LIfe so far

Hi, my name is Paul W and I´m the only male tutor in the month of May. My experience in general down here has been quite interesting to say the least. Tutoring young children let alone in another language is demanding. My spanish skills at the beginning were not up to par according to my standards but I´ve made great improvements and I feel confident with my spanish skills after two weeks. It´s been a great experience working with the kids because they really grow on you. I feel like in the next to weeks it will be very difficult to say goodbye after building friendships with all of them. As many of the officers of the club know their have been a few problems between some of the tutors and the family concerning money and food. Rather then go into details, I will say they were mainly due to communication issues. I live on a seperate floor then the girls with the grandparents so the issues that affected them really had no bearing to me. The grandparents have been extremely kind and treat me as if I was one of their one children. They make me a snack everyday to go along with the lunch that is given at the tutoring site. At first I was the only person on the floor with the grandparents and Fernando, their autistic son, then Joe from social came after the first week. Any males reading this post will have a great time with Joe, the grandparents, and Fernando. They are all tremendous.

coca cola light

Wow. What an amazing adventure in Ecuador! I just got back to the U.S. yesterday morning and am overwhelmed with the memories of the trip. Although I took the red eye flight on Tuesday and got very little sleep on the flight, I could not stop talking about my experience with anyone who would listen...including the ice cream guy at Wastenaw Dairy :) As promised, here are a couple of pictures from one of the Social Work projects, THE LIBRARY. Actually, I saved more pictures (or I thought I did) to my flash drive but am unable to access them due to formatting issues, etc. So what is posted will not be very impressive, but please know that the work involved in the library construction was greater than appears.

Right now I am in a stage of reflection on the goings on of the project and will continue to benefit from all that I learned about interpersonal communication, international social work and professional collaboration. AND the beautiful scenery will continue to be part of my repetoire of visualizations that I use to decrease anxiety during stressful situations!

I really appreciate the relationships that were formed during the trip and will truly miss each and every volunteer, foundation/family member, amazon guide, child, client and random person I met. Knowing you has taught me so much about myself and the world. Thank you as well for the support you all have shown and I wish you all the best in the life that you choose.

As an update on my life in general, the job that I was hoping to get upon my return actually called me the day I told them that I would be returning (yesterday). Yeah, I think that this can only be a positive sign...So I'll be moving to Chicago ASAP to begin my professional career! Any Quito Project reunion that we have will be scheduled for a weekend day, right?!

Again, thanks for the memories!


P.S. For those who were not in the know...the title, "coca cola light" refers to the "jugo gringo" (foreigner juice) that other Quito Project members and I would sneak out and buy to have with breakfast, lunch, snack, etc...a faux pas in Ecuador apparently. The Onas would make fun of me for drinking diet coke every time I bought it and then ask me if they could have a little. Teehee ;)

Ecuador te llevo dentro de mi corazon...

I'm back in the old you ess of ay today. It was with a heavy heart that I boarded my American Airlines flight yesterday morning. Ecuador, Quito, the house of the Oñas-- that has been my home for the past month and a half. I was sort of glad that the power was out that morning because then no one could see me crying.
As someone who has moved around thirteen times-- I have come to know what sort of finality is entailed with leaving a place-- and even moreso in this case because for the medical students, this is our last vacation - period -. The best we can do is hold onto the memories and pictures in our head and the things that remind us of the people and places we've seen.

Some of the things I will always remember-- Sebastian and Andrea, the two little monsters/angels of the house who were always willing to hug you and then blame you for making them cry, watching the World Cup with all the project members—when PELIGRO! means take a swig from your Pilsener, late-night futbol on the canchas in the park outside our house, granadillas—the amazing break-it-over-your-head fruit that looks like alien guts but tastes like a million dollars, white water rafting in the jungle, making chocolate, climbing Guagua Pichincha, long bus rides with all the project kids, Choo choo gua (or however you spell it—it’s a fantastic song), days when we DIDN’T eat rice, riding horses in the Galapagos, smooshing faces into cakes on birthdays, dancing, late night Scrubs episodes, movies dubbed in Spanish, Fausto Vinicio, Ariel, and the internet guy, returning Pilsener bottles at 8am to the nutty lady in the corner store, eating lemon-flavored ants, Pinguino ice cream for 60 cents, giant turtles, BOB ESPONJA, late night medicine-counting, the long line of people every day at the clinic at 8:30 am, little kid hugs, Samy and Jordy, COSQUILLAS, farmacia drawings... I suppose this is one of those lists that only makes sense if you were there and can go on forever...so I think I’ll end it.

I hope I can go back one day but it’s always a frightening aspect to go back and know that it will never be the same as when you left it—and never will be again—but that is not always necessarily a bad thing.

To any and all who might ever be even minutely interested in joining the Quito Project—DO IT—this has been the best summer I have ever had –period-.

Mucho tiempo, mucho estudio, muchos abrazos y besos a todos,
Alex

Resumencito

Three and a half weeks of clinic and I am still amazed that it went by so quickly. With six medical students and either 1 or 2 doctors (depending on what week)-- we managed to serve around eighty patients a day on a slow day and over a hundred and fifty on our last and busiest day. It is barely a raindrop in the ocean in comparison to all of the need for medical care in Ecuador, let alone in the world-- but I guess all oceans started off as raindrops...right?
I can't say that every day was easy peasy and that we solved every problem, cured every person. What I can say is that we gave every person our best care and utilized every available resource we had. Suffice it to say there were times when we had to put our hands up and surrender and say-- "I'm sorry there is nothing more we can do." It ripped my heart out to see people accept it when I myself couldn't. You want them to yell at you-- to tell you you are a failure-- and they don't-- they thank you instead for doing everything that you could.

For example, we made a housecall on a family who had asked us to stop in. We'd been told that the father of the house had some sort of leg wound and couldn't make the twenty minute walk up to the clinic which involved many rocky pathways and lots of uphill hiking. When we got to the tipsy house, leaning out over the road, the entire family came down to greet us-- in all about seven children, four dogs, and three women. The children called down to the father who was apparently working in the backyard. About five minutes later, a man hobbled up the precariously steep earth stairs to the road where we waited and then we all climbed up some plywood stairs to the house. He carried his leg like one carries a sack of potatoes-- sort of dragging it up. We all crowded into the one visible bedroom in the house and he sat on the bed with his leg on a small stool. He unwrapped his leg and the smell was like a knife cutting through the room. It was double the size of the other leg and was a mottled grey and yellow. Two large open sores were visible from one side and a third wet sore was on the other side.
Dr. Serlin asked, pointing at the leg, "Cuanto tiempo?" (how long)
"Un año" (one year)
Dr. Serlin looked at Darren and me after examining it further-- "That's gangrene. It's going to have to come off."
I tried to explain it to the family in a way that would drive the importance home-- that the infection could spread and eventually affect his heart, his brain, all of the important organs along the way. They understood-- but kept telling me that he needed his leg-- he worked with the cows and the crops-- he'd already had a surgery on his hip after being assaulted-- he already had enough trouble walking. They thanked us for our trouble and told us they would stop by the clinic again.
Several days later, they returned saying they would not go through with the surgery-- even with financial help-- but "thank you so much for everything you've done, may God pay you for your service."

However, there was also the patient suffering from chronic arthritis who finally was able to move her fingers after years of having them clenched and throbbing who couldn't stop thanking us for giving her her hands back.

It's both rewarding and frustrating to have this opportunity to serve the community of San Martin-- however, is it good enough to just fix the symptoms of another underlying problem? Once the naprosyn, the ranitidine, the lotrel that we gave our patients runs out-- what then? If someone had been able to monitor our patient with diabetes, he wouldn't have ended up with an infected foot ulcer that turned gangrenous and needed amputation.

The Quito Project is designed to address some of those underlying problems-- addressing information on nutrition, social work, tutors-- but we are only there for three months out of a very long year. I wish there were a way that we could help all year long. We are working toward that end-- and who knows? Anything can happen when you have enough gumption, enough idealism, and a creative executive board.

a little of this, a little of that

The social work team, Erin and I, have been very busy during our month in Quito. We have been multitaskers extraordinaire, juggling our time between several different projects. Our primary project has been to furnish and buy a full supply of books for a library at the local primary school in San Martín and also to buy books for the Fundación San Martín tutoring site. While these sound like fairly straightforward tasks, they were actually quite challenging. Our bookshelves, tables, and benches had to be commissioned from a local carpenter. Gaining an assessment of what types of books are needed and then locating those books in Quito was time consuming, especially because the need for books is so great, and locating appropriate, educational, and affordable books in the city is not easy. However, we are happy to report that the library and foundation together will receive over 300 brand new books. These include fairy tales and fables (favorites of the children), encyclopedias, dictionaries, and countless stories and children´s literature books. At the school this year, all of the children will have a 1-hour period of library time every day, which they have never had before, and this time will be devoted to class literacy instruction and pleasure reading. We are very excited to make our official delivery of the books on Monday, and we will post pictures of the finished product! Special thanks to the July tutors, who were very helpful during several whole nights of coding, stamping, and covering all of these books!

Our second major project has been working with the public health students and then with Adriana after their departure to implement nutrition classes for mothers from the community of San Martín. We hold class every Thursday and Friday afternoon from 2:00-3:30pm. To prepare for class each week, we pick a theme (so far each day has featured a different nutritious vegetable), research nutritional benefits of this food, go grocery shopping for ingredients, and prepare several tasty recipes featuring this food. In class, we review the nutritional benefits, facilitate a discussion with the women on how they already use this food, and then present our new recipe ideas. The overarching goal for these classes is to form a cohesive group of women who are invested in the idea of bringing more accessible, nutritious food to their community. We hope that this group will form the basis for a produce market, to begin next summer. After only 3 weeks, I am already seeing seeds of community-building growing in our group of women. Where at first they were shy and hesitant to talk, now they have open discussions about what their children (and husbands!) will and will not eat, where to find the cheapest and best ingredients, and how to make a small budget stretch its furthest. They laugh and joke, and we are seeing them build cohesion. With our project budget, we have been able to purchase the appliances, tools, and ingredients Adriana will use to continue these classes every week throughout the next year.

Finally, Erin and I have been putting our social work training to work by taking ¨referrals¨ from both the clinic and the tutoring site. The students and doctors at the clinic had several patients report psychological or psychosomatic complaints, and we have been able to schedule meetings to initiate a therapeutic relationship with these patients. Their struggles range from grief, to depression, to children´s behavioral problems, to spousal conflicts, and beyond. We have met several times with the clients, gathered background and intake information, and told them about the help that the Foundation can offer. When we leave, Adriana will continue weekly meetings with these clients. It is obvious that mental health care is an extreme need here, and there are no resources for obtaining it here, so we are glad to have been able to offer our time while we are here. Similarly, there are some children at the tutoring site who benefit from one-on-one work time for one reason or another. We have spent most of our mornings working individually with these children, learning how to follow the rules, talking about problems happening at home, or working on a school subject that is particularly difficult for them. Working with clients and in one-on-ones with the kids has been incredibly rewarding, especially when we have seen improvements literally happening before our eyes.

So that, in a nutshell, has been the work of the social work team this month. We have been very busy, but we have enjoyed each of our projects. Look for library pictures to be posted soon!

Quito Film Communiqué

Hello all,

Some of you may have been wondering what that greasy haired clutch of miscreants with the camera has been up to. Following a strict stormchasing regime through Ecuador, we’ve been working tirelessly to collect footage from Quito, Loja, Peguche, Otavalo, Juncal, San Martin, and Illuman.


The film, more than anything, is a rigorous collection of qualitative data on the health and healing options in and around Quito. Although by no means a comprehensive ethnography, the focus is on the personal narrative of navigating, hybridizing, and understanding the quest for keeping oneself healthy in Ecuador.

We’ve filmed in local markets, clinics, Afro-Ecuadorian barrios, indigenous villages, retirement communities, streets, homes, and dancehalls.

Last week, we traveled to Peguche, Ilumàn (a town known for its many healers), Juncal (known for its many football players) and Otavalo, a few hours northwest of Quito. These pueblos are home to fire-breathing Shamans, who conduct ritual cleansing through herbs, burning embers, pure sugarcane alcohol, and yes, flame. Huddled in a dark cinder block room, we witnessed a strange and mysterious ceremony that only a handful of gringos have ever had the opportunity to encounter.


The other night, we attended a religious festival to San Pedro in the Church plaza in Peguche. Here, indigenous people mixed with mestizos, as they kicked around soccer balls soaked in gasoline and lit on fire while a gigantic homemade castle exploded in tiers of fireworks and torches. Meanwhile, vaca loca or "crazy cow" - men with wooden structures configured with fruits and fireworks - charged at crowds (and at the camera).

In the days previous, we visited Jambi Huasi, a unique clinic in Otavalo. Jambi Huasi (House of Healing) serves the underrepresented indigenous community, charging less and providing patients with the option of western and/or traditional (Shaman) medicine. There, we witnessed a curandero (healer) rubbing and slapping someone with a live guinea pig as a diagnostic process. She then killed the poor creature, skinned it, and turned it inside out to reveal the black organs which represented the patient’s ailments and absorption of negative energy. We also filmed a healer perform spiritual healing with a mixture of potions, stones, and smoke, while next door, a dentist cleaned teeth and a pharmacist wrote prescriptions for biomedical drugs.

With given permission, we worked with one Limberg Valencia, an Afro-Ecuadorian marimba musician, social activist, anthropologist, and cultural revivalist. Mr. Valencia has introduced us to the unique and overlooked world of African medical traditions, which are unlike any other contemporaneous practices. Here, the "Afro" community relies on a fascinating blend of spiritual healing, communal health dances, and music to revive and empower African culture.



Orfa Renosa is another contact we made through the Afro-Ecuadorian community. She works for an expansive national NGO, specializing in alternative medicine, traditional curing, health education and community organizing.



With her, we filmed a streetside ¨check-in¨ between an Afro-Ecuadorian nun and the poverty-stricken families on the periphery of Quito proper. There, we met and interviewed a number of “curbside” healers.

We have also been interviewing and following around Jaime Guevara. He is a very popular political folk singer who, unbeknownst to the majority of his fans, suffers from severe epilepsy. We filmed a conversation between him and indigenous friend about health and Quito, the ¨schizophrenic¨ city. We also had the opportunity to film and attend one of his concerts, commemorating the death of an Ecuadorian leftist killed by state terrorism.

There´s a lot more to be said; our session with Limberg and his dancers, our experience in the clinic in San Martin, our exploration of religious healing practices, our run-in with the brujas (witches). It´s all on film, and we can´t wait to share it with you once we have the chance.

We have more than 50 hours of footage to work with, and possible another year until we edit everything together, Keep in touch with us at: quitofilm@umich.edu.

Best,

Yoni
The Quito Film Collective

habas, yuca, y aji - oh my!

Well, it’s already been a week since we (Erika and I – the public health portion of the Quito Project) have returned to the United States from a whirlwind of a trip in Ecuador and we’ve been swamped since! Erika is fortunately able to work again and has been since Wednesday morning and I am still recovering from Ecuador withdrawal, but I am still glad to be back ☺ So to recap all that happened for the time we were in Ecuador, I’ll have to start from the very beginning since we had no time to blog while there in Quito (I have been spoiled by cable-speed internet and 56K modem does not bode well with me).

Even when I was unable to be there for part of the time, we spent the beginning of the week of 7/3 meeting and discussing with our foundation’s director, Adriana. From our gathering, later in the week we then went out into the community of San Martín and conducted a needs assessment of the neighborhood. We learned quickly that the plans and ideas we had construed in America way ahead of time (i.e. possibly opening some sort of market) would be drastically changed and we had to adapt and be flexible to the plans and ideas that needed to implemented right away. And so, with questionnaires in hand, we started conversations with “What do you like to cook?’ and “What do your kids not like to eat?” [to provide just a few examples] so that we (public health and social work students/graduates) were able to gain a greater understanding and fuller comprehension of the health status of the people. Walking from morning until late afternoon going house to house, we gained a deeper and more complete picture of the community looking at the houses and their animals, listening to mothers’ concerns while hearing kids and the TV in the background, taking notes at a tienda and observing the produce and junk food they have to offer. Our next step: mission – to start nutrition classes in order to initiate a grassroots enthusiasm for health awareness and nutritious living.

The following second week, we prepared, discussed, advertised, planned, and prepared some more for our nutrition classes that we held on Thursday, 7/13 and Friday, 7/14. Before those dates, all four of us public health/social work students again trekked house to house now following up our questions and inquiries with a tangible means to serve the community – providing an avenue for education and collective concern and discussion as a community. As a lure as well as a exemplary model, we slaved in the kitchen each day before our class to prepare veggie burgers for the Thursday class and soybean burgers for the Friday class so that the women can sample and guess the recipe. Overall, we all agree that the classes were a success!! Hooray! 35 attendees on the first day and 15 the next, but most important of all we believe that we accomplished the goal of finding people who are possibly and hopefully invested in seeing the improvement of health and nutrition of their own community. Although Erika and I had to leave before the next set of nutrition classes for the month of July, we know and trust that not only are the social work students carrying along the final set of classes, but that Adriana will be the one sustaining and continuing this vision for nutrition classes all through the upcoming months when all of us Quito Project volunteers are not there. I am happy to declare: mission accomplished!

A post worth 12,000 words

We've taken more than 3,000 photos so far this summer. Here, in no particular order, are just 12 to give you a glimpse into what we've been up to.

A line of patients waiting for our arrival at the clinic.

Dr. Serlin with some patients in the exam room.

We made a house call to an elderly man with a gangrenous foot.

The 6 med students in front of our clinic.

Kamala's bridge jump in Baños.

Kamala with two patients.

Testing out the exam table after we gave the room a fresh coat of maize and blue paint.

Jenny with some young patients in the waiting room.

Emergency? Has him the lever!

The park across from our house. We play nightime fútbol here frequently.

Our future doctor.

The first installment of our nutrition class series, which will continue through the year.

Each day, the kids in our tutoring project wash their hands and faces, brush their teeth, take a vitamin, and drink a hot, nutritious colada.