Thoughts

So I don't really have a theme for this post but I figured I would update since I'm sitting at a computer and I don't have anything else to do for the rest of the day.

I did get to see the birth the other day! It was a great experience, the mom did so well, the baby boy was healthy, and all 8736 family members in the room were happy. I'm really glad that I've now seen births in two different settings here, the centro de salud and the hospitalito, to compare them to each other and the ones back home.

Today I went around on home visits with a nurse from the health center. We went to four different houses doing either prenatal or postpartum checks. Even though I couldn't understand the conversations since they were in tz'utujil, it was really interesting to see how the visits were conducted (and also to see more houses around the town... some are just one room with one bed that the whole family sleeps in!). For the most part, we'd go in and sit down, the nurse would talk to the woman and husband for a while, then she would give them information on warning signs to look out for, and then she would do a brief physical exam. I got to help a little bit taking blood pressures, and she let me listen to the babys' hearbeats and feel for the position. Sometimes here I feel a little bit like an intruder just tagging along with nurses and doctors and helping out with patients, but for the most part everyone is so welcoming, and the town as a whole is used to always having volunteers and students around. It's been a little bit hard not being part of a group or an official volunteer anywhere, since I have to just show up places and see what I can do there. That's all part of the experience I was hoping to get though. I wanted to be able to do a lot of different things while I was here, and do things that I have never done at home. I definitely think I've accomplished that so far, and hopefully I'll get in a few more new experiences in this last week.

It's weird to think I'll be home a week from today! Somewhere around the middle I started thinking a month seemed incredobly long, and June 9th felt a lifetime away. But now a week seems really short and I'm just excited for the rest of my stay here. Which hopefully does not include any more volcano eruptions, tropical storms or sinkholes.