I have not written in awhile so I will split up my writing into the past couple of days.

Saturday night: A group of us went out to dinner at a “pupusaria”. We all ate pupusas and I had a Coke. I had a pupusa with just beans and another with cheese and chicken. They were both good, especially the bean one. After that we all had a reflection night.

Sunday: My two friends and I went to the grocery store that is down the street. It is called La Despensea and it is actually owned by Wal-Mart. It was extremely nice inside and had all American food and local food too. I used the ATM there so I was somewhat nervous that someone would follow me haha. We asked at some nearby pharmacies for phone cards but none of them had any.

My roommate Hannah is from Minneapolis but her grandpa is from El Salvador. Her family here gave her a cell phone and everyone from all sides of the family have been calling her all the time. We all joke about it because she is getting really frustrated with all these people calling her speaking Spanish. She was with her family all day Sunday. From 8:30 am until dinner…she was wiped out after she got back. I cannot even imagine being with a family all day that only spoke Spanish! It would be so difficult.

Later in the afternoon I went to lunch with Claire, Angela, Olivia, Stacey and Allison. We had pupusas….hm, surprising. Every single restaurant around here pretty much only has pupusas so it is really hard to find anything else to eat! I am already sick of it. For dinner, a group of us cooked some pasta with garlic bread. Two of the girls bought us all popsicles from the popsicle place we went to on the first day. They are so good! That night we had a meeting about our praxis sites and kind of what to expect for the first day. I went to bed early because we leave for our site at 7:30 am every morning!

Monday: In the morning the kids going to Maternidad hospital and the Children’s hospital, Bloom, went in the same van. The traffic was horrible and it took us about 30 to 35 minutes to get there. I am at Maternidad with two other girls. Claire is from Marquette and is doing the same major as I am, Biomedical Sciences, but she is a year older. Marcia attends Santa Clara but she is originally from Hawaii. When we arrived we went to the nurse’s office to meet up with one of the chief nurses that would take us to our area. For the first day, we were in the area where moms who had their babies by natural birth were stationed. They typically stay in the area for 24 to 36 hours. There are 5 women to a room and most of them have their babies with them. There are two rooms for adolescents (under 18). There are also rooms called “delicadas” for more delicate cases (kind of like an ICU) like preeclampsia, diabetes or other complications from birth. Finally, there is a room for women with infectious diseases like HIV.

The head nurse in the area took us around and introduced us to healthcare providers in her area. There were nursing and medical students from the national university in our area practicing too. We talked to a lot of the nursing students. We saw the area where the doctor can do a vaginal exam if necessary. It was literally a storage closet with lockers and some old metal table that the women lay on. The conditions are unbelievable. The first thing we observed was the nursing students washing the babies and teaching the moms how to properly wash the babies. They had two little carts that they pushed around from room to room. One was a washing station with buckets of water, soap and cotton. The other cart was stacked with clean clothe to re-wrap the babies. For cleaning the babies, they first cleaned the face with pieces of wet cotton. Second, they unwrapped the baby from his or her clothe (they are literally bundled in little white clothe blanket things). Next they: cleaned the poop etc, got their hands wet with soap, washed the babies hair, arms, stomach, back and legs, wiped them down with a wet washcloth, and dried them with a dry washcloth. Finally, they cleaned the umbilical cord with alcohol swabs. The baby was then re-wrapped and returned to the mother. This washing took a very long time because there were probably about 40 babies. Next, we observed the nursing students giving the babies their first shots.

After observing various things, we made some small talk with the moms. We asked simple questions like the name of their baby, where they lived and how old they were. The majority of the staff went to lunch at 11:20 am so we were kind of left alone haha.

At about 11:40 am we returned to the nurses’ office to get our bags because we were getting picked up at noon. We proceeded outside and waited across the street for our driver. The area was extremely busy with vendors, doctors, students and nurses (the hospital is in an area with like four other hospitals and we are in the downtown). It was somewhat scary, especially since every single person was starring at us three white girls. A doctor passed by and said hi while we were sitting on the curb. He returned like two minutes later and asked if we were scared sitting out there alone and if we had valuables. He insisted that it would be better if we stayed behind the gate of the hospital because we were not safe. We agreed and after we were behind the gate he told us about some protest that was about to start. Supposedly, the lawyers and police were in a disagreement and today was some public argument and confrontation. He said the rally was coming our way from the center of San Salvador and it would be very dangerous out there. Long story short….we ended up waiting a really long time for our ride and a lot more people crowded the area outside the hospital gate. Muchas gracias to that doctor haha.

Later that afternoon we had our Spanish class placement test. There were two forms and I chose the more difficult one. That was not such a great idea haha. I did not take a Spanish class this past semester so my verb conjugations and vocabulary was VERY rusty. Then we had an oral part with the teacher. WOW…I sucked it up and could barely think of things to say. I drew a blank. But, I ended up getting placed into the advanced class. Don’t even ask me how that happened. I still think they made a mistake and put me in the wrong group. (There are three different levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced.) The teacher took us to the bookstore and showed us what book we needed to buy. It was a 350 page novel completely in Spanish. I freaked out for a minute and convinced myself that I needed to switch to the intermediate class. We are going to read the whole book for the advanced class. Later that night I talked to our leaders and told them that I will sit in the advanced class to see how it is but that I might need to put in the middle class. The other kids in my class are more advanced than me, by far.

Anyways, after the class we went to Trena and Kevin’s house. They are the co-directors of the program and they started it like 12 years ago with a Jesuit priest. They have four little girls and they have all lived here since the program started. The kids attend the local international school where they learn English and Spanish. The one little girl, Grace, who is 8, can speak Spanish just like a Salvadoran even though they all speak English at home. Trena made us cookies or “Trena treats”, as everyone calls them here.

We had dinner and a cleaning party that night.

Tuesday: We returned to Maternidad at 8 am but the one girl Marcia was sick so it was just two of us for the day. We were in the same area as Monday. First, we followed the nurse that was changing the bed sheets and giving clean gowns to the women so they could go shower. We watched one nurse clean two women in the ICU rooms. She used iodine to clean their private regions because they had infections or something. I do not really know too many Spanish medical terms so it is difficult to understand a lot of things the nurses are saying.

We met one girl who had been in the ICU area for 8 days already. She was only 16. We asked her simple questions and talked about her siblings. She did not have a baby with her so we asked where her baby was because sometimes the babies are in the neonatal ICU upstairs or they went home already. She tried to explain why her baby was not there. I did not really understand so she finally said “se murío” which means “he died”. I was shocked and just kept apologizing. She seemed fine with it all though. It was strange. She then said “it’s probably for the better”, most likely realizing, “yeah I’m 16, I shouldn’t have a baby.” She gave birth when she was only 6 months pregnant so I’m assuming the baby was too premature to survive but I’m not sure.

We met one doctor and a medical student that was following him. They were both very nice and said they could speak a little English. I have realized here, so many people say, “I speak a little English” and they speak much better English than my Spanish! Both of them spoke great English! The doctor had a pocket radio and was listening the World Cup the entire day haha. He kept updating us on the scores and said that he predicts that Argentina and Holland will be in the final game! YES, GO HOLLAND!

We observed more baby-washing. There were 4 babies in the hallway whose mothers were still in the pre-op because they had cesarean sections. We got to feed them bottles and then observe them getting cleaned. I got to hold one of the babies for a few seconds.

Later on, we met one mom who spoke excellent English. She actually taught English to little kids on Saturdays and Sundays at the local University. They give free English classes on those days. As we were talking to her, the doctor came in and gave her the waiver to go home that day. She was so excited, especially because her husband had not seen their baby yet. They only allow visitors in the hospital from noon until 2pm. She was incredibly nice and so fun to talk with. She is probably the only happy story that I have seen so far.

Next we sat in on the meeting for mothers that were going home that day. The doctors just expressed the necessity to shower, brush your teeth, drink clean water and eat healthy. They also stressed the importance of breast feeding for proper nutrition. We finally said goodbye to our two new friends and waited for our ride.
The cooks made us chocobananas for our lunch dessert! They were so good! Our Spanish classes were in Casa Silvia that day because the UCA was closed for teacher’s day. So…it was my first day of advanced Spanish. I could understand about 99% of what the professor was saying but it was still hard to speak. We learned about the culture, geography and economy of El Salvador. I am doing okay in the class right now but I think I will struggle when we get to the reading part. I am by far the weakest in the class…which I am not used to.

That day I heard that there were two Marquette professors in the area. One of our leaders invited them to dinner. I knew that one of them taught biomedical stuff so I assumed it was a biomedical sciences teacher. Turns out, he was not from my major; he was a biomedical engineering professor. He was super cool and was here promoting and testing a medical device, that he created. He created a human powered nebulizer. It is made from a bicycle frame and the healthcare provider will pedal while the patient uses the device. The other professor was from the theology department. She is actually close friends with Dr. Dempsey who wrote my letter of recommendation for this program! Small world!

By the way…there are rats in the house and that morning we found one caught in our traps. It was huge! Yuck!