Day 4

Today, a picture of my room.

Today was even better. 1st, I ate a good dinner last night, 2nd I got to Skype with Mike last night, it was so good to see his face even though it made me home sick (I also got to skype with my dad, and my mom and Katie, briefly). Plus, at least now I am comforatble now in a routine even though most of the time I don't know what is going on. Get up at 6:30, breakfast downstairs - yogurt mixed with cereal and marmalade, coffee and a cheese sandwhich (half of which I save for lunch) then taxi to work.
The residents came in for a meeting today, Cynthia, the resident who showed me around on Tuesday, stopped by the clinic to let me know that they had a meeting, but then never reappeared so things must have not gone the way the residents had hoped. They are paid 800Bolivian a year which is a heck of a lot less than American residents make...I wonder how they afford everything.
Something, Raquel cleared up and I asked about today and the interns cleared up: the interns are not interns like our interns, they are still in their last year of medical school, but they take call like an intern so I still think it is too much, plus now, with the residents gone, they are picking up a lot of the slack.
Lunch was the same, but one of the interns sat and chatted with me as he drank a coke for lunch (my sandwich and diet coke kicked his cokes hiny)...I am guessing he ate again later since lunch is their big meal of the day.
Then I spent the afternooon in the ED, this time with a doctor who spoke a lot of English because he lived in Miami for two years. The interesting thing is that in Miami he spoke so much Spanish that he says his English never got as good as it could have because he was never forced to use it. He also speaks French and Italian so I felt safe talking because he has to understand where I am coming from with my broken Spanish. Also, I saw my first LP in Bolivia done by this doctor...it was the quickest LP I have ever seen. It was incredible. No lidocaine, but Midazolam on board so that helped with the patients anxiety and to keep the patient still. He said that he can usually tell by the color of the fluid if it is bacterial meningitis and this looked good to him which is good for the patient.
After work, I walked to the bank and then around the city a bit to work on getting my barrings...I am starting to miss the large Arizona sky, I always take for granted how much you can see there.
I got to see a parade with a man name Johnny and I need to ask who he is. Then I got myself some icecream. No way am I losing weight here with all the good ice cream.