Clefts

Today it was back to work at the hospital Hipolito in El Agustin, Lima. I was excited, but really nervious given the fact that they had three people doing my job last week. But, I was a rockstar, aided by the fact that we only had 6 surgeries today. Tomorrow there are 12. Yikes.

Anyways, I run between rooms all day: talking to parents and filling out forms in pre-op, talking to the doctors and filling out charts in the operating room, taking before and after photos in the operating rooms, entering data in the ´gringo´room (staff room), interpreting for everyone, general gopher-ing, and helping hold and take care of the kids in the post-op room.

The conditions of El Agustin are bleak, to say the least. Carlos, our driver, said that El Agustin is one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of Lima. The hospital is at the base of these enormous dirt hills, and entire neighborhoods of dingy brightly colored shacks are built upon the hills. Dire economic hardships have forced people to flood into Lima searching for jobs. But people here are resilient and face life with love, humor, and an unfathomable uptimism for better times ahead.

Speaking of humor, yesterday I met a woman by the name of Sister Peggy. She is a 70 year old Irish nun who works in Chimbote, about 6 hours north of Lima. She is a riot! She was telling us stories for hours, my favorite of which being when she was traveling to Guayaquil, Ecuador and went to what they thought was a hotel, and ended up spending the night in a brothel by mistake.

Everyone here is so nice! I keep wishing I had more of a medical brain-- every time I am working in the hospital, and seeing these kids from pre-op, to operating room table, to comforting them in the post-op room... I would love to do something like this. Looking at the pictures, seeing how easy yet life-changing this surgery is, and how dedicated all the staff is... it is truly inspiring.

Well, must go. We start work at 7am tomorrow!