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Challenges
written: Saturday, July 17, 2010 (delayed upload due to lack of internet access here)
This isn’t going to be easy. I knew that going in, but I wasn’t quite sure how the challenges would present themselves. I didn’t know what to expect in any sense, which was scary. But after my first night in La Trinidad, Nicaragua, I’m beginning to learn what to expect, and in many ways that’s even more intimidating.
Dinachi and I were met at the airport by two staff members from Hospital La Trinidad who drove us to the hospital, which is several hours north of Managua. They made us feel welcome, but understanding each other was harder than I’d anticipated – harder than conversation in Costa Rica. For example, questions such as “what are you favorite things about Nicaragua” were met with answers about the number of districts in the country. It was frustrating, because even though I was speaking confidently with the words I’ve been practicing for the past month, I felt completely lost in translation. The situation got even worse once we entered the hospital – almost all of my greetings and comments to the hospital staff were met by blank stares, nervous laughter, and comments about how they couldn’t understand me. Sadly, I could understand them well enough to pick up on their comments about my language, yet they couldn’t understand me! Thankfully, the hospital director understands almost everything I say, so I was able to rely on communication with him throughout our tour. But I know that establishing trusting relationships with the staff will be crucial to my ability to understand their needs and offer help, so the severe difficulties with communication are devastating. I know that this immersion will cause my Spanish to improve drastically and am hoping that within the first few weeks I will be able communicate with more ease. But for the time being, the situation is very frustrating.
The hospital tour was eye-opening. Every room had 5 or 6 beds and patients were lying uncomfortably in each one – nobody was connected to a bedside monitor and rarely did I see a nurse attending to a patient. The cardiac exam room has only one machine, an EKG, and most of the other exam rooms had only one or two pieces of equipment as well. In many of the rooms, at least one of these pieces was broken, and as the director pointed at each of the pieces, he asked us with excited anticipation “do you know how to fix this!” I hope I’ll be able to repair as much as possible, but am already anxious about disappointing him if I can’t fix enough or the repairs are too difficult. He even started pointing at computers and refrigerators, asking what our repair experience was. I promised him we could try, but tried to emphasize that we are really only biomedical technicians. The problems in La Trinidad extend beyond problematic equipment – none of the heavy oxygen tanks are chained to the wall, microscopes are uncovered, and the bathrooms don’t even have soap. In addition to equipment repair, I can already tell we are going to have to do a lot of work with the hospital regarding preventative maintenance.
After seeing the hospital, we weren’t sure what to expect for our house, which is in the staff living quarters on the hospital grounds. It took more than an hour of waiting in the director’s office before we saw our house because he couldn’t find the keys. That was a hint to us that not only had they not prepared the house, but also that probably nobody had inhabited it for a while. Our house will be fine, but the conditions are unlike anything I’ve experienced before. It consists of two rooms – a bedroom with 2 beds and a larger sitting room, though its filled with nothing but old medical papers, broken machinery, and 2 plastic patio chairs. The lights in the bedroom barely work, and the beds themselves are very difficult to sleep in. The mattresses seemed soft initially, until we sunk straight to the bottom after sitting on them. We were provided with a sheet, but no pillows or blankets.
Falling asleep was difficult; most of the windows here are permanently open so our room was filled with the sounds of conversations from the neighbors. But it turns out that noise was nothing compared to what we would experience in the morning. I was woken up around 4:15 to the ceaseless crowing of a rooster outside my room which was met by calls from roosters all over the hospital property. Several hours later, these calls haven’t stopped. I guess I’ll just have to transition to an earlier bedtime and earlier wake up time!
Soon, we’ll have to conquer our fears of the bathroom. But there are geckoes on the wall, and the shower is nothing more than a faucet. I know that some of my friends have to use buckets of water to shower though, so I’m grateful for the faucet.
On the bright side, we don’t have to cook for ourselves (wouldn’t be possible anyway because this house lacks a kitchen). The hospital is providing 3 meals a day, all home-cooked by the friendly kitchen staff. Yesterday’s lunch was rice and beans. I expect that’ll be the norm here. I mentioned to the man who drove us to the hospital that I want to learn how to cook Central American cuisine, and he enthusiastically told me that he loves to cook and is planning on giving me lessons. I’m looking forward to that!
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