours! She told us more of her story and journey across the world. Her name is Feruz and, as I said before, she is from the north of Africa. Feruz explained to us that about three months ago she left her country for Sudan, on foot. In Sudan, she had to have surgery because she was pregnant but the embryo had embedded into her fallopian tube. She was currently in the hospital because of an infection. From Sudan she flew to Ecuador. I am not sure how long she stayed in Ecuador but she eventually crossed the border into Colombia. She told us how crazy it was hiking in the jungle there, with all the drug plantations and drug dealers all over. She said it was very scary and that they had a few close calls. Somehow, she walked from Colombia to El Salvador. She did mention that she stayed in Nicaragua for a few weeks. The Salvadoran government gave her a refugee visa for one month and once that month is over (if they don’t approve her for an official refugee card) they will drop her at the Guatemalan border. She said the immigration house is just like a prison (as she explains herself, there is a police officer right outside the door watching her). They are not allowed to leave the house and she hasn’t seen any part of the city. They have one large room, with beds, for men and one for women. They have only allowed her one phone call and they took all of her belongings, including money and her phone, at the border. There are not even windows to look out of. It is like a prison. Feruz shared so much more with us but I cannot recall every detail. Her story is sad and amazing at the same time. It’s crazy to think that I met a woman from Africa, who walked from Ecuador to El Salvador, where I met her in a public hospital. She was such a strong, amazing woman. She has no idea where she is going next or where she wants to end up. I give her all of my respect.


I have Feruz’s email and she has mine. I hope we can keep in contact.


That morning they told us we were going to see a live birth but by 11 am we were doubtful. We got up to go to the cafeteria to get a snack. On our way we happened to run into the nurse that was looking for us. She took us to get scrubs in the basement laundry room (it was super creepy!) and then we made our way to the birthing area. It was air-conditioned, thank God. There were two large rooms/areas for the women who were in labor. They were all hooked up to monitors to watch the baby’s heart rate. One woman was screaming in pain and vomiting, and once again, no one even looked twice at her. The nurse gave us a little tour and explained how things were organized. No one was close enough to having their baby so we probably weren’t going to see a birth that day. They didn’t take the women into the actual birthing room until the baby was basically coming out. It was noon, our bus was probably waiting for us already. We started to leave when they yelled that they were taking one woman back. We decided that we had to stay to see it. It was our last day and we did not care if we were late. They prepped the mom with iodine and the obstetrician told her to start pushing. The baby was only 32 weeks along so the doctors forewarned us that the baby would be very premature and there was a high risk for complications. The mom was only 17 and this was her first baby. She wasn’t screaming too much but I could tell that she was holding it in so the doctors didn’t tell her to be quiet. A few other people entered the room and everyone was cheering her on to push. It was quite entertaining. Finally we could see the head and the doctor started to cut her vagina to make more room for the head. It was vulgar and I could not watch. She kept cutting it more and more, without any pain medications! AH! Finally the baby was about to come out. The head came through and the baby shot out like the bullet! He hit into the chest of the doctor and happened to fall right into her arms. She almost dropped him! I have never seen something shoot out so fast. The baby was small and his nose wasn’t completely formed so you could see right into his head. The doctor even covered the baby’s face when she walked past the mother. That baby probably will not get adequate care and he might have problems for the rest of his life.


After the birth we had to leave right away because it was already 12:25 and we still had to go change out of our scrubs. We ate lunch at the Casas and went to Spanish class. After class we went to Jugolandia (that great juice place, like Jamba Juice) for a quick treat with our professor. Marcia and I had to use the ATM so we left early and went to the grocery store. That night was pupusa night with the becarios.


I DIDN'T PROOFREAD THIS...SORRY!

On Monday the rain continued. We fell asleep to rain Sunday night and woke up to it on Monday morning. Claire, Marcia and I returned to Maternidad for our second week. We were placed in the neonatal ICU for babies of minimal risk. There were over 80 babies and only 55 cribs so that meant two babies to a crib. The staff in that area was very friendly and allowed us to hold any of the babies that we wanted to. When we first arrived, one of the male doctors showed us how to measure the circumference of the babies’ heads. So, we went around measuring all of their heads and recording it in the baby’s chart.

Some of the babies were born all the way back in February and had made their way from the high risk ICU to the intermediate to the low risk. Their cribs all have little pieces of paper taped to them stating their mother’s name, birth date, birth weight, height, and some have their diagnosis. The majority of the diagnoses say low weight, premature or some kind of respiratory problem. The babies from February and March were born weighing about 1 kilogram, which is about 2 pounds. It is amazing to me that these 5 month old babies are still in the hospital, receiving minimal attention and care. In the United States, these same babies would probably be with their families and not sharing an old, dirty, rusty crib with some other kid. The premature babies just look sick and they will probably have a decent amount of mental and health problems. There are babies covered in their own vomit or poop. There was one baby with a severe cleft lip and he was not receiving any special care. The nurse said they might do something about his lip but it is doubtful because no family here could afford it.

The majority of the babies are screaming because they are hungry or wishing for some kind of human contact. Do not get me wrong, the nurses are not treating them poorly; they just do not have the resources or staff to take care of so many sick babies. For the remainder of the day we helped carry babies to get an ultrasound picture of their forebrain and just held the crying ones. We talked with some of the nurses and doctors about their jobs and I got a bottle of water from the cafeteria (which is disgusting).

We left our area at 11:50 am because our ride comes at 12. Unfortunately, the nursing office where we keep our bags was locked. So we waited and waited for one of the nurses to return but no one came. We started walking around the hospital looking for one of them and Claire finally had to pull Sra. Lopez out of a meeting. We were pretty late but luckily our van was still waiting for us.

We ate lunch and then the group of us from the advanced Spanish class discussed our reading. On Thursday, we were assigned over 100 pages to read in our Spanish novel. There was no way I was going to be able to do that, especially because we were going to be at the farm all weekend. So we split it up into 35 page sections and two of us did each section. It was a great idea and it helped all of us. When we got to class, we all struggled with the questions that he asked us but we pulled through.

We have a 30 minute or more break during our Spanish class so our teacher drove a few of us to Mister Donut. It is like Dunkin Donuts but they have more food. Every meal comes with a donut on the side instead of fries. The donuts were pretty good and I had a café con leche.

After class, some of us stayed in the UCA’s computer lab to check our email. Their computers and internet are unbelievably slow! We ate dinner in Casa Silvia and then had our “fiesta de limpieza” (cleaning party). Every Monday we have “Avisos” which is kind of like announcements. We were supposed to go to the beach this Saturday but they changed our plans because of the big tropical storm that has been going on. Instead, we are going to Ataco for Saturday and part of Sunday. It is a small town about 2 hours away and we are staying in this big house, kind of like a bed and breakfast. Anita and Clara say that it is really nice; we can shop, hike, and go horseback riding. On Friday night, we are doing Salsa dancing lessons too!


We returned to Maternidad at 8 am on Tuesday. We were placed in the same area as Monday and we walked around and held different crying babies for 4 hours. I finally asked one of the nurses if we could see the babies in the other areas. She took us to the high-risk area first. The babies were crazy small and hooked up to all sorts of monitors. There were probably about 30 babies and I think all of them had their own incubator. Next, we went to the intermediate ICU. There were a lot more babies in that area and quite a few of the incubators had two or three babies. Can you imagine a parent in the United States going to visit their premature baby and finding him or her in an incubator with two other kids? I think the parents would sue! The nurses were joking about having three babies in one incubator. I did not think it was too funny. One nurse asked us if we saw three babies together in the United States; I told them no way, only one. Think about how many germs are being shared between those poor babies.

We ate lunch at Casa Romero; the main dish was fish but I had my good old rice and beans to rely on. I have eaten rice, beans and tortillas with every single lunch and dinner here. We all finished our “ser vs. estar” Spanish homework and went to class. During our break, I went to the computer lab to check my emails and Facebook.


I miss the States a lot. I am ready to come home.

On Friday mornings, we have our public health class. Today we talked about culture and how it affects the health of a population. Our teacher can speak English but she is not super at it so we had a translator today. The translator gave us these devices with earphones so that he was able to translate for us while our teacher was talking. I thought it would be a great idea but it sucked. I was hearing the teacher speak Spanish at the same time as hearing the guy through the crackle-ly earphone. Plus the earphone kept falling out. AAAAnyways…..the overall of the class was that so much of the population here follows old natural medicine. In most of the rural areas, there are not doctors so people will either completely ignore their illnesses and problems or they will seek care from a herbal therapist or “witch” doctor. A lot of their believes are based on old wives-tales that have not been straightened out or the belief that God wanted them to get sick. It was somewhat interesting but it was difficult to understand because of all the weird translating.


Our bus picked us up at the UCA and we drove to San Ramon for lunch. We ate at this small “comedor”; here it means café or eatery. I had chicken, vegetables, rice and “casamiento” which was a mix of rice and beans. We drank cantaloupe juice; it was so delicious, I felt like I was drinking a cantaloupe. The world cup game was on; Spain was playing Chile so pretty much everyone was cheering for Chile.

We went to this area because it is where Anita is a social worker. She works in this community in the school and she helps with this soy project. The head of the soy project, who has lived here for 17 years working for some missionary, spoke to us about it. They make soy milk in that kitchen and families can receive a cup per person per day for only 6 dollars a month. They also sell soy wheat for an affordable price. The project promotes using soy for its nutrition value because it’s high in protein and other nutrients. Next, we visited Anita’s school. We saw all the little kids; they were so cute. One of Anita’s bosses spoke about their health clinic and some other things about public health. We drank some delicious coffee and this cheese bread made out of their soy wheat. The bread was amazing; it tasted a lot like corn bread. 

Since their community is at the base of the volcano, they are very worried about landslides right now because of the rainy season. Pretty much everyone I talked to there mentioned the possibility of a landslide soon and how it would completely destroy the area like it did in 1990 or something.

We visited the homes of two families from the school. We spoke to the mothers about their lives, jobs and economical situations. Both of them expressed how important their children were in all of their decisions. They both spoke about how they work hard every day so that their children can live a better life.

Before we left we picked up six homemade pizzas from the café where we ate lunch. We ate the pizzas for dinner and they were good. The crust was very good and it was made from the soy product. After dinner we went bowling! The bowling alley looked just like any American bowling place. We had a great time together and we even ordered a pitcher of beer haha. When two of the girls ordered it, the woman showed them like a clear pitcher that they would fill with tap beer. When the waiter person brought us the beer it was just a metal bucket with 5 bottled beers haha. The entire place was blasting American music so that was fun. We then returned to the Casas to pack for our Saturday overnight trip to the Finca (farm like place).

Saturday:

We woke up bright and early to leave for the Finca. The drive there was pretty because we were driving in between bright green mountains. We arrived at this little town and then switched to a truck. We all put our bags in the driver part and stood in the back of the pickup part holding onto bars. It was scary because he was going fast. Anita told us to just wait until we got to the unpaved roads haha. The unpaved roads were literally red clay with huge rocks; the ride was so bumpy and we just went up and down huge hills the whole time. We stopped off at this waterfall area; it was very beautiful. The two boys started to climb the rocks of one part and disappeared. We waited and waited for them because we were trying to leave. The driver told us that they could not hear us yelling because there was another huge waterfall about 15 meters up. So then, a group of kids climbed through the woods to that upper area to find them. I did not go because it was really steep and full of bugs. After seeing what they looked like when they got back down I was really happy that I didn’t go.


We drove further up the mountain and arrived at the Finca. The view was excellent and I got a lot of cool pictures. Literally as soon as we walked into the kitchen to eat lunch it started pouring. The clouds creeped over everything and we could only see like 10 feet in front of us. Because we were so high up we were literally inside the cloud. It continued to rain all day and through the night. The leaders told us that it was a huge tropical storm. We could not go outside to do anything because it was raining so hard. It did not stop raining for over 20 hours!

We all stayed inside the kitchen/dining area all day. We played card games for, no joke, 7 hours. After dinner, we made Salvadoran-style smores over the stove. We used these local cookies that have chocolate on the bottom so that was their version of graham crackers and chocolate. We roasted regular marshmallows to put in between the cookies. They were delicious but not as good as the ones at home. We played a few more card games then went to our cabin. I slept with six other girls in one cabin and it was a nice cabin. We each had our own bed and there was a bathroom with running water and a shower. The only problem was the bugs. I thought there were a lot of bugs at our house here but man was I wrong! There were spiders, beetles and mosquitoes EVERYWHERE. No joke. I could barely sleep. The spiders were larger than a golf balls and the other cabin found a scorpion in their bathroom. When I pulled back my sheets, there was even a spider in my bed!

We had to wake up at 7 am for breakfast then we got back on our pick up truck to go back down the mountain. It started to rain just as we arrived to meet our van. When we got back to the Casas my roommate and I took a nap until noon because we all sleep like shit at the farm.

Our cabin group and the clouds coming in! 

Wednesday: We arrived at Maternidad and we were placed in a new area. We were in the post-surgical area for women who had cesarean sections. Some of them had babies with them while others did not. Some of the babies had already gone home with their family while the mom had to stay and others were in the neonatal ICU. We met the staff and once again watched them bathe the babies. Then they let us each wash a baby! It was fun but difficult because they were all crying and moving around. The baby boy that I washed did not poop that day so I was excited! They do not put diapers on the babies so when you unwrap them there is poop everywhere. It is not so chivo (cool).

We met a patient in our area named Selena. She was so sweet and beautiful. Her baby was up in the neonatal ICU. Selena gave birth at only seven months so her baby was “mucha chiqueta pero bonita” (very tiny but pretty). She began telling us about the father of her baby. She said he is a very bad man and that the police arrested him so he is in jail right now. Selena explained that she was better off without him because he always hit her. She said he would punch her stomach, trying to kill the baby. He also made her take some kind of pills to induce labor early. I am not sure if he caused her to go into labor or not but her baby was very premature. Selena was on bed rest because of her surgery so she could not go see her baby. We discussed her family and her older sister actually lives in New York. In addition, she was excited because her mom was coming to visit at noon that day. Selena also told us that she was studying accounting at a nearby university and that she loved math. Her story really touched me and I have been thinking about her since then. I am sure that baby will have a large amount of health and psychological problems. Selena is only 18 years old!

Near the end of our work day, Anita came to check in on us. She walked around with us and talked to patients. I like Anita a lot. She graduated from Marquette and has been living in El Salvador for 3 years working as a social worker.

We ate lunch back at the Casas and then walked to our Spanish class at the UCA. Stacey, Danielle and I went early to go to a nearby coffee shop that had free Wi-Fi. Turns out, you had to buy $3.50 worth of their food and drinks in order to get the password for the internet. That is a total ripe off because everything is so cheap here so I had to buy like three things. Also, I pay only 75 cents an hour at the internet café by our house so I lost money by going to this “free Wi-Fi café.” AND when I got to the UCA I figured out there is free Wi-Fi in the building that our Spanish class is in!

The Spanish class went well. I could understand everything the teacher was saying. We studied syllables, accents and proper naming of where the stress goes in certain words. It was fairly difficult because you had to know how to properly pronounce the word before doing anything else. Our teacher assigned us a ton of homework too!

Later that night we had a reflection at Trena’s house. She made “Trena Treats” again and they were awesome. It was some cookie bar called “sin”. We did a guided meditation and then reflected on how we felt since being here a week. After the reflection a group of us worked together on our homework and reading for our Spanish class. The reading wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be so that’s good.
I took my ice cold shower, typed some of my journal/blog and went to bed.


Thursday: At Maternidad we were at the same post surgical area. We talked with Selena again and asked how her baby was doing. The nursing students were in our area today so we followed along with them. First, they washed the mothers’ wounds and private areas. They used iodine…they use iodine for everything, even washing their hands. They asked us if we wanted to try doing it but we explained that our program has rules and we are not supposed to do things like that. I think we could have done it because it is just caretaking, which we are able to do, but I would not have felt comfortable without some training beforehand.

Afterwards they all went to breakfast so we sat and chatted for some time. We made a trip to the cafeteria to check it out. It was SO different from the States. It was more like a creepy corner store booth.

When we returned they had started to bathe the babies. The nursing professor insisted that we help again so Claire cleaned a baby first. Then I went and finally Marcia. They applauded us all after we were finished haha. There was one male nursing student, which was weird because pretty much all of the nursing students are women and the medical students are men.

The one medical student that we met on Tuesday came by to talk with us. He asked us if we had ever seen a live birth. We said no but that we really wanted to see one! He told us that he was in the birthing room that evening from 4pm to 6am. He invited us to come back and come in with him. He assured us that no one would care at all. The one girl really wanted to call a taxi and come back that night. I was hesitate because who knows if this guy will be able to get us into the room or even the hospital. Plus, I didn’t want to be in that area of town when it was dark outside, it is creepy enough during the day. Later on, we spoke with two female medical students who, once again, spoke perfect English, but said they could not speak English. They said they would be in the birthing room next week in the mornings when we would be there. We talked to one of the head nurses, who is in charge of us, and she said that would be totally fine. She is going to arrange for us to go into the birthing room on Monday or Tuesday! I am so excited!

After lunch, I went a little early to Spanish class so I could use the Wi-Fi in the building. Class went well except for the end. We each had to answer one of the four questions that he wrote on the board. They were questions about your childhood so you had to use the past tense and imperfect tense. It is difficult to distinguish when to use one or the other, especially when you are talking about your childhood. I didn’t realize that we had to write enough to talk about it for five minutes each afterwards. Mine was terrible; I felt so dumb.

During our class, the professor gives us a 25 minute break since it is a 3 hour class. My roommate Hannah and I went on the computer for a few minutes and then to the outdoor café on the ground level of the building (all of the building here are pretty much wide open, there really are not too many doors or windows, all of the walls just have huge openings or there are no walls at all). I bought a Coke Zero and Cheetos. The Cheetos tasted different than in the US! The World Cup was on the television and Holland was playing!


After class, we returned to the Casa and then left shortly after for Pupusa night. We walked to the pupusaria together and it was literally in the front area of someone’s house. It was like five houses down from Casa Silvia and I would never have guessed that it was a restaurant. A lot of the stores and restaurants are like that here…just built into the front of a house or window.
A group of us played a board game afterwards.


I will type more about today, Friday, later on and post it. We have to go eat dinner. We are having pizza from the town we visited today, San Roman.

adios!