More tours...

So I was not able to finish my last post because I had to return to the Casa....I will continue where I left off...

On Wednesday, it started to rain very hard as we were trying to leave for the UCA. It has rained on and off every day; it goes from being beating hot to pouring rain to hot again. The UCA was so beautiful. There are huge trees, flowers and gardens everywhere. We toured the Oscar Romero Center and learned so much about him and the 6 Jesuit priests that were murdered on the UCA grounds in 1989 during the war. The US gave over 6 billion dollars to the Salvadoran government during the war and it turns out that the government was killing thousands, including the priests. We saw the residence where the 6 priests were killed and the rose garden and musuem  dedicated to them. After the UCA we bought some phone cards and returned to the Casa for dinner. Later that evening we had a doctor come to speak to us about public health and the healthcare system in El Salvador and how it compares to the US. He was actually the mayor of San Salvador for 2 terms and he has studied at John Hopkins and Harvard! After the speaker we had our first Wednesday night reflection and it was kind of emotional. I miss home A LOT...its weird here.

Yesterday we visited the two clinics that we will be working in and one of the hospitals. Fundacion de Desarollo Social is the clinic that is right near the Casas. That is the clinic that I will be in for the 3rd and 4th week. It was very nice and well organized (for the country, you know). They had a lot of specialized doctors: eye doctor, ear nose and throat doctor, dentists, physical therapists, and a few more. This clinic is private and run by non governmental organizations (NGOs). The patients pay what they can towards their care and if they cannot pay, the clinic will cover the cost. The second clinic we went to was out in a more rural area. It was extremely poor and had a lot of crime. I am glad that I am not working there...no offense. Their facility was lacking and obviously in a third world country. It was run by a church and on their church grounds they also had a school, pre-school and library for the kids. Afterwards we returned to the Casas for lunch.

After lunch we left for our tour of the maternity hospital, where I will be working for the first two weeks. Maternidad Hospital is the all woman public hospital. About 80% of the population gets public health from the government, which is free, but the conditions are terrible. It was clearly unsterilized with open medicine and liquid bottles everywhere. Some of the babies were just in the middle of the hallway, some patients had to share a bed and a lot of the babies in the ICU had to share incubators. So many of the pregnant moms were like 15. They had a high-risk pregnancy area, an oncology area (breast and ovarian cancer), infectious disease area, ER, neonatal ICU, and a birthing area. When we work there we will follow nurses and we will spend time in the nursery with the babies. After the tour we returned to the Casas and I ran to the internet cafe really quick because we had a speaker scheduled at 5pm. The speaker canceled so I came back to the cafe but then some of the other kids came over here to tell me that now he was coming. The speaker was Rick Jones from Catholic Relief Services. He has traveled the world working for them and now heads CRS in El Salvador. He taught us a HUGE amount of information about El Salvador's culture, economy, poverty, health care and lifestyle.

We had dinner with the Salvadoran Scholarship students whose program is associated with the Casa. They all attend the UCA and live in community together like us. The older students live in the Casa houses with us..two to each house. There are about 30 "Becarios" and they are mostly from the rural areas. We ate pupusas (the most popular Salvadoran food) which are tortillas stuffed with either beans, cheese, pork or both. For dessert we had this amazing homemade apple pie. It was sooo good! We all ate with small groups of Casa students and becarios. Almost none of them can speak English so we had to speak Spanish. I can understand pretty well what people are saying in Spanish but it is very hard for me to speak it. Maybe some of you have learned another language but the hardest thing is putting into words what you are trying to say and conjugating the verbs. After dinner a few of the becarios started playing the guitar and singing. I went to the bathroom quick and when I returned everyone was dancing and singing. We sang and danced to classic Salvadoran songs and then said our goodbyes. Two of the becarios that are living with us shared their 'testimonies' or life stories afterward. They both had lived through the war in the rural area which was hard.

This morning my alarm didn't go off so my roommate woke me up ten minutes before we had to leave haha. We had our first Public Health class today at the UCA. It was very interesting but kind of a repeat of what the doctor taught us Wednesday night. The teacher is very nice and we have a translator there in case she cant translate what she wants to say to English. Her English is pretty good and I can understand her pretty well. We then walked back as a group and waited for lunch. We talked with one of the becaria girls while we waited; she's so nice. Lunch was fish today; they were basically crab cakes but made with tilipia fish. I tried half of one and it was pretty good but I really don't like fish. Oh and we always have fresh fruit like mango and pineapple....the fruit is always so delicious. By the way....there are bugs everywhere! We had three HUGE cockroaches in my house yesterday. IT WAS HORRIBLE! I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE! And the mosquitos are really bad. I am getting bitten as we speak.

After lunch we visited the public children's hospital, called Bloom, where another group of students will be working. It was very large and a little more organized/ sterile than Maternidad. They had a burn unit, multiple surgery departments, intensive care units and neonatal areas. It was pretty advanced for the area. Afterward, we visited the museum of popular art. They had a lot of work from the rural areas and lots of these local "surprises" which are little wooden egg-shaped pieces. You can open them and there are painted scenes with people in the inside.

Right now I am waiting to leave for dinner at this local family's house. They are close friends of the Casa and have a lot of kids. All of the kids are supposedly really talented, musically or other stuff. I am having fun but it's still really strange here. Tomorrow we are going to the big cathedral downtown where Oscar Romero was assassinated. We will then climb the San Salvador volcano and eat lunch up there.

Got to go. I didn't read over this so sorry for the mistakes!

-Valerie