Cahuita y la proxima semana

Hola!

Once again, it has been another busy week. Unfortunately, we've had a minor epidemic in our group. A few of us have been coming down with cold like symptons (normally lasting for 48 hours) and of course, I was one of the lucky few. I didn't have to miss any classes, but it was definately not easy sitting for 8 hours through class. I came home right after school and slept for 13 hours. By the time the weekend came, I was feeling better so ten or so of us went to a little beach town called Cahuita. It's on the Caribbean coast near Panama. The town was quite remote, not a lot of cars, a few stores, and of course the beach. We took a three hour bus ride there and then went looking for a place to stay. We ended up finding this nice place right on the beach (only $10 per person per night!). It had several hammocks right on the beach front situated between palm trees of course. We spent the day just relaxing, hanging out on the beach, body surfing the waves, and of course getting sunburned. It was a nice relaxing day and then at night, we played cards right on the beach front listening to the ocean waves. Once 8 am hit, we went snorkeling. We saw corel, a lot of fish, and even a sting ray. We stopped for breakfast at around 11, consisting of watermelon and pineapple. The afternoon was spented sitting in the hammocks until the bus ride home. When we bought the bus tickets, we realized that we did not have assigned seats and we would have to get there early to make sure we got a seat. When the bus came, it was fairly crowded and not all of us were able to get a sit. We traded off the bus ride home so everyone was able to sit for most of it. Not to mention, I started getting motion sickness so it was definately a long bus ride home. Once back, we learned that two other people in our group had gotten their bags stolen while on the bus (not our bus, they went to another city in Costa Rica). They were stollen from the bus while they were stowed above the seats. It just goes to show that you need to be extremely careful and be alert with your belongings.

As most of you have probably heard, Honduras has recently been under political unrest. The Presidnet, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted from the country in what is deamed a "military coup" due to the fact that Zelaya was attempting to pass a reforandum which the country had already deamed illegal. On Sunday, he was taken to San Jose, Costa Rica, and Roberto Micheletti was sworn in as President. As of today, most of the world is not recognizing Micheletti as the president and is enforcing severe reparations until Honduras allows Zelaya to be reinstated as president. As of now, he has not returned but is suspected to return sometime this weekend. Due to this political unrest, we are uncertain if we will be allowed to go to our respective hospitals in Honduras. EWH, of course, has our best interests in mind and will make a decision early next week on whether to proceed with Honduras or take another course of action. I will keep you updated with the status of the program.

On a lighter note, we have been doing more spanish and medical instrumentation. Last Friday, we were able to return to San Ramon Hospital and work with their devices, specifically infant incubators and an aspirator. Although the equipment was already working, it was still nice to be able to work with real equipment, take it apart and see how it works. This week, we've been writing guides (in spanish of course) as to how to use the devices that we brought with us for donation. We have also been taking them apart and seeing how they work as well. In addition to that, I will be giving a presentation about autoclaves to my spanish class, showing them how they work, common problems, troubleshooting techniques, etc.

On Monday, we attended out second dance class with Sylvia! We learned some more Salsa and Merengue and got our workout for the day. Luckily this time, we had almost the same number of girls with guys so no one had to sit out or dance by themselves. I'm pretty sure that we could go to a salsa club and show everyone just how good gringos can dance.

Tomorrow, we are going to another hospital in Turrialba to work on their devices. Then this weekend, we are going to visit Arenal, an active volcano. Hopefully everything will work out for the best once I return and we won't have to make other arrangments for next month. Until then, hasta luego!














Our hotel in Cahuita















Hammocks on the sea...anything better















Our hang out spot where we played cards















The beach...these waves were ridiculous














A nice plate of fish...