perhaps a moment of clarification...

If you will allow me just a moment to clarify some previous comments, because we all know Jill can get a little excited some times and her words come out faster than intended (thanks mom). About the hospital that the evangelists built...like I think I said, it is a VERY nice thing, its beautiful and functional and new and great. And I hope it gets used appropriately, and I hope it will get used for generations. Afterall, it is worth a lot of money, and that is its intent. My problems with the establishment are a few, I will confess that not all details are known to me: I am pretty sure (info from the doc) that it was built on unpurchased state land, so they basically went behind the governments back. Likewise, they have just finished construction and only now are figuring out that there are licensure laws for physicians here, meaning that their army of American doctors who want to come work cannot come work until they figure out how to covered or licensed in Peru. To me, this would be a good detail to work out before the 5 year construction finished. Also, if there is one thing I have learned the hard way about, its development work by foreigners in places of need: coming in with fancy medical supplies, indeed building your own hospital to administer health care, can sometimes give the opinion to local citizens that their facilities are substandard, and that this is what they need becuase this is what the Americans brought. Now, dont get me wrong, the area is poor, but the medicine I have seen thus far in Iquitos (an hour away from the hospital) is not substandard medicine at all (not up to some american standards perhaps but not substandard). However, at times, these foreign built hospitals come in and they are required and necessary and serve a great purpose. But hopefully, these hospitals also provide employment for people in the area, as usually poverty is accompanied by unemployment (stop me if I´m wrong...). I hope this hospital can do the same. Also, a big fancy hospital requires expenses, and supplies and costs and continued staff and, I imagine, a sizable budget to run. I have no information on their future budget planning, so all I can say is that I hope this hospital will be sustained well into the future. Additionally, I hope they did some preliminary research into what kind of health problems they will serve...as it has been my experience previously and my observations thus far here, only guessing, that health problems arising from poverty (malnutrition, infectious disease associated with poor living conditions, cholera, teen/unwanted pregnancy, etc) are primary, and we know how to deal with those (or theorhetically so). So, I guess what I am saying is that I wish them the best of luck. Of course, I think the swimming pool is an excessive luxury and I have no stomach for evangelists who proselytize, but those are my own problems. In other news....I am having a tough time with my spanish...and while I dont have the time to vent at this moment about the difficulties in not knowing enough spanish, not knowing enough medicine, having to follow a less than kind surgeon who thinks I should know more of both (I should), I´m going to pretend at the moment that given a few more weeks, I will see improvement. Oh, one quick entertaining fact about my spanish: In Mexico, to order a Coke at a restaurant, you asked for a "Coca." Here in Peru, where the drug trade is rampant, asking for a "Coca" in a restaurant gives you wide eyes and surprised looks, because "Coca" here refers to the ever available and cheap cocaine. Whoops. Ok, now I have to go read up on hydrocephalus...my homework for tonight motivated by fear of the doc. All in all, things are still pretty good, if a bit overwhelming and frustrating. but what´s new. much love