Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

Since my last post I have gotten out of the city and explored some waterfalls. Hence the title I chose for this post. I wanted to say do go chasing waterfalls, because they are beautiful and a nice reward after a hard hike, but that is not how the song goes. Of course, our waterfall adventures were not without challenges. Last Monday afternoon, my Spanish teacher was out of town so I had the afternoon free. My friends (Elise, Madeline and Hannah) invited me to go to a nearby waterfall with them. We took a minibus to Calama, a rural town outside of Tarija. There we were told by a driver that the waterfall we planned to walk to was super far away. We would have had to come in the early morning to get there and back before dark. Whoops. We were going to give up and just walk down the path for a bit but the driver, kind and helpful like many of the Bolivian strangers I have come across, told us about another waterfall that was much closer and offered to take us to the entrance. He didn’t even charge us for the ride. Thanks for saving us from a disappointing afternoon, driver! We walked about 45 minutes before reaching the waterfall and lagoon below it. Gorgeous! I only wish it was a bit warmer. After taking one climbing lesson in La Paz, I now think of myself as an experienced climber and challenged myself to scale the rock wall along the lagoon to make it to the waterfall. As you can see in the photos below, I did it! It was incredibly difficult and scary but also rewarding. I avoided getting in the chilly water on the way there, but ironically ended up walking back through water up to my waist on the way back. No regrets though.

The second waterfall, or more of a collection of waterfalls, was called Coimata. I went there Sunday with Elise, Madeline, and Andre. Andre is a new student in my program that arrived last week. He is a medical student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, but is originally from Cleveland. So he's pretty upset about the NBA finals. Go Warriors! We walked along the river, seeing little waterfalls along the way, until we made it to the two big waterfalls at the end of the hike. There we had a picnic lunch, enjoying bread with avocado, cheese and tomato. We bought the food at Mercado Central, one of my favorite places in this city. Its a 3 story indoor market that was just finished being built this January. It looks like a mall inside, very modern architecture, complete with escalators and elevators. The first floor has women selling fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese, meats, a place you can get fresh juice, bread and lots of little pastries. On the second floor you can sit down for lunch and have some typical Bolivian foods at one of the dozen little kitchens. Pico and I have lunch their every once in a while.

I borrowed this sign from Andre, who is taking pictures with it in
different places for his mom's birthday. My mom's birthday was Thursday
for those of you who didn't know. Shoutout to Patty. Love you Mom!

Here in Tarija I am rotating at a different health center each week. A week ago I was at Hospital San Juan de Dios. Tarija only has one tertiary hospital, and many health centers or primary clinics. The hospital has specialties, unlike the health centers which usually have only pediatricians, gynecologists and general physicians. I was placed with the internal medicine pulmonologist, a doctor who specializes in the health of adult's lungs. Since I had been in Hospital de Niño in La Paz, I had some expectations of what the week would be like. I assumed that I would have trouble understanding what was going on with the patients because of all of the medical terminology. I was right for some of the days. When I was following a group of doctors and students on rounds I rarely understood what was going on with the patient. However, I also spent two days rotating with the internal medicine physical therapist. For me, these days were much more engaging and interesting. She does a lot of work with patients that are in hospitalized for respiratory infections. I learned how pushing on a patient's rib cage in a certain way can help them use more of their lung capacity.

This past week I was at a rural health center called Hospital San Lorenzo. Even though it is called a hospital, it is a primary care center. It is one of the few 24 hour health centers in the area, they deliver babies and they also have a small laboratory. I spent each day in the consulting office of the gynecologist. The majority of her patients are pregnant women, many under the age of 20. Pregnant women are supposed to come monthly for prenatal check ups. The government started something called El Bono Juana Azarday, a small monetary incentive for women who go to their prenatal and postnatal check ups. I learned how to feel for the curve of the baby's back so that I knew where I should place the Dopler to listen for the fetal heart beat. Something else I saw a lot of were PAP or Papanicolaou tests. This is a test to detect pre-cancerous and cancerous cells in the cervix and women are supposed to get the test every year. In the US, it is recommended to get this test every 3 years. This difference is because the incidence of cervical cancer in Bolivia is much higher than in the US. Not many Bolivian women actually get the test every year and some forget to come and get their test results.

Hospital San Lorenzo

I started taking ceramics classes at a place here called Casa Creart. Casa Creart is a really awesome center that offers classes in pretty much all types of art— drawing, music, sculpting, mosaics, cooking and more. There are beautiful murals inside and outside of the building done by artists from all different countries. I am focusing on alfarería, or pottery that is made on a turn table. Fernanda, my teacher made it look so easy when she showed me how to work with clay on the turn table. It's not easy. I struggled a lot at first but since have made a couple pretty good pieces.