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.