I made myself get out of my bed and prepared myself for another long day in the humidity and headed downstairs for breakfast by Richardo. We put on stiff clothes that had been drying on the railing all night. This time he made pancakes as the main dish, he had made to order omelets, fruit, breads and assorted juices.
I asked mom if we had everything that we needed for the day in her back pack including some snacks because you never knew when we would break for lunch or what lunch was going to be that day. We all piled into the vehicles and headed back to the community of Cerro Alto.
Again, there were a lot of people waiting to be seen even before we got there. It was overwhelming because the building was not big enough for everyone so we started sending patients to be examined first by Dr. Harris and an assistant and they triaged their conditions and wrote their name and what they needed on a piece of paper. It seemed to go better than what we were doing the past few days.
I got my sterilization area ready and got slammed after the first set of patients. Luckily, I had Thomas bringing me buckets of instruments that needed sterilized. You could tell after a few days of not properly drying some of the hinges started to get a little rust on them and I don't think we had any oil or lubrication with us.
Around early afternoon I was getting hungry so I ate some of my snacks I brought and found out mom took a small break earlier with some of the other volunteers to the small convenience store down the street. She brought back some wafer cookies and some chips. It was fun to see the wrappers in Spanish. She told me I could have some of her wafer cookies.
Near mid afternoon, around 2-3 p.m. everyone started taking shifts walking over to our hosts/community organizer's house. He and his family made a homemade Ecuadorian meal for us. This one also involved chicken or pork, with rice, veggies and plantains. I ate my rice and chicken but I just didn't really like the plantains. They were too chalky for me. I'd rather eat a banana. I understood that this community also didn't have very much money and I ate as much as I could and then gave Maritza my plantains and veggies so I didn't waste them. This family had indoor rabbits, some chickens and dogs in the back yard. I was pretty sure the chicken we were eating were some of the chickens that used to be in the back yard that morning. I used their restroom, which most bathrooms in Ecuador have been horrifying, and this one wasn't pretty either.
On the way back to the community center, I reflected on how great we have it at home in the US....well some of us in the US, not everyone lives the same there either and I am thankful I came from a place where we had opportunities and resources to make our lives better. I am very grateful I have a job, a retirement, benefits and earned days off. Mom, Maritza and I watched dogs, pigs and a goat, who yelled at us to pay attention to him. We laughed because these farm animals were really friendly.
When we returned it had thinned out a bit but there were still people waiting patiently for their turn. I do have to give everyone so far who has received care from us props, some of these people have been waiting all day, ALL DAY, to see us.
It got pretty crazy after 4 because we wanted to make sure everyone got the care they needed. I was constantly sterilizing and sending clean instruments out with Thomas to the various rooms that needed them. I either had something that didn't agree with me, too many snacks or all of it was catching up to me due to travel but I desperately NEEDED to use the restroom. I wasn't too keen on the idea of the bathroom situation. The bathroom was gross. I brought my own toilet paper and some sanitizer wipes. I wiped down the toilet as best and I could and did my business. Basically that toilet could not hold what I had stored since I left the US on Thursday. Since this country didn't have good enough plumbing, I had to throw away my toilet paper into the waste basket. I panicked because it was definitely too much for the toilet to handle. I am not going to go into detail on what I did but I eventually left the bathroom better than I found it and felt a lot better afterwards.
As the crowd of people thinned I got excited that it was almost time to go back to the hotel, take a shower and go to bed. We worked on our last set of people while we cleaned up and put our supplies away in the bins. I rinsed out all of our buckets, wiped down the tables and chairs and made sure we had everything put in the back of the truck to be transported back to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel, I was still feeling blah after my bathroom episode I was afraid to eat anything. While everyone else ate food, that Richardo prepared (seafood, pasta and salad) I sat in the lobby and ate a Cliff bar and drank water. I used the really slow WiFi to talk to Ben for a while. Everyone got their clothes to the laundry room and they were washed. Myrna brought them back up and asked if she could have help hanging them over the railing. I hoped they dried in time for our last community in the morning.
Mom was tired so she went up to our room and relaxed a bit. I went up shortly after to get cleaned up because I had going to bed sweaty and dirty. I am not sure what the rest of the volunteers were doing but I didn't have any energy after today especially since my cough wouldn't go away. My bed rolled so I had to make sure it didn't move a lot while I was sleeping or I could have been stepped on if mom or Stephanie got up to use the restroom. I used my shoes to keep the bed from rolling too much.
Around 11 p.m. I gave up and went to bed. I wore my ear plugs and my sweatshirt again because Stephanie wanted the AC on while we slept. I was excited that we were almost done with our volunteering so we had some time to check out some of Ecuador before we left on Monday.
Next Adventure: Ecuador Day 9: Volunteering in Comuna El Azucar, the Night Life in Montanita and Beach House
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