I'm solidly past the halfway mark on this Poblano adventure of mine, and with the completion of my required internship hours, I have been afforded the luxury of much more free time, and therefore adventure time. Life has changed quite a bit since my last post, I've only been going to my internship about 2 hours a day, just to keep working on some projects and finish up some older ones. The rest of my day has been left open for exploring Puebla, taking naps if I so please, and a minimal amount of class-time and homework time, when necessary.
A week and a half ago the hospital had its second overall brigada (medical service trip), and the first one that I went on. For some reason that I cannot quite understand, the marketing department is the one in charge of organizing the brigadas to under-served communities anywhere in the state of Puebla, but I'm not complaining at all, because that means more things for me to work on that are not marketing related. However, the department is a little bit at a loss for how to identify and connect with the communities that may be the most in need, and is mostly just using word of mouth to set up trips to other communities. The first brigada that was carried out was in a community that was already connected to the same university that the hospital is affiliated with, so it was fairly straightforward to organize a trip there between the resources of the hospital, the university, and the women in the community that were already familiar with the university's work in their town. The one we did most recently, however, was a community that was recommended to us by the manager of the HR department. It turns out she knows the community because her church group goes there regularly essentially as evangelists, as far as I can tell. Therefore it was also her church group that informed people that we would be coming to their town that weekend, and she was even involved in checking patients in. Although I was curious, it was hard to tell what portion of the patients came because of the link with this church group, how many of them came despite it, and how many came completely independent of it (it was also getting announced over the town's loudspeaker when we got there.) Elections for state and municipal officials are coming up early next month, so we were also mistakenly getting announced amongst political campaigning on the loudspeaker, so who knows how much that ended up affecting us too.
The brigada was organized a bit hastily and not completely by our department, so there was some confusion, resulting in that the only doctor that came with us was an ear/nose/throat specialist, and then 3 interns came as well. Despite any of this, the patient turnout was very satisfactory; we had a lot patients who came by just for check-ups or vaccines (tetanus and flu), and a few who came by because of specific problems. We saw 85 patients in the space of about 5 hours, but there was only one that we had come to the hospital the next day to see our pulmonologist because of some funky asthma.
During the week, a few other exchange students and I explored around town, including the restaurant where mole poblano originated, according to one legend, we visited the cathedral at night because it gets lit up and looks all pretty-like, Los Sapos which is just a few blocks away from the main square but has a lot of arts and crafts, "rustic" furniture stores (which smell deliciously like freshly carpentered wood), some neat little bars and cafes, and finally Cholula, the neighboring municipality which harbors, supposedly by area, the largest pyramid in the world. The Cholula pyramid is fascinating because when the Spaniards arrived, in order to prove their all-powerful superiority (and that of catholicism as well, I guess) they not only built a very ornate church smack dab on top of this pyramid, but then proceeded to cover the entire pyramid with dirt, effectively turning it into a large hill. we got to walk around the comparitively small portion of the pyramid that has been excavated, but there are tunnels that under the pyramid that we were told were "Indiana Jones-like," which were tragically closed for renovation.
Not to go without mention is the start of the world cup, where Mexico and South Africa had the inaugural game on Friday morning. I went to work that day at 8:30ish, and was able to witness the lack of traffic on roads and sidewalks, which became clear when I got to the hospital, was ordered to the auditorium, and there found almost all the hospital's staff packed in to the room in order to watch the game which was being projected on the wall. Despite the marketing department's internal promotion, which enters any surgeon who does more than 12 surgeries this month at our hospital (most doctors have offices in at least 3 different hospitals) in a raffle for a flat screen TV, I found out that Friday morning not a single surgery had been scheduled, and the only one was that took place was on a patient that came into the ER.
This past weekend, I went to the neighboring state of Morelos with Roberto and Maru. Saturday we went to an archeological site, Xochicalco, which is most famous because one of the pyramids has an "observatory" and sports a snazzy hole in the tip of it that funneled a huge beam of light into the pyramid during the right time of year and day. This, regrettably, was also closed because of flooding/crumbling but still got to explore the rest of the very expansive site which had several pyramids and structures. The next day we went to Tepoztlan, a very old town under a mountain with another pyramid atop it called Tepozteco. The climb up to the pyramid was just about an hour of strictly upwards hiking and steps, which makes for very uncomfortable thighs. The pyramid itself was nice, although by this point I think I am nearing pyramid-capacity.
Overnight we stayed with Maru's family in their town of Tepalcingo, where her dad is the Municipal President, so it was interesting to walk around with them. I think I may have gained about 10 pounds over the weekend, but the food was so darn delicious there that I ate as much of it as I could. I discovered by new favorite food, the gordita, which is a fat tortilla made with only minimally processed corn filled with cheese, sour cream, salsa, and other delicious options. Also, an aunt apparently runs a pozole stand, so that was a delicious snack as well.
