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My time in La Paz was overall an incredible experience. I enjoyed every single rotation that I had, and was never bored in the busy city. However, after 5 weeks, the smell, loudness, altitude and crowdedness of La Paz became generally unpleasant, and I think I speak for our whole group when I say we were more than ready to get out of there. Luckily, we were soon on our way.
Early on Friday afternoon Carolyn, Aaron and I arrived at the La Paz airport. We found our gate, which had a total of 4, already occupied seats. So we settled for the floor. Our flight was delayed by an hour not once, but twice, and by the time we were boarding we were so ready to go. The moment we landed in Tarija, a small city in the very south of Bolivia, we immediately fell in love. The evening was warm, the significant decline in altitude allowed us to fully breath, it smelled nice, and everyone we ran into was friendly. Including our regional directors, Karina and Fabricio, who were waiting for us at the airport.
I was driven to my host family's house, where I was greeted by a sweet, middle-aged woman who introduced herself to me as Carmen, and happened to be Karina's sister. Soon after that I met the rest of the family: Carmen's husband and daughters (Dani - 19 years old, and Alexandra - 16). They enthusiastically welcomed me into their home, which is absolutely gorgeous. The house is big, clean, fully equipped with wifi, an outdoor patio with kitchen and living room, and best of all my room has its own bathroom and shower. Compared to the small apartment in La Paz, this is a mansion.
The rest of the volunteers were also impressed with their accommodations, and we slowly started to get to know Tarija, land of wine and sunshine.
On Saturday, we took a taxi up to a gorgeous hotel with live macaw parrots as decoration and a huge swimming pool. On Sunday, my host family brought me along to their weekly family BBQ where I met the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins over an enormous meal of salads, steak, chicken, potatoes, and of course, wine. I could not have felt more welcomed and comfortable.
My first week's rotation was the local hospital's emergency room. I was excited to get back into clinical work, and emergencies seemed really interesting. Turned out to be the complete opposite. The biggest emergency we had all week was a panic attack.
Every day I sat next to the doctor, who rushed patients out as fast as possible so that he could get back to watching the Olympics on TV. The patients, who were mostly over the age of 70, complained of everything from throat aches to stomach issues, to the rare fractured arm or back pain. One patient came in insisting she had a spider bite on her back. When she showed it to the doctor he said, "lady, that would be like 20 spider bites," she actually had Shingles. One day when the doctor was doing an exam on a patient, an older woman came in announcing that she couldn't breath well. The doctor asked me to get her oxygen, and having no idea where to go I took her to one of the 3 inpatient rooms and started pulling on tubes that looked promising. Finally, I found the oxygen source and tightened it around her nose, relieved.
Otherwise, there wasn't a whole lot going on in my rotation this week.
That weekend was supposed to be hot, and our group decided to go on a hike to a water feature. We had heard about a nearby area with waterfalls and a river called Coimata, and decided to check it out on Saturday. We took a taxi about half an hour there, and arrived at the beautiful oasis where we hiked along the creek for a couple hours. Finally, we got to a waterfall that fed into a small pool. We dipped in the freezing water and laid out on the rocks for hours. On our walk back I called the taxi that had given us a ride to come pick us up. However, within a few minutes of being back on the road, a minibus that was headed back into town showed up - a much cheaper option. I called the taxi back, but wasn't able to make out what he was saying as we made our way in the minibus. A few minutes later, the taxi showed up, stopped the minibus, and made us get out, and into the taxi. He was not happy. Needless to say, we had an awkward ride back, but were satisfied with our outing and went to bed early. On Sunday, the family BBQ was at my host-house and became a full day event helping to cook, set up, get to know the family better, and relax. Tarija is not at all a bad place to be :)
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