Week 5

During this week, like each of the other weeks, several interesting opportunities arose for me to take part in. To begin with, on Monday at 7:00am, I went to the Guacucal health post, like usual. There, I met Doctora Lejarza, who had come from León rather than Sauce. I worked there with Doctora until 2:00pm and then we went back to Sauce, but on the return home, Doctora asked me if I wanted to work with her the rest of that day and night in the clinic, during el tourno. I said “yes” rather quickly, and then asked what the hours of the shift were. She responded that I would have time to go home and eat lunch, meet her back at the Centro de Salud after 3:00pm, and we would stay there, attending to patients until 7:00am, at which point we would leave the Centro de Salud, take the bus to Panales, and ride horses into a country post. She said this all rather nonchalantly as we walked toward the bus stop, then paused to look back at me, standing there with my mouth open, slowly turning into a huge smile due to my embarrassing and surprise. After seeing my face, Doctora began to smile as well and laughed as I warned that, even with sleep, there is a likelihood of me falling off a horse. But with all my experience in Ocotal, riding the horses for all of an hour-and-a-half, I felt more than prepared! Well, maybe. Prepared or not, I was eager about the rest of the day.

When I got home to Ileana’s house, I excitedly told her about my plans for the evening and the rest of the day. It’s easy to tell when Ileana gets really excited or anxious about something because she becomes even more animated than normal. Her eyes open wider, she gets a big grin on her face, quickly asks what she can do to help, and if she’s really excited, she starts to wave her right hand in a way that is difficult for me to mimic. Anyway, Ileana repeated my plans back to me (to ensure no loss of communication), widened her eyes, and then asked me if I needed her to pack a dinner for me to take. I said it was not necessary because I could just have a later lunch around 2:30-3:00pm. So instead, she settled on making me a Tupperware container of coffee to bring to the clinic. After eating lunch, I went to the office to check in with the others and make sure with Yaccy that I could miss English class that night, though she only seemed to be concerned about my dinner that night. “Did you ask Ileana to pack you a dinner?” “You are going to get hungry,” “Kellan and I will bring you food”. My response was “No, Yaccy, I’ll be fine! I ate a late lunch which was far too big, as usual”. Ten minutes later, on my way out the door, she stops mid-sentence while talking to someone else to say “Sarah, we’ll send you food or stop by sometime class!” Haha, thanks, Yaccy.

I got to the Centro de Salud and found Doctora there around 3:30pm. At this point we had been without power for the entire day and the return of light was not looking very promising. Furthermore, without any windows (besides the open doorways) the rooms in el Centro were very dark. When 6:00pm came around, it started to become difficult to read or take blood pressures inside the rooms without leaning towards the doorway for a dim light source. At 7:00pm it was dark and the power still had not returned, so candles were lit and one small flashlight was brought out. I was sitting next to Doctora when I heard some commotion outside (the door to the center is always locked with a door man guarding the door to let people in or out) and then my name being called. Apparently, Corey (my roommate) been sent to bring me my dinner from Ileana. Corey also thought to bring my small reading flashlight, which Doctora enjoyed while writing her patient assessments. However, as the night went on without light, the patients began to dwindle and, for some of those who did come in hopes of treatment, little was able to be done in the darkness. This was the case for my friend Leslie from English class who had brought her son to the center for an injection and was turned away because the nurse needed more light for such a procedure. Disappointed with the conditions, I came to realize it would be a very slow night without any light sources besides a few small candles, and around 10:00pm Doctora asked me if I wanted to go home to rest for tomorrow since it was likely that they wouldn’t have many more patients for the rest of the night. I reluctantly agreed, not wanting to miss out on anything interesting that night, but also realizing that I was starting to get very tired in the darkness and should probably sleep before riding horses in the morning.
In the morning, I woke up refreshed, ate Ileana’s breakfast, and rode the bus to Panales. There, we hurriedly filled a vinyl sac with as many medical supplies as we could, brought the thermos of vaccines, and got back on the bus for another 5 or 10 minutes until we reached a different stop where a few horses were tied up. After counting up the horses, I realized that there were one-too-few horses. Hmm, this could be a problem. But as it turned out, it just meant that I would have the pleasure of sharing one of these small horses with Amparo, the nurse. It looked very uncomfortable to me, the way she perched herself behind me and the saddle, on the horse’s bare, skinny back, and had to reach around me to grab hold of the reins, but she assured me that she was a very accustomed rider and that it was not a problem. So we rode along together for about 45 minutes, set up a post at a family’s house, ate lunch there, talked with the family, and then left around 1:00pm, this time with an extra horse for Amparo to ride, thankfully.

The next couple of days passed without too much excitement. On Wednesday, the bus never showed up because it had broken-down for the day, so I went to the office to do some of my work for my Spanish literature course. On Thursday, I went as I normally did to the Panales health post. On Friday, Doctora went to León, so I planned to help Yaccy, Allie, and Corey with their presentation at the San Luis elementary school, where Allie and Corey had been giving an arts and crafts course. This presentation was a final celebration for the kids and their parents, as the kids presented their songs and skits in fronts of the small crowd of other students and parents. I was glad to come along to see how Allie and Corey had become part of these girls’ lives and how much fun the children had as Allie and Corey had taught them crafts, songs, and skits to present to their families.