Tuesday my coordinator brought me to a hospital that’s about 40 minutes walking from my house. The walk there is beautiful. At least the first part of it… it’s so bizarre how I’m walking in a touristy area where there are “gringos” and tourists everywhere, and literally 5 minutes later when I turn down another street I am the only white girl walking in a wicked poor area of the city. I want to take pictures, but everyone tells me to leave my camera at home because it will probably get stolen. In the hospital, I think I’m going to be rotating weeks between the different stations. It’s a tiny hospital considering the amount of people in Cuzco, and this hospital caters to the poorest of the poor. The first week I've been working in the Pharmacy unit with the only other pharmacist that the hospital has employed. It was hard, but I’m catching on. Not only do I not know anything about pharmacy in general, but everything is obviously in Spanish. So at first I was kind of laughing to myself at how ridiculous it was for me to be in this job, but I guess they need all the help they can get (even from a communication/business major hah). I basically helped with paperwork, talked to the patients and helped to explain that the doctors couldn’t see anyone else today, and handed out medicine (yikes, I am not licensed for this job). I couldn’t believe how cheap the services and medicines are for them, especially if they have “seguro” which is the equivalent to insurance.
Frida & I working in the pharmacy.
About an hour into my first day, the woman who was training me, Frida, said she was leaving for 5 minutes and to “man the window”. A woman holding her 2 year old son came up to the window, and immediately starting saying “ayudame ayudame..” which means HELP ME. She started crying and someone grabbed her kid from her (I was inside the office which has bars on it so people can’t steal the medicines). The next second, she was fainting and I ran out of the office to find Frida. She was talking with someone in the hallway, and didn’t understand that I needed her help now. Thank God the emergency room was right there and an English speaking volunteer understood me and got help for the woman. Of course this would happen to me the first time I’m left alone in the office. After having a minor heart attack, I learned how to do most of the paperwork in the office, and I’m starting to be able to read certain medications, and how to count them out for people. It’s crazy how they barely need any ID to pick up all their medication. After work, I had to buy a labcoat to wear for work, so now I look all official. I never ever imagined myself working in a hospital, but I guess I’m getting an experience of a lifetime here.
The week passed really quickly at the hospital, I like working there SO much better. The women I work with really want me to practice, so they are helping me with explaining prescriptions to the other patients and to answer questions. It’s getting a bit easier, but hard when people speak Quetcha to me (the other language here in Peru, the language of the Inkas). When there aren’t tons of patients, I get to small talk with the other pharmacy people, or work on vocabulary or whatever I want. It’s laid back most of the time which is a nice change from the daycare.
Another thing that made the week go by much faster was starting to go to Salsa. At this club about 15 minutes walking from my house, theres a club called InkaTeam that has salsa classes for free every night from 9pm-11pm for the tourists. I went on Tuesday for the first time, and started talking with one of the teachers (Franschesco) who told me he also gave free lessons. Before the lesson, Franschesco asked me a favor, and asked if we could quickly run downtown to get these free tickets to a dance show that his friends were performing in. Of course I couldn’t resist since I love watching anything dance-related, so we literally ran downtown to get two of the first 50 free tickets being given out. The lesson went really well, and even just one lesson helped me so much because I got 1 on 1 attention for an hour and a half. After my lesson, we went to the show with his friend Christian, and the show reminded me of Circus de Ole (which I also saw for free working at Disney, que suerte!!). The show was a bit obscure, like the show in Florida, but it was based on the Inka theme which was cool. It was fun, and it was a good opportunity to get to know some locals for the first time.
Franschesco and I at InkaTeam
Over the weekend, Franschesco started introducing me to his friends, and he has a lot since he teaches so much salsa. After he and his friends teach the salsa classes at the club, they all go out to other salsa clubs which has been giving me lots of practice. Although it is embarrassing sometimes when they look like professionals and I’m the only rookie. Haha but whatever, we have fun nonetheless. IT’s nice to hang out with other dancers too, especially guys, because in the states I don’t have too many guy friends that know/like to dance. It’s crazy how fast you can feel close to people when you share the same passion. Being here is making me miss dancing and performing in Boston though, and I miss dancing other forms like hiphop/ballet/jazz but soon enough I will be back in Boston with NLDC :)
My newfound "Inkateam" family.
On Sunday night, Franschesco and Christian brought me to some get together at Christian’s military base. It was mostly older sergeants and stuff, but Christian had to make an appearance so we went. Of course I was the only “gringo” (white) girl there, and because of this every old sergeant (seriously some of them were really old) all wanted to dance salsa with me. Most of them were drunk too which made it a bit dangerous haha but the rest of the younger guys at the party (cadets and soldiers) found it amusing. Definitely an experience I didn’t think I’d have in Peru. But at least now I can say that I met some legit military from this country.
Christian & I dancing Salsa
As for salsa, it’s been going really well. I can’t believe how crazy the club is every night of the week. They are open until 6am every night, and the other night I was out until 3am (you can never keep track of the time when you’re too busy with the salsa) and even more people were still coming in. I finally learned one of the group salsa dances, which looks a lot more complicated then it actually is. Since I’ve been going for almost a week, people are beginning to recognize my face and ask me to dance. A few of my guy friends are crazy dancers and have been trying to teach me stunts which is pretty ridiculous but fun. One of Franschescos friends is nuts and flipped me backwards and hit my head on the staircase in the bar... and then acted like it was my fault. Oh peruvians... haha
a big group of us - combined foreigners and locals all out for a night of salsa!
This weekend I was in Florida for my cousins wedding. My dad found a relatively cheap flight over to FL so I was able to go! I was so excited. I surprised my cousin because she thought I wouldn't be able to make it! It was an amazing weekend, and now I'm flying back to Peru tonight. I'm excited to go back and see my friends and I'm glad I'm starting to settle in to my new home there.
That's all for now...chau :)
