Hey!

So I have made it back to Quito and have 3 weeks of the program left now. We have 3 weeks of clinicals left and I have 27 hours of Spanish classes to finish, I am taking 20 hours this week and then 7 hours next Monday and Tuesday. This week Julie and I are at the Adolescence Clinic. We thought we were going to be seeing Adolescent kids however we are actually seeing Adolescent mothers with children. We have seen mothers that range from 12 years of age to 18 years of age, and have young babies!! It is crazy. Most of them are single mothers, and a few are married. We saw a few today that were 15 years old and married. We also saw another girl who was 15 years old, and the father of her baby is 20 years old and he wants nothing to do with her or her child. The doctor said that this is really common here, and really sad! The youngest girl we saw was 12 years old on Monday with a 3 month old little girl. It was insane I could not even fathom having a child at that age! In the later part of the morning we got to see where the young mothers stay after giving birth. There were 21 girls who were in the post-delivery room and today they were learning about different methods of birth control and why they are important! If only they knew this before having sex the first time, and having this child. This clinic is intense for us and we cannot believe how young these girls are and how little they know about taking care of their child. Most of them know nothing about how to take care of a little one…its really sad for the baby L and many end up being malnourished because they mothers/families cannot afford proper food, nourishment, vaccinations, medications, clothing, etc. Even though here in Ecuador medications and vaccinations are supposed to be free for any child under the age of 5 many mothers/families do not take their babies to get vaccinated or buy the medications that are needed….

Otherwise not much else is going on. We are going to Mindo this weekend a small town that is about 2 hours away which is known for zip-lining through the cloud forest and also for its butterfly farm! Should be a lot of fun!

I hear there is no snow back home L hopefully it will be coming soon!

I hope all is well!

Lots of Love,

Britt