Otra Semana de Trabajo

Hola!

Work has been going steady for the past week. We were able to meet with the director of the hospital as well as important heads of medicine to introduce ourselves and discuss what they would like us to do. Almost immediately, we were shown to the OR where they have four anesthesia machines that do not work correctly (most of them the anesthesiologist has to manually hand bag the patient during surgery). After taking a lot of notes and pictures about the devices, we are skeptical if we can assist the way they want us to. These machines can be very dangerous to fix, especially when the vaporizors for the drug delivery is not caliberated correctly and they want us to fix it. I would love to help them, but we are not qualified to handle certain repairs. We have not given up and are seeking the manuals for the machines to see what we can do to make their lives easier. We also completed our spanish guide for a fetal monitor and gave a manual to the nurses regarding the infusion pump we taught them how to use previously. On Friday, we met another technician from Cuba, named Fernando, that will be working at the hospital with us. Unforunately, it seems like there are too many cooks in the kitchen and now there is not a lot of work for us to do. Our head technician doesn´t seem to like if we do things on our own and he normally has us wait until he gives us instructions, so we spend a lot of time waiting on him when we could be doing something productive. They did warn us about this lifestyle here, where it is more laid back and people work at a much slower pace, but it just seems like we have such a short time period here and I could be doing so much more if he lets us venture out. Therefore, we are starting to work on our secondary projects apart from machines. Julien and I have decided to offer English lessons to anyone who wants to learn and I am going to make quilts for the infants in neonatal (yea I can sew). So hopefully I will feel more accomplished this week.

Our weekend plans were kind of a mess. After seeing the problems others had travelling across the country due to the political situation (blockades, not a lot of buses available) we didn´t want to travel very far, especially since Zelaya was suppose to try to return again on Friday. Julien and I made the decision to go back to Roatan (he had never been there before and I could finish my certification for scuba diving). Two other students, Chad and Didi, were able to join us for the weekend. We ended up having a great weekend, although walking back from West End to the hotel we were almost attacked by dogs...don´t worry we´re safe. And I can now officially say that I am a certified scuba diver with PADI (and I went to a depth of 105 ft, I´m proud of that). Other than that, spent a lot of time relaxing, getting ready for another week of work in the heat. Once we got back on Sunday, we went to the movies to see the new Harry Potter. Julien and I have been waiting forever for this to come out since it came out on the 24th here instead of the 15th everwhere else. Thankfully, the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles so I didn´t have to strain over the babies screams to understand what was being said. And not to brag, but I only spent three dollars to see that movie...what a great deal.

As an update, Zelaya still has not returned and was blocked at the Nicaraguan border. I am still unaware when his next attempt will be, but La Ceiba continues to be very safe with no outbreaks or riots.

Let´s see what this week brings me. Hasta luego.