FAQs

Six weeks have flown by! So much has happened and I'm not at all ready to go yet. Jake, Tori and I are taking a bus through the night to Tikal later today and we have until Wednesday to travel a bit more. Since we've got only four days in the states before second year med school classes start again, I won't get to see or talk to many of you as soon as I'd like but I know you'll have questions. So here are my responses to questions I've gotten after past trips to tide you over until we can have a more in depth conversation :)

Best part?
Always the hardest to answer so I've tried to whittle it down to a top 5...
1-Giving Luis a Quiche Bible/our conversations about theology
2-Night spent at Fuentes Georginas
3-Working in clinic (learning from the docs, speaking Spanish with patients, getting to know students from all over)
4-Relaxing at Lake Atitlan and at Champerico
5-Getting to salsa dance with friends every week

Worst part?
The goodbye dinner

Pictures?
I'll upload some when I get home. For now check Tori and Ariana's Facebook pages

Was the food good?
Hit or miss. Some was great, like pepian, jocon, tacos, various soups, pitaya, mango, chocolate from Doña Pancha's. I'm still not sick of rice and beans. I definitely don't want to eat cucumbers for a while...I'm not a huge fan of them to begin with and got served a lot of them the first several weeks. Oh, I also learned I'm allergic to mango skins...I can eat the fruit and LOVE it but can't prepare it myself :(

You've lost weight...Did you get sick?
The weight loss is mostly from walking everywhere and a different diet. But I've had some GI issues, and we'll leave it at that :)

Did it meet your expectations?
I expected to spend more time in clinic and working on patient education than I actually did. I still learned a lot. The weeks were long with work in the morning then afternoon classes but it was even more fun than I could've hoped for. With Luis, I covered more grammar than I thought possible, and our hours of conversation helped reinforce all those lessons and the new vocab I was learning. We also traveled to communities around Xela as tourists more than I thought.
On another note, I knew as a tall blond I'd stick out, but the number of catcalls, stares and inappropriate requests I received here still shocked me.

How does it compare to your last time in Guatemala?
In many ways the two are very different. Last time in 2011 I spent two months working in a rural school and was in charge of short term missions teams coming in. This time we were in a big city; I was only responsible for myself, got to travel a ton and was in class or clinic most of the day. Both taught me a ton about Spanish, what I want to do in the future and myself in general. It was fun coming in knowing someone else in the program this time, and I still got to know a ton of amazing people from around the world.

Would you go back? When?
Lord willing!! Maybe not the exact same way but I'd love to visit Luis' village, keep working on my language skills and serve as a doctor in a setting like this. Yeah there are frustrations, limitations, and barriers, but I love it. Second and third year in med school will keep me pretty close to Loma Linda, but maybe fourth year I can do an away rotation and then depending on my residency I might try to work abroad then. I'm still very unsure what I'd like to specialize in, so that will definitely affect details of such plans.

Would you change anything about it?
Of course there were good and bad moments, but I couldn't have imagined a better way to spend the summer. It was refreshing being reminded why I'm in medicine and investing so much time and money in huge textbooks.


Well, this has helped me process...my top 5 might change after we see Tikal. I've been looking forward to seeing the ruins since we bought plane tickets :) hopefully between this and the previous posts you've been able to keep up with my adventures, but I'd love to talk more if you have questions or want more details!!

Weeks 5-6

Last week was another fun week...prepping patient education material, Tuesday and Wednesday in clinic, a trip to San Fransisco for market day, a professional soccer game, classes and hanging out with friends.
 In clinic I got to translate for Larissa, an American doctor who speaks Spanish pretty well but it's nice to have someone else there to make sure you don't miss anything the patient is saying. Wednesday we went to a Quiche village called Chirijquiac located about 45 minutes outside Xela. We set up clinic in the home of a local man whose children are involved in the Pop Wuj scholarship program.
I finally hit a point of frustration in classes...after a full morning in clinic we were working on past subjunctive examples and I kept messing up and struggled to make up examples, feeling stupid and frustrated with myself. Thankfully Luis can read me really well at this point so we switched to talking about sports for a while and got me back to normal. He prepped me well for the soccer game Saturday night, telling me some of the politics behind soccer here, where to buy a jersey, where he normally sits, what cheers/curses/songs to expect from the crowd, etc. It was a ton of fun! Fireworks, balloons, face paint, marching bands!! Xelaju won 1-0, granted the refs may have stretched the game until we scored, but it was a win nonetheless :)

This week has been bittersweet as so many "lasts" are coming up. Tuesday was my last day in clinic. I got to translate for Meghan, another American doctor. We worked well together and saw several interesting patients. That evening Mynor gave a presentation on medicinal plants used in Guatemala. Wednesday we didn't have mobile clinic but organized a patient education day. We prepped a PowerPoint to help patients with diabetes plan meals to better their sugar, and a chef came to help them learn some healthy recipes. Thursday we have our final dinner at the school to say thank you and goodbye to our teachers :( Friday is the last day of class then saying goodbye to friends and host families. On Saturday, Jake Tori and I are headed to Tikal and will travel some more before our flight home on Wednesday.

The highlight of my week was definitely Monday when I gave Luis my thank you gift. I went to a couple different stores and eventually found a New Testament in Quiche and Spanish. One of our first conversations had been about how he's never read through the entire Bible himself, and since then I've learned his first language is Quiche. I was a little disappointed I couldn't find a  a full Bible in Quiche, but I was still excited and couldn't wait until the end of the week to give it to him. Monday I pulled it out of my bag as soon as I walked into the room, and he was so excited!! He explained to me that he's now one of five people in his village with a Quiche Bible and how he'll treasure it. He then proceeded to tell me about his weekend and how he's been telling people about me. He was translating for a midwife training session, and when given the opportunity to voice his opinion he lamented the fact that none of the churches were making an impact in the community and proceeded to tell the 40 women there about our conversations. By the end of their discussion, women I've never met were volunteering to teach me Quiche, let me live with them, show me how to make fabric and sew myself traditional clothes, and much more. Luis explained to them how I'm still in school for several more years, but now they're all counting the days until I come. I'm honored but have been trying to convey to Luis that they don't need to wait for me to bring about changes in their community. He and I started reading through his new Bible and using our last few days to talk about prayer, church leadership and more (using this to practice my Spanish grammar of course). I really admire his passion for his community and his enthusiasm for learning more about the Bible. If I weren't in med school, it would be pretty easy to convince me to stay and learn Quiche. One day!

Weeks 3-4

This past two weeks have been a fantastic mix of clinic work, traveling, Spanish and getting to know people better.

Both weeks I've been assigned the Wednesday and Friday morning clinics. Two of those days I've been able to shadow Dr. Barbara. I've also helped with triage and pharmacy like normal. Dr Barbara is trained as a pediatrician here in Guatemala. She and Dr. Carmen Rosa have been trying to take Step 1 and the subsequent tests to get certified in the U.S. but that process has been slow and complicated for them. Our patients have been mostly women with the occasional child or older man. Many of the chief complaints Dr. Barbara received were reproductive in nature so I've observed two pelvic exams and been present for discussions on nutrition, uterine cancer, family planning, female hygiene, and more. We've also seen a fair number of patients with nerve problems. As I try to weigh the pros and cons of primary care versus neurology and how they could be used in a missions/community development setting, it has been good to see the need for both. In talking with one of the other doctors, he encouraged me to pursue whatever specialty interests me most. This has helped me realize how much i learned this year and how much I still don't know.

On our days off, I've been able to visit some amazing places with friends. One weekend we went zip lining, toured a coffee plantation and swam in some hot springs. Last week a few of us rented bungalows in Fuentes Georginas for a night. They're different hot springs in the mountains near Xela, and since it was the middle of the week we had the place to ourselves. Without the city lights you could see the stars so clearly, and the hot water felt so good compared to the cold mountain air. The view when the sun was up was just as breathtaking. That weekend we also went back to Lake Atitlan but stayed in a different little town, Santa Cruz. We had bungalows right on the lake, so we swam, played some games, enjoyed the stars then got up early to see the sunrise over the mountains. We spent that Sunday in Panajachel and said goodbye to some of our friends who were headed back to the States. This week we stayed in Xela but have been trying to explore the town more...we've tried some new restaurants and cafes, gone dancing a couple times, and browsed local markets and women's cooperative stores. Friday Xela had two pretty big events...a gas explosion early that morning wiped out an entire block including the club we had gone to for salsa lessons the night before, and then an earthquake shook the town that afternoon. From what I've heard, no one died but a few people were severely injured in the fire.

We've hit the point where a lot of the people we came with have finished their four weeks and are leaving. It's been sad having to say goodbye knowing we probably won't see each other again (or at least not for long) since our school schedules will have us tied down for the next several years. This summer definitely has been refreshing, and time is flying by. I'm glad we decided to do six weeks of class because I'm definitely not ready to head back to Loma Linda yet.

Week 2

Luis and I have spent at least half of our time together discussing Bible passage, suffering and Christianity, homosexuality, grace and good works, the roles of foreigners and locals in community development, roles of men and women, marriage, tattoos, alcohol and many other topics. We cover other important stuff like medical terms and grammar, but I definitely get the most fired up about our theological discussions and easily stay longer than necessary.

This week several of us newbies started in the clinic. We had a day of orientation and learned how to discuss hypertension and dehydration with patients. Tuesday we had clinic here in Xela where I got to help out in Triage and Pharmacy. It's great because in one way or another you get to talk to each patient. Wednesday was mobile clinic in a nearby rural area called Llanos deal Pinal (Pine Flats) where I again worked Triage/Pharm. That meant taking blood pressure, glucose test, taking weight and height. We've seen mostly women and children. I love seeing things we learned about in class this last year (Ménière's disease, goiter, neuropathy, etc); I just wish I knew more about the meds prescribed...but I'll get probably more than enough of that in pharm next year. The day's can be sort of long but working in clinic is really energizing for me, and I love talking with Luis afterwards.

When not in class, we've been busy as well...several of us hiked to Laguna Chicabal, a lagoon on top of a mountain that the Mayans still hold sacred. We've gone dancing, watched the Copa de Oro (soccer) on TV, explored local restaurants, played volleyball at the local complejo, learned about Guatemalan politics, and have come to appreciate siestas! Thursday was my free day so we headed to the black sand beaches for a day of swimming and hanging out together. I can't wait for another week of this :)

Week 1: Travel and Classes

Jake, Tori and I arrived last Wednesday morning after taking a red-eye from LAX to Ft. Lauderdale. It was a pretty sleepless night, but I was thrilled to be back. We grabbed a shuttle with four other Americans who were on our flight, and a little later we were walking the streets of Antigua trying to figure out where we were going to stay. We got connected with a couple people who rent out rooms to students in town for language school. It was a great transition into speaking Spanish again...the other students would go back and forth between English and Spanish, and our hosts were used to working with students so they'd speak relatively slow. We got some restaurant recomendations and hit the streets again. That afternoon and the next day we walked around a lot...I showed Jake and Tori some of my favorite spots from past trips, we hiked to the cross overlooking the city, and Jake bought either food or a souvenir at seemingly every corner :)

Friday morning we crammed into a shuttle with twelve other people and made our way to San Pedro on the edge of Lake Atitlan. It was supposed to be a relatively short trip, two maybe three hours, but stretched into a five-hour ride. It didn't seem that long since everyone started sharing cool stories about where they were from or had been or were going. The two Austrian guys had been in San Pedro before, so several of us stayed at a hostel together and bounced around to all the places they recommended. We participated in a trivia night and our competitive sides really came out. In the morning, Jake, Tori and I decided we'd head across the lake like originally planned to stay at a hotel that Tori's friend's uncle apparently owns. A half hour boat ride brought us to Panajachel, and we crammed into a tuk-tuk to go the rest of the way to San Antonio Pobolo. The Hotel Teraza was gorgeous, so we chilled on the patio overlooking the lake. I loved watching the clouds roll over the distant mountains. Tori and I explored the town a bit and got to watch some of the artesans as they wove intricate patterns into fabric or crafted ceramic dishes and knick-knacks. We learned about how long it take to make various pieces, the specific blue that indicates it was made in San Antonio, and just chatted with vendors. Very few gringos were there so it was a great opportunity to just observe life in a quiet lakeside village.

Sunday morning we hitched a ride in a pick-up back to Panajachel then took three chicken buses whipping around mountain curves and flying down straight-aways until we reached Xela. A taxi brought us through town to our school where we met up with our separate host families. I'm staying a few blocks from the school with a family that has been hosting students for the last 15 years. I got settled into my room, walked to the supermarket with my host mom, and relaxed before classes got going.

This first week is a bit different than the rest will be. We have one on one tutoring every afternoon 2-6 and that will stay the same the whole time, but mornings vary day to day. We've got cultural competency class Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. In these sessions we've covered the history of Pop Wuj, the need for this type of class, aspects of Western culture that conflict with Guatemalan culture, the history of Spain and their conquest of Latin America, history of Mayan culture, and more. I've heard a lot of the info before in my Spanish and Community Development classes at Covenant, but it was intriguing hearing it all from the perspective of a Guatemalan anthropologist. Wednesday morning we had the option of free time or helping build a stove as part of their community development project, so several of us ended up traveling to a rural town to help construct a stove for a family. This project got started because the community realized a need for better cooking practices...they use open fires which are inefficient and lead to the inhalation of lots of toxic smoke causing kids and women to have severe respiratory problems (they said the leading causes of death in kids here are respiratory problems then malnutrition). Families contribute some of the supplies and Pop Wuj helps cover the rest to construct a cinder block stove with metal cooktop and chimney. I was glad to be a part of it this week since we should be working in clinic on Wednesdays from here on out.

My afternoon tutor is Luis. He keeps lessons interesting by only focusing on a certain subject for a half hour or so. We bounce from conversations about home to medical terms, from daily activities to grammar, adverbs to expressions I should know, etc. He was telling me he was immediately impressed by my accent and my openness about my faith. My favorite part of the week so far was talking about my church, Emmaus...he had never heard the story before so I pulled out my Bible and read it to him. We used the text for vocab words, talked about prayer, what it means to have a personal relationship with God, and more. Hopefully we can do something like that frequently. I also loved talking about types of nerves, gait changes, numbness, effects of nutrition the brachial plexus, and other stuff I learned in neurology this year. It's a bit overwhelming at times...for example, we've covered ten different verb tenses in two days and have more to come. But I love it! I thrive on challenges and one-on-one settings like this. It's shaping up to be a fantastic summer :)

Year 1 Summary

One year down! 

This has been the most exciting and the most difficult year yet. If you look at my Facebook, you'll see the pictures from camping trips, days at the beach, parties at Cardiff house and smiling faces as we received white coats and Bibles from our school, but what you won't see are the countless hours of reading textbooks, practicing taking blood pressures, puzzling over how to distinguish heart sounds, reviewing power points and flash cards for the millionth time, the exhaustion of test week and much more. It's a ton of work (as it should be since we'll be making life or death decisions in a few years), but God has blessed me with a great church, amazing friends, and a supportive family who have all contributed to keeping me sane through all of this. 

This year was mostly spent in the classroom with some shadowing the first and last weeks of the year. We looked mostly at how the body normally works by studying anatomy, embryology, genetics, biochem, physiology, neurology, physical diagnosis, behavioral science, cell structure and function, plus some other classes. I got to see how things run in the emergency department, internal medicine and neurology. Next year will be more book work focused on how things go wrong and how to treat everything. We'll also face huge tests (Step 1 essentially determines what type of specialty we can get into) and incredible amounts of stress...yeah :/ Third year at Loma Linda will be spent working in the different departments to give us an idea of what we want to specialize in, then fourth year we'll apply for residencies which vary in length depending on the field we want to go into (So I'm looking at 3-4 more years after Loma Linda to become a full fledged doctor). There's a lot more to it than that but for those of you who aren't super familiar with the process I hope that helps give you a glimpse of the next several years for me.

These next two months are the last long break I'll have from here on out, and I'm excited to leave tomorrow for Guatemala. A couple of classmates and I are going to language school in Queztaltenango. I'll have the chance to be tutored in medical Spanish, work in their clinics, live with a host family, improve my conversational Spanish, learn more about their culture and travel a little. I've been looking forward to it for months now!! It's not with a missions organization and I'm going  with people I already know, so it will be different than my previous times in Central America. We'll have some internet access so keep looking here for updates and more details :)