stupid americans and other tales

Asi, muchas cosas. Last week was a decent start, and this week I am already feeling a bit overwhelmed. But we had a nice weekend at the river with the Salazar family, celebrating the doctor´s birthday. I am wishing my spanish was significantly better, but I got an invitation and met up with one of my taxi driver´s daughter, who is a university student needing help with English in exchange for help with my Spanish. I met up with her yesterday, and we practiced and talked in each language for an hour, and we are meeting again tomorrow, so at least I have that opportunity for practice. As for the weekend: the Salazar´s have a little rustic-ish cabin in a little town/village on the Nanay river about an hour outside of town, an hour on dirt roads though. Better than Zam dirt roads, more forgiving because the dirt is more like clay, but nonetheless a good jostle of a motocar ride. The cabin is open air, and I slept in a hammock and it was all very peaceful and nice, but they still have a pretty functional kitchen and full bathroom. The whole thing was apparently build by the doctor himself. So, there were people and festivities and 2 cakes and swimming in the river and general good times. We went to the cabin on friday to show the plastic surgeon before he left that night, and then returned again on saturday for the weekend. But just down the road from the cabin is a very long and tall and new and fancy brick wall, enclosing a compound that has just been completed. It´s a hostpial (well, one of the some 10 or 12 buildings is a hostpial) and we went and met the woman who has just headed up this project. What kind of project, you ask? Well, it is all privately funded by this woman and her husband, apparently. They are American, southern christian evangelists, and apparently god told them to move to the Peruvian Amazon, take all their retirement money and some potentially dodgy life insurance money (rumors from the locals who work there), and build a multi-million dollar hospital and school compound complete with pastor´s quarters, hotel-like accomodations for visitors and a very nice swimming pool all in god´s glory. Hmm. ok, if god said so. Here´s the thing: they have built a beautiful, expensive, complete hospital (small but beautiful) that rivals some hospitals in the states, complete with brand new x ray machines, ob-gyn rooms, surgery facilities, dental facilities, a fully stocked pharmacy and surgical supplies....and it has yet to be officially opened for work because they have no doctors, nurses, staff for the hospital. you might think that the husband or wife were a doc or a nurse, but they arn´t...they´re in business (clearly). And now they are fulfilling the wishes of evangelical rich christians who don´t do any research on such projects, the needs of their patient population or the sustainability of their actions, but think that picking up and moving to the amazon, building a beautiful medical facility to save the people while also building a huge brick wall to keep them out is the answer. They have a boat (they were going to have 2 but went over budget) like a three story steamboat, for cruzing the river up and down to save people. Stupid americans. Anyway, it´s kinda ridiculous but I hope it gets used apropriately and can be sustained for a very long time. I mean, don´t get me wrong, it´s a nice thing, to build a hospital (and swimming pool). Anyway, on saturday, we were relaxing by the river, and a kid apparently was walking toward the hospital, down the road, after just getting injured...he had a good 4-5 inch gash in the top of his head from falling somewhere. So, the doc and his son took him to the new fancy hospital, I met them there, and with the evangelist´s sutures and sterile gloves, stitched him up and bandaged a broken finger. But clearly, had the doc not been vacationing this weekend at his cabin...there would have been plenty of supplies but no one to administer them. Stupid americans...anyway, moving on. What else...oh, last week, when the subject of the surgeries was plastics, one afternoon we had a huge pig to practice taking skin grafts on. And then, that night, we ate it. Yup, even I. Gross. As for surgeries this week, yesterday I saw a VP shunt and part of a C-section...I just wish I knew more about the surgeries themselves, because between my lack of medical knowledge and my lack of spanish, I´m feeling a bit lost these days. But I will get there eventually. pictures...are taking to long to upload now, so you´ll just have to wait... thats all!