Primera Semana

Greetings.

It feels strange that we're already at the end of our first week.. (Bolivians start their weeks on a Sunday)

Ambulance for the street clinic

Things have been picking up here - on Thursday we took one of the hospital ambulances and drove into the local town (Vinto) to carry out a free street clinic. People usually pay for their care here, so we gave them the opportunity to get their height and weight and blood pressure recorded before speaking to a doctor and getting either some advice or some free medicines (although the options were severely limited, and we spent the night before throwing out a holdall full of expired drugs!)

It was fun to be able to interact with the locals as well as doing a bit of medicine; some of the people were amazing! One woman claimed to be 93 (I hope I look as good as her when I'm 93), and after having had her blood pressure taken she decided that she couldn't wait around for the doctor so went on to the market to do her shopping before coming back. Then she had to go home again to cook lunch for her husband (imagine, a husband unable to cook for himself?!).

Does she look 93?! No.

There were more sobering patients as well though. One young man had what looked like a tumour growing out of his knee. It was huge and white and knobbly, and there was absolutely nothing that we could do with our limited supplies of painkillers and cough medicine. We tried to persuade him to go to the doctor, but he said that hospitals in Bolivia cost too much money - the doctors are too greedy and proud.
Then a 24 year old lady who had been waiting politely in the queue tapped the doctor on the shoulder and told her that she was bleeding profusely. When she turned round there was blood all the way down the back of her trousers and staining the wall behind her. She was bundled into the ambulance and raced up to the hospital, leaving the street clinic temporarily halted. We found out later that she had gone to a backstreet clinic to have an abortion (again, possibly due to the costs of healthcare here, or due to the cultural aversion to abortions), which had gone wrong and ruptured her uterus. She ended up having a hysterectomy in the hospital. As damaging as it is to be unable to bear children in a culture where children look after their parents, the on-call doctor thought she was going to die when she arrived, so it was a blessing that she survived.

We also managed to spend an afternoon at an orphanage - giving a basic medical check to about 30 boys who live there, between the ages of about 5 and 13. It was good to get stuck in, but again frustrating when we saw ear infections or tonsillitis and were unable to really do anything except recommend they go to the doctor! Sadly the chances of the orphanage paying the fees for medical care are slim unless the boy is close to death. The boys were all full of energy though - playing with stethoscopes and climbing on our backs and running outside to swim in their 'fountain'. So it was a satisfying afternoon to spend with them.

El Cristo de la Concordia.

The weekends are free time - today we went into Cochabamba and climbed up to the Cristo (similar to the famous Christ the redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, but slightly taller than their one! The Brazilian one is 33m high, one metre for each of the years that Christ lived. The Bolivians claim that since he lived for 33 and a bit years then they are justified!) Great views over the city.

Halfway up the 1399 steps to the Cristo.

Tomorrow is national no transport day. We have been painted an idyllic picture of hundreds of Bolivians running free on the roads with balls and tyres and games, free from the perils of nasty cars and buses. Whether that happens or not will have to be seen, but it means after the local church service a relaxing day in the house, or within walking distance..

I'll leave with a more cheerful story. Our relationship with the local firemen (bomberos) has been strained after I accidentally broke their homemade goalposts the other day. We were having a casual kickabout and my gentle, slow, lofted shot hit the wall behind the goal, bounced back, bobbled a few times and then came to rest against their post. With a slow ponderous creak it began to topple over, snapping in half. Luckily the firemen are savvy folk, they took off the tape from their hose so that we could use it to fix their goals! I assume they are more dependent on having goalposts than being able to put out fires..

Thanks for all the emails! I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to them individually, but I do enjoy reading them! I have also invested in a Bolivian sim card, the number I think is 0059179770156.