Another field trip!

This Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we had another public health field trip! My favorite part was possibly that we stayed in the same hotel for both nights. I enjoy having a couple days where I'm not always packing and unpacking! Also, there was a frozen yogurt place right down the street from us... needless to say we made a couple of visits! The trip itself was okay content-wise. Our goal was to learn more about tropical diseases and what they mean for public health, so we went to "the coast" (we were nowhere near water but it had tropical, coastal climate) and visited some health centers. We had just reinforced in class how there is a huge social component to tropical diseases, and it is not totally dependent on location. Unfortunately, the visits of our trip had a huge focus on the biological side of tropical diseases, which was interesting, but doesn't really go along with the point of our classes before. The first visit, to a private medical center called Hombro a Hombro ("Shoulder to shoulder"), was probably the best one! They don't practice any traditional medicine there, mostly because they are small, but the doctor who spoke to us explained how they have a good relationship with all of the rural community leaders so that they can work together for the common health of the people. They also suggest that people see the shaman as well as the doctor so that they are not neglecting any form of care that could help them. He also told us about how he has taken the time to learn all about the culture and the habits of the people he treats so that he knows how to make his care relevant to them. This was a very good visit!

Hombro a hombro!

Unfortunately, the rest of our visits were headed by a local employee of the Ministry of Public Health, who is skeptical of the campesinos (poor rural farmers, basically) and really likes to focus on the biological side of disease. We visited a few more centers, of which my favorite was the lab of the Ministry hospital, just because I miss lab stuff. :) Next we were headed to a very poor barrio (neighborhood/street of run-down shacks) to talk to their area leader about the social aspects that affect health and tropical disease, and we were super excited about that! Turns out, there was no one there that the MPH guy thought we should talk to, so we just walked through and left. He kept bringing up how they "don't invest in health or education, and are just consumerist with their cell-phones and big TVSs" and didn't acknowledge any of the problems that were outside of their control. Yes, I agree that it is probably not wise to spend your money on things you don't need when you are living without savings for health and school. But I can sympathize with them that life probably isn't very enjoyable if you are literally just living to survive, and sometimes it just feels nice to surprise your family with something nice, so for a second you can feel like maybe you don't live in a dump. There were other annoying things he kept saying about them without giving credit to the real situation or how they, as a government organization, have the responsibility to give them fair opportunities. Overall, we got a good look into how a lot of the government organizations view the poor, and while we didn't directly learn about the social aspects of tropical disease, we learned just as much about the political view on it.

Chagas, a bug that bites you and then poops near the hole so you scratch it into your bite. It's pretty bad. These are a bunch of dead ones they showed us in a lab that studies the tropical disease vectors in the area. It was interesting, but not really the information we were looking for from this trip! And our professor agrees.

I miss research :/ I wanted to use those pipetters so bad!

Looking at some blood with leishmaniasis!

Randomly during the lab tour, one of the women working in the lab asked us, "Do you want to see a pineapple farm?" (in Spanish of course). So, off we went to a pineapple farm. It had nothing to do with what we were learning, and our professor was clearly annoyed that we were getting really late on our schedule, but we all enjoyed the tour!

I never knew how pineapples grew!

Tour of the factory where they prepare the pineapples for shipment. On the left is the woman who offered for us to go here (she literally just got up and left her job to come with us... it was a little strange) and on the right is Ivan, the Ministry of Public Health guy we were annoyed with! 

The last thing we did for our trip was visit a tour place for las Tsachilas, which are an indigenous population in this area. It was interesting to learn about some of their medicinal plants! The overall experience was a little touristy for my taste, but we all enjoyed it.

Our guide showing us something about heating the leaves and healing something with them. It seemed interesting - I wish I would have understood more of what he said here!

Our professor helping in the demonstration of their contraption to juice the sugarcane. 

These cool pod things that you break open and much up the seeds inside with your finger to make a bright red paint!

Last but not least, we watched the Ecuador-Chile soccer game in our room with our delicious fro-yo. :) They may have lost that game, but they still made it into the world cup, so that was exciting! I will admit though, soon after this picture was taken I fell asleep and remained that way for the entire game. I like pretending to be a sports fan, but let's be real!

Weekend in Baños

Well my blog title this time makes it sound like I spent the weekend in the bathroom, but contrary to what 4th-grade Spanish makes it seem like, Baños is a city known for its hot springs and adventure sports that Jessica and I visited this weekend! It was overall a relaxing weekend, but we didn't do a whole lot. I would consider returning and doing the whitewater rafting and this sport where apparently you just put on a harness/rope and jump off a bridge (though somehow it's not the same as bungee jumping). We got there on Saturday, walked around for a while, and got massages at our hostel. We tried to do some of our homework, but the wifi we were promised was basically un-usable. Oh, first world problems. We went to bed nice and early so that we could wake up at 5:30 and head to the hot springs! Unfortunately, they were still pretty busy at that time. And they looked like regular swimming pools, so that was a disappointing deviation from my dreams of small misty pools hidden in the forest. Oh well, they were still hot and relaxing. :) When we weren't being splashed by the old men who decided doing laps in the springs was a good idea...

Something was definitely going on in the central square when we walked by. What that is, I have no idea. 

Our hostel room!

Relaxing by the pool before our massages :)

Any time I looked up Baños online, people were saying to go to Stray Dog. I never really planned on it, but we happened to pass it, and it turned out to be really good!

A pretty park we passed at night.

In the hot springs! We got to wear these super-attractive hair caps.... ;)

In front of the waterfall by the springs.

¡Salud Pública!

This past week our little Public Health track had it's first field trip! For Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we were about two hours north of Quito to learn about the relationship between traditional (indigenous) and western medicine. My favorite visit was the first clinic we went to, called Jambi Huasi. This is a small clinic, and as far as we saw, is not very busy. What I think is neat is that they offer traditional and western medical options for their patients, but because it is not a state-sponsored clinic, care is not free (or maybe it's on some sort of a sliding scale - I didn't really understand) so that is why many people will opt for the free public hospital instead. We were shown some traditional treatments/diagnoses, which you will see in the pictures! I would love to work here for my internship portion of the program, and help out with their nutrition program while learning about all the plants and herbs involved in indigenous medicine. Unfortunately, my program directors don't think there will be enough to do, so hopefully the Jambi Huasi people send them a satisfactory plan for me so I can go.

Jessica getting a "change of energy" with many oils and water being rubbed on her head. 

Plants used for medicine! I really hope I get to learn all of these while I intern, even if it's not at this clinic. 

Cuy cleanse. The cuy is a guinea pig that yachaks (indigenous doctors) ask to absorb our sicknesses, then they shake/rub it all over your body until the cuy dies. Then, the yachak skins it, pulls out all its intestines, and searches it for a diagnosis. In this case, she said I have parasites (been there, done that). I'm not so much interested in these types of indigenous medicine as in the plants and their nutritional/healing properties. Also, as you can see in this picture, it was really hard to keep a straight face during this. Plus, I didn't want to look at the cuy because I'm afraid of dead animals.

The yachak skinning the cuy. I left the more graphic pictures off :)  But it was, uh, interesting to see the entire inside of the animal. 

Marais getting the egg cleanse. Similar idea to the cuy cleanse, except this one is supposed to diagnose spiritual health rather than physical. After rubbing the egg all over Marais, the yachak broke it into a pan and looked for any white parts on the yoke to determine if she had good spirits. According to the egg, she passed!

Looking at the egg, with a couple yolks from past patients.

That day we also visited the hospital San Luis, which was contrasted with Jambi Huasi in the sense that it is public and free, and the only bit of traditional medicine available was a vertical birth assisted by a traditional midwife. The newest constitution of Ecuador encourages a better integration of traditional and wester medicine in its health facilities, but that has been hard to accomplish because of the cultural differences of payment, location, etc.

Front of the hospital! If you look closely, you can see our professor Edward Ayala, Jessica, and Marais!

In our scrubs to see the birthing room! We didn't know what was going on, so when we started putting on the scrubs, we were getting nervous that we were going to see a real birth. Luckily, we didn't have to intrude on anyone like that and just saw the room where it happens!

Around the time of our lunch break, we got to spend a couple of hours in the Otavalo market, a craft market known for its hugeness. I may have spent a bit of money there. Oops. Everything was so beautiful to look at though, and there were even some street performers near the end of our time there!

Otavalo!

Performers in the market. He's not playing it now, but if you look on the bench you can see his big PVC pan flute :) It actually sounded pretty decent!

We stopped at our hotel after lunch to unpack and relax for a bit. CIMAS always gets us really nice places to stay! I don't actually have any pictures of the hotel itself, but I do have some of the area around it!

Llamas and a chicken - not my best audience ever. Playing the pan flute I bought at the market!

Looking down at Otavalo! It's a lot smaller than Quito and a lot more tied into the nature around it, I think. I really hope my internship is here!

CAVE! We found this a little bit down the road from our hotel, just off to the side.

Had to struggle through some thorns, but I'M IN! I couldn't go very far though; the holes off the right and left were to small for me :/ Probably for the best since I didn't have a light...

Public Health girls :)

Our last visit of this busy first day was to the house/clinic of another yachak. He lived on the top of a hill with his family, and explained a little about the use of plants for medicine. It was interesting, and I want to learn more! He had us walk around for 15 minutes, and pick a plant that "spoke to us." I first chose a plant with some red in its leaves, but eventually went with a mushroom that spit out powder when I touched it. We then sat around a fire and talked about the medicinal qualities of the plants we chose, as well as a few others. He told us about how he doesn't have a garden because the world is his garden, and he just collects the plants he needs from where they originally are. After this, his mother performed a sort of cleans on me with one of the plants. She first took sips of this tea and spit it on me (quite a surprise) and then hit me with the plant a lot :) The plant smelled good though, so it actually was pretty refreshing!

The yachak's house. 

The first plant I chose.

And the one I eventually went with! He told me that this is a plant that they teach their kids not to touch when they're young... oops. Of course it would be the one I pick. 

Being spit on by the yachak's mother! 

The yachack on the drum, and his brother on the flute. Playing a song during my cleanse. His wife and adorable little daughter look on :)

Finally we got back to our hotel, ate dinner, and went to bed at 8:30. What a day! Not ashamed of the bed time at all. Though I'll definitely have some adjusting to do when I get back to Lawrence...

Day two was not quite as interesting or full as day one. We drove to Ibarra, which was probably 45 minutes away, and visited a clinic the just had traditional midwives as far as I know. They simulated a traditional birth, and then told us about some of the politics of the public health situation. A big question in this area right now is whether or not the midwives should be paid in the hospitals or not, but these women brought up how part of their cultural/traditional views about their job is that the mother pays them with food or items. Yes, it might be nice if they were paid and respected as much as the doctors who do the same job, but at the same time they would loose part of the culture of their job if they were given money rather than items. After that, we had some time to swim at our next hotel while we waited for the group from the Social Services track to meet up with us. Once we were all together in Valle del Chota, we had a talk with one of their government leaders who told about all the racism and discrimination there still is against Afro-Ecuadorians. Apparently it's pretty blatant, and makes things like getting health-care harder for them. :( Unfortunately I didn't hear much more than that from the talk, because the fleas were biting me up like crazy!

Enjoying the views out the van window :)

Getting into Valle del Chota!

Ready to swim. I forgot my swimsuit, and the supermarket didn't have any I could buy. Luckily, they had this giant training bra with astronauts on it, which is better than any suit! 

The end of the sunset from the valley. 

Good morning Valle del Chota! It was pretty cool being surrounded by mountains like this :)

Somehow all 5 of our beds (one not pictured) got messed up from the 3 of us who stayed there... must have had to do with the scary movie we watched before bed!

The pool and soccer field.

Aaaaand my flea bites. All over my ankles. 10x itchier than any mosquito bites I've ever had...

The morning of day three, we talked to a ministry of public health clinic, which was a little boring. After walking around the downtown area a little bit to kill time and then eating lunch, we headed back to Quito! Considering that we had a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday field trip and no class Friday, I'd call that a good week! :)

Lessons from Cotopaxi

Last weekend, I tried to climb one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Probably not a good idea, but I learned a couple of things from that weekend, and enjoyed some of it! We started off Saturday morning with picking up/sizing our gear, then hiking about an hour up to the refuge we would be staying at. Already tired from that, I had a little break for lunch and settling in, before we climbed up to the snow cap to be trained on how to walk with our crampons (basically spikes that you tie to your boots) and ice picks. I really enjoyed this training, since I can much more easily keep up my endurance if there's something technical to it... probably why I was a hurdler in high school. I got pretty excited after the training, thinking of course I'll make it to the top, if it's all like this! We headed back to the refuge, ate dinner, then tried to sleep from 8 til midnight. Setting out in the dark, we starting climbing. Shortly after that piece of snow cap I enjoyed so much earlier, there was a long stretch of sand and dirt that was pretty hard to climb. Right before a giant incline, I finally had to give up because I was breathing too much and getting light-headed. Looking around, I was in an area I would NOT want to fall! The worst part is probably that my climbing partner, Matt, had to turn around with me since we were tied to the same guide.

First thing I learned, is that obviously I need to prepare more for something like this. To be fair, I found out that a group was going (and needed one more person) two days before it happened. I think I could've done it if I knew, say, a month in advance and could train for it. I tend to make decisions like this pretty impulsively and can easily convince myself it's doable, but hopefully next time I'll be able to turn down something cool if I know I'm not ready for it!

Also, once we got back to the refuge, I had hours to kill and it was too cold to sleep. So I put in my headphones and started listening to the flute concerto I'm working on. And I thought, you know, I could start training a lot, climb a lot of mountains, and become this cool adventure girl because I like volcanos and want to see their craters. Or, I could take the limited free time I have, and keep working on something I'm already good at and have already invested a lot in. I can still enjoy hiking and the like without being really good at it, and should be investing my time in flute, because I love it and am already committed to it!

Enough with the writing, here are some of the pictures I got from the weekend!

Looking down from the refuge...

...and looking up!

Enjoying our last warmth for a while!

Lunch in the refuge... part of having guides is that they cooked for us! It was good, even though I felt nauseas after each meal... probably just the altitude!

Sleeping bags! 

Crampons and ice pick.

Charlie and Allison while we're training!

Aaaand the view from the parking lot.