Tranquilo en Puerto Escondido: Mangos Falling from the Sky!

Well hello again. It's been a few weeks. Didn't really mean for that to happen. So here's an update.

My third week was spent at the Centro de Salud in Bajos de Chila. It's a small town just north of Puerto Escondido. The preceptor there was incredible. She explained everything, asked questions, showed us lab results & asked us to interpret them, and let us examine every patient. I even got to help clean out a foot wound and attend the suturing of ped v. auto eyelid laceration. There were five of us in a room not much larger than my bathroom. It was not air conditioned. Talk about sweating!

Here I am in Bajos de Chila:

One really cool thing I got to do that week was go out to the schools with the dentist and teach kids how to brush their teeth. We gave them toothbrushes and taught them when to brush. I didn't get pictures, but supposedly someone is going to email me some. I doubt it, but at least I have the memories. I also got to wander around town on my last day there because the doctor was 2 hours late. That is quite common here. People just sit and wait, sometimes all day. So, while wandering the town I got some cool shots. There are about 11,000 inhabitants.

Here is a picture of me & Dra. Trinidad:

Thursday of that week we all went out with the head physician of the program here. She took us out to get tlayudas and talk about our experiences here. It was great!

Saturday May 24 I headed about an hour south to a little town called Mazunte. $36 pesos for an air conditioned bus ride. Fell asleep listening to The Pixies and woke up just in time for my stop. I went to the National Turtle Conservation Museum/Aquarium. Every year there are thousands of turtles that show up to lay their eggs. They hatch, then those turtles come back later. Then I went shopping around town, ate lunch, then headed back to Puerto Escondido. Caught the bus on the side of the highway, but this time it was a locals commuter bus. The music was blasting, all the windows were open, and it was $30 pesos. All in all, a fun day.

That night there was a cultural fair at the Agencia Municipal across the street from my house. I listened to a choir and watched some traditional dance performed by kids.

I didn't stay too long since I had planned on taking my host family out to dinner to thank them for being totally awesome. We had pozole at Taqueria Rosy, THE pozole spot in Puerto. Then, of course, we went for gelato.

This is me and Chela, my host mom: