Today was my first full day in the clinic and I don't exactly know how to describe it. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to help out after reading about all of volunteer abroad programs that only benefit the volunteer but do nothing for the community. Fortunately, thats not the case whatsoever.
I'm volunteering in a Centro de Salud in San Lucas. San Lucas is 30 minutes from Antigua off the main highway that goes to Guatemala City and is up in the mountains. To get to work I take a bus that looks like this:
They're called "chicken buses" because people actually take chickens on them (I haven't seen that yet though) and are packed to the point where this morning a teenage boy was literally holding onto the door and I was worried he was going to go flying off as we rounded bends up in the mountains. To get to San Lucas it costs Q5, which is less than a $1
El Centro de Salud is a free clinic run by the government. Its very different then any doctor's office I've ever seen. There are 3 patient rooms and everyone waits outside on benches. There are loads of kids running around and its very crowded. Multiple people will be in the room at once so privacy is pretty much non existant. There are no computers in the clinic and all records are on scrap paper.
Just about everyone I saw this morning was a woman or child and there were probably 50 patients for two doctors. For my first two hours I did triage work, which consisted of taking the height, weight, temperature and for patients over 3, blood pressure of every single patient. I also wrote down what symptoms brought them which made me realize how much Spanish I have still to learn (aka how many body parts I don't know!).
After I finished taking histories for all the morning patients, I went to work with another doctor across the hall doing vaccinations. There was a line of about a dozen women standing with theirbabies to be vaccinated. Each parent held a piece of paper, which contained her child's immunization history and came in and gave it to the doctor. I continued taking heights and weights, but was also responsable for dispensing oral vaccinations to speed the process (basically I was in charge of attempting to squirt polio vaccinations and vitamin A into crying babies' mouths).
What I'm really excited about is something I set up today. Its currently summer here and all of the kids are on summer vacation. In the back of the clinic, there's a woman who teaches a sex ed and reproductive health course to a bunch of neighborhood children in the mornings. She's from San Lucas and volunteers her time to teach the kids. She doesn't speak a word of English, but wants the kids to learn English. I'm going to teach an English class for the next two weeks to the kids when I finish at the clinic. There's 8 total and they're between the ages of 6 and 12. I'm going to do 45 minutes with the younger ones and 45 minutes with the older ones. Okay this is all I can write for now because I need to run and get supplies and a book since I've never taught English!!!
This is a picture of the big volcano to the south of Antigua!
