SMA: The Farewell Tour

I write to you today from the comfort of my living room in Raleigh, NC – the whirlwind adventures in SMA have officially come to an end. We had a great trip and were sad to go, but very excited to get back to friends and family in the states.

The Fourth of July Shindig with Don and Marcella was, in four words, out of this world. Their home was of course, beautiful – right next to the lovely Parque Juarez and the Culture Building. We met lots of fascinating Americans that had relocated to SMA over the years, including the American Consulate. They were very welcoming and inclusive, and I think everyone had a really enjoyable evening. The food included delicious marinated shrimp, little hamburgers, baked beans, grilled chicken, corn bread, potato salad, couscous, and more – all were very tasty. The real treat was the dessert buffet, including an incredible fruit pizza (red raspberries and blueberries on top, of course), lemon bars, brownies, and red velvet cupcakes. I must also mention that the peach sangria was outstanding.

On Thursday, we had a final, farewell lunch with Kip and some of the other members of the Lion’s Club at an Italian restaurant (yes, one of our last meals in Mexico was Italian) which was nice. We spent the afternoon hopping around El Centro, picking up those last souvenirs and gifts, sending off final postcards, and saying farewells to Don Jose (Michael’s friend from the Market, who handcrafts keychains). Of note, we went to Café Etcetera… a little café where the etcetera refers to pirated movies! A little tip from our American friends had told us about Juan the Bootlegger and his services, so that was an interesting stop, to say the least.

Michael and his buddy, Don Jose, Keychain Maker

Even though we had eaten Italian for lunch, our final dinner with the family included our Mexican favorites: enchiladas con salsa verde (actually, TWO different kinds, both of which were phenomenal), and fresas con crema. We were all very full and a bit nostalgic about the final dinner, but the mood was lightened by the squeals and antics of Roderigo on his 10^th month birthday. We finished up our packing and tried to get to bed at a reasonable time in preparation for the marathon day of traveling that awaited us.

Look! Lauren can fit into Jason's duffle bag!

So, highlights and low points from our 16 hours (17, if you include the time change) of traveling:

1.       Low point – 4:30 am wake up. Never fun.

2.       Low point – that moment when we saw that the cab company had only sent a regular cab, and not a larger truck cab like we had asked for to accommodate the luggage.

3.       Highlight – managing to squeeze all four of us and ALL of our luggage into the too-small cab. We knew the trip was going to bring us closer, and I don’t think we had yet been as close as we were in that cab.

4.       Low point – the first movie to be shown on the bus ride to Mexico City was a documentary on INSECTS. Insects are not exactly my favorite things, and these were the most exotic (and therefore some of the most disgusting) insects that were featured in this film. Needless to say, I was displeased when I awoke from my nap to see giant bugs on the screen in front of me.

5.       Highlight – the impeccable timing of the SMA and JR groups when it came to coordinating our airport arrivals. We lug our stuff into the airport from our cabs and who is checking in at the kiosks in front of us but our four good friends from JR.

6.       Low point – the security guy checking IDs before the X-ray machines asking me, “Estás enojada?” (translation: are you angry?) I mean, I’m sure I was looking rough from the early start, the cramped cab, the long bus ride, and the perilous cab ride through Mexico City, but did he really need to point it out to me??

7.       Low point – all of the officials screening the baggage on the X-ray machines laughing at my stuff and pulling me aside to do an additional search. Apparently the giant pewter platter in the shape of a crab that I had purchased for my mother appeared strange on the screen. I then had to spend a few minutes repacking everything because the official had left my belongings in such a jumble in his efforts to investigate the mysterious crab-shaped weapon.

8.       Low point – longest wait EVER in the airport.

9.       Highlight – arrival in Dallas = USA! USA! USA!

10.   Low point – the short amount of time we had to get from our arrival gate through customs to our next flight. We booked, and I mean BOOKED it – there was some running, yes, and Nellie even approached those in front of her with the very persuasive, “Hi! My flight is already boarding – would you mind if I hopped in front of you?” which was very successful. We figured that as long as some of our group made it to the next gate in time, they would be able to hold the plane for us all. We had even agreed beforehand on a sort of, “Every man for himself” approach just to make the best time… which became problematic when this happened:

11.   Low point – Border control detaining Jason. Apparently Jason’s name was on the list of common names and so they took him aside and held him in a room for an extended period of time. Due to the chaos and split up in the customs lines, no one was sure if Jason was ahead of or behind us, and there was a lot of anxiety of where he might be, if his luggage had made it, etc. We were going to ask them to hold the plane right as boarding was about to begin, when Jason ran up to the gate, covered in sweat and looking very harassed.  It was not quite the welcome home to the States that we had imagined, but we were relieved that Jason made it in time.

12.   Low point – as if things couldn’t any worse for Jason, we approach the counter to board and the ticket counter lady goes on a power trip. Jason’s mobile lab/giant backpack was deemed “too large” by this woman, even though it had been cleared to fly on all other legs of our trip. Jason tried to explain what he had just been through, but the lady insisted that he would have to check his bag. Fortunately, Michael and I hadn’t gone through the line yet and managed to redistribute some of Jason’s stuff into our bags so that his backpack would “squish” to fit (even though it had already been fitting just fine). So crisis averted.

13.   Highlight – arrival in Raleigh = UNC! UNC! UNC! (well, close enough)

Long day, a few bumps along the way, but an amazing and rewarding 5-week experience overall. I can't believe we have already gone and returned. Thank you for reading my often rambling posts about our trip!

El Cuatro de Julio, and how to spend free time

Happy Fourth of July from Mexico! This last week has not gone according to plan (but what else is new??) and somehow our Friday departure date is almost here. I’ll do a quick recap of our last few days before we venture out to our Independence Day celebrations this evening.

Monday rolled around, and we started our usual pre-health fair preparation rituals: French toast, coffee, reading Game of Thrones (in my case), scrubs, sunscreen, bug spray, dental hygiene after the sugary breakfast, French braid (in my case), redistribution of medical supplies and personal supplies into The Mobile Lab (our fond name for Jason’s giant backpack), peanut butter sandwich assembly… However, this series of events was interrupted by a phone call from Rafa, informing us that we would not be able to go out to communities on that day, or on Tuesday. It sounds like the DIF had other projects going on and did not have the resources to spread out on those days, but I am not exactly sure what happened. So all of a sudden we had two free days we had not budgeted for, and… we were done with our health fairs for the trip.

Kind of anti-climactic: We were done, but we hadn’t really realized we would be done after last Wednesday. All of our worries from last week were suddenly abolished – we weren’t going to run out of supplies after all, and there would be more than enough free time to enjoy San Miguel de Allende at the end of our trip. Unfortunately, another doctor from our university had flown down to help us out with our health fairs… so we called her up, explained the change, and luckily she was able to hop over to JR to help them out with their health fairs.

We went to el centro, ate at Media Naranja (which was still serving breakfast, to Jason’s dismay - he had his heart set on Chicken Burritos, and there were none to be had), tried to go to the Toy Museum but found that it was only open from Wednesdays to Saturdays… so we did a few other errand-y things before heading back. Oh, and I accosted a nice man wearing a Notre Dame shirt. This is not the first guy I’ve seen with Fightin’ Irish garb on, but I have been hesitant to yell, “Go Irish!” because I am not sure if it would be understood. The translation of “Vamos Irlandeses!” also sounds a bit strange, so I have withheld. This guy looked like he might speak English, though, so I gave him a hearty, “Go Irish!” and startled him into a brief conversation typical of ND alums. He studied English and graduated in ’68, I believe. Having successfully embarrassed him and my fellow companions, we parted ways, but I retained that afterglow of having talked about ND with someone who understands for a while after the encounter.

Having dinner with friends we have made during our time in SMA

We were able to sleep in for a change on Tuesday, and Alex made us his special and fancy cappuccinos to go with breakfast. We did some yoga, lounged about, and had a really relaxing day. We met up with Kip and Marjann for a pre-fourth of July dinner. The plan was to go to Harry’s for the Tuesday Tacos and drink specials – after lots of delicious homemade guacamole at their lovely house, of course. We always end up having too much fun with them – they are really great – and we met up with their friends at Harry’s for dinner. This other couple was equally friendly and fun, and they even extended the invitation to celebrate the Fourth of July with them at their cookout tonight. We are all very excited about this get-together. There is a very interesting quality to celebrating this holiday while abroad – the majority of people around you are going about a very typical day, while you are carrying a little piece of National Pride that makes you feel an added kinship with others there from the US on that day. Last year I spent the Fourth of July in London with some wonderful family friends, and now I am in Mexico with some wonderful med students and relocated Americans. It’s actually a similar sort of kinship compared with the Notre Dame alum I accosted – seeing a Notre Dame shirt in San Miguel was so much more exciting. Celebrating with other Americans here in SMA on the Fourth of July is a very special thing to do, too.

This morning we met with the president of the DIF and our friend Farhad from Casa Esperanza for breakfast. It was good to talk with them about our time here and our hopes for the future of our program in San Miguel. The TV crews were there again and Michael had another interview. We were all filmed at the end (fortunately NOT speaking!) and hopefully someone will email us with the footage airs.
I hope you all have a very fun-filled Fourth of July! All this talk of America is getting me excited about being home with friends and family again soon – even though I will be sad to say goodbye to SMA.

Spotted: Mexican TV Star Michael Garner, giving a rare interview

Adventures in Guanajuato and the kitchen!

 A busy, busy weekend here in SMA and the larger state of Guanajuato. On Saturday we actually ventured out to Guanajuato, the capital city of the aforementioned state of Guanajuato. It was a short (but very nausea-inducing) hour and fifteen minute bus ride from SMA. Jon and Aaron from the JR group met up with us and showed us around, since they had visited the city their first weekend here in Mexico. The teatro (theater) in town was pretty much incredible. From the outside it was impressive (columns, statues, that sort of thing) but inside was the real treat. The interior architecture and decoration was Moorish in style, with green, gold, and red coloring and intricate details. Lots of six-pointed stars, that classic keyhole shape to form the opening around the stage (like a giant door in the Moorish style), with no surface left unadorned. Apparently the theater is still in use, so I imagine that seeing a show there would be quite an experience. I’ll have to redirect you to facebook and Lauren’s pictures because none of mine turned out, but it was one of the most different and exquisitely detailed theater interiors I have ever seen.

We also checked out the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote. I know what you’re thinking  – Don Quijote is a Spanish book, why the heck is there a museum about Don Quijote in Mexico? Well, a famous Spanish expatriate donated his collection of paintings depicting Don Quijote to the city to create the museum and to celebrate the Spanish expats in the area. Guanajuato has even achieved the title of “Ciudad Cervantina,” second only to Alcala de Henares in Spain (where Cervantes was actually born). Anyways, this museum was so cool because all of the artwork portrayed Don Quijote – different interpretations, different media, different styles, all from different artists around the world throughout history. After studying in Toledo, Spain, where every story and all of Spanish history was compared to the journey and the character of Don Quijote, I really enjoyed seeing the different works. It’s fascinating that the figure of Don Quijote continues to capture imaginations and that readers continue to identify with him and his struggles. Anyways, I took pictures of my favorite paintings (which means I took pictures of 70% of the museum), but this is one that I really liked.



Just waiting for my Media Naranja to come and kiss me!



Other highlights from Guanajuato: lots of fabulous churches, lots of colorful buildings wedged onto the hillsides, great views of the city after a steep climb through narrow city streets, the University of Guanajuato with a ridiculous amount of stairs to reach the entrance (that’s one way to weed out your applicant pool), and the famous and fabled Callejon del Beso. Apparently this little “kissing alley” or “alley of the kiss” (sounds a lot less romantic in English) is where you and your true love should share a kiss. Lovers have come to kiss here (and have their photograph taken) for many years – and while there may be other streets of similar dimensions and descriptions in other cities throughout the world, this is the original one. One thing that the med school curriculum at UNC has emphasized is “integration,” or, putting it all together on your own (sounds nice, but often means students are piecing together the big picture from a whole bunch of disjointed syllabi the weekend before a test). Anyways, to integrate Callejon del Beso with another cultural tidbit from our time in Mexico: Our favorite lunch spot is called “Media Naranja.” In Spanish, this is a phrase used to describe your soulmate (or, the other half of your orange, since “media naranja” means “orange half”). Thus, if you kiss your lover in Callejon del Beso, that person is your media naranja. Integration! Boom!



Still feeling inspired from the Quijote Museum, apparently! Michael Quijote and Jason Panza

Enough about that – suffice to say, we had a great day in the lovely city of Guanajuato. Way too many pictures to post here - everything was just so colorful. Today we caught Mass at la Parroquia, made a final purchase from Don Jose in the market (yes, more keychains – you can never really have too many), and headed back home in time to watch Spain DECIMATE Italy in the Eurocup finals. One unfortunate aspect of the elections here in Mexico (aside from propaganda interfering with our health fairs) has been the law that no alcohol can be sold or served on the day before nor on the day of the election. I mean, I guess it is good to prevent people from voting while intoxicated, but if you are an American trying to order a beer with dinner after a long day in Guanajuato, or an American trying to watch a soccer game in a bar, OR an American trying to cook dinner for your host family and your recipe calls for red wine… it is mostly just frustrating. Anyways, we watched the soccer game at home sans beer, and went to the store to buy dinner ingredients sans wine. The groups from UNC that have stayed with Alex and Kelly in years before had started the tradition of cooking a meal for the family, and so this evening we carried on the tradition. Luckily for the family, we did not have to rely on my cooking skills but rather had the talents of Lauren, Michael, and Jason. We made a Bolognese sauce and pasta, along with salad (something I could help with, although washing lettuce required antibacterial drops for the water) and garlic bread. Alex came to the rescue with the red wine (take THAT, Mexican Election Day Law!), and a delicious dinner (we hope!) was enjoyed by all.

Tomorrow we’re headed back out to the communities – the elections are over so there shouldn’t be any more issues. Hard to believe this is our last week here, and that we only have two more days of health fairs. Where has the time gone?

Incidentally Politically Incorrect

It has been an interesting two days. We got our first taste of Mexican politics on Thursday and a surprise long weekend today. Firstly, about the politics: the entire time we have been here, every available surface in the city AND the rural communities has been painted or plastered with a poster of some Mexican politician or political party. Cristobal, Pri, Pan, Josefina, Miguel Marquez Marquez, Mauricio Triejo, Verde, etc. The elections are this Sunday, July 1st. We have not paid too much attention to the political campaigns and signs, except for the occasional input from Rafa, who at the young age of 23 already seems fairly disenchanted by politics and assures us that it does not matter who wins the election, nothing will change. When we went out to visit the community on Thursday, however, we found that no one would come to our health fair… At first, we thought there had been some miscommunication with the DIF and the community did not know we were here. The real reason, however, was explained to us by one of the ladies in the community. Apparently the woman who runs the Centro de Salud (Health Center) in town was a strong supporter of the Pan political party, and she had started rumors that the American doctors coming in the next day were actually associated with the Pri political party (the rival party, and currently ahead of Pan in the polls). This town was a Pan town, so no one would come to our health fair since they thought we were working with Pri, according to the lady. Of course this was not true – the keywords being we are AMERICAN doctors (well, medical students, but somehow everyone always thinks we are doctors – actually one guy showed up to a health fair expecting us to perform surgery on him… so clearly there is some confusion about the limits of our abilities and services, but I digress…). I tend to take very little interest in American politics, let alone Mexican politics, and could not tell you anything about Pan or Pri except that they are Mexican political parties. But the damage had been done, no one in the town would be coming to see us, so we headed instead to visit the general hospital in San Miguel. However, the general hospital was swamped and so touring the facilities wasn’t really an option. We next went over to tour Dr. Quiroz’s hospital, a private hospital. The facility had a lot of resources, and we even ran into Doc Quiroz himself and he gave us the tour, which was fun.

Today we got ready, per usual: scrubs, sunscreen, DEET bugspray, French toast, etc. Around 8:45, however, we got a call from Rafa saying that the community had canceled on us. We are not sure if this was politically related again, or not. Maybe this community was a Pri community and they had heard that the American doctors had come to put on health fairs in support of Pan this time. No idea. So we had today off, and set out to see a few different sites in SMA. We toured Ignacio de Allende’s house, right off of the main plaza next to the Parroquia. For those of you who are not familiar with Mexican history (I myself am woefully ignorant in this department, too, so don’t fret), Ignacio de Allende was the bff of Miguel Hidalgo, the guy who is credited with the battle cry that started the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. Historians now think that Allende may have been the real brains behind the planned uprising, not Hidalgo himself, but regardless, Allende was a pivotal figure in the revolution and is the source of the “Allende” in “San Miguel de Allende” (formerly just San Miguel el Grande). SMA is just a few kilometers down the road from Dolores Hidalgo, where Hidalgo made his famous cry and started the war, and had been an important city throughout colonial times in New Spain and afterwards.

After a nice morning of history, we walked back by the Parroquia and saw Jaquim, one of the grandsons that lives in the house with us. His school was putting on a Math Fair of sorts, filled with fun math games and prizes. Not that med students are competitive, but we did participate in a few math games – and got to hang out with Jaquim.

We branched out and did NOT go to Media Naranja for lunch. We tried Via Organica, a great little organic market and restaurant. I finally made it to the post office after trying to get there for ages and ages. We did a bit of shopping around, including a large order of personalized keychains from Don Jose, Michael’s best friend. Don Jose is this really awesome, extremely nice man who is always set up in the artesian market, hand-sawing out various names and initials in brass to make key chains. We have only been to the market like a thousand times by now, and every time Michael and Don Jose have had a nice long chat. Today was the day to make our purchases, though – we had all promised Michael that we would buy key chains from this wonderful guy. All in all, a relaxing day off from health fairs for unknown (possibly political) reasons. Tomorrow our plan is to visit Guanajuato for the day, which we have heard is just a really beautiful, very historical town.

Friends, Family Medicine Docs, Food, and Fairs

Phew – where has the week gone? We have been busy, busy, busy here in SMA and have had two record-setting days in terms of attendance at our health fairs. On Monday and Tuesday, we had the pleasure of Dr. Ashkin’s company and all of his great medical knowledge and doctoring skills. The people in the communities that came to the health fairs had many of their questions answered and concerns addressed, and we learned a lot from him, too. We went on a whirlwind shopping trip with him and Dr. Clark on Monday afternoon – and these two were experienced SMA shoppers, so we hit a lot of nice stores. They are both so much fun to be around, and are great teachers and wonderful doctors. The theme of fun with great doctors continued when we (the four med students, plus Alex and Kelly, all squished in Alex’s little car) met up with Dr. Ashkin and Dr. Quiroz for dinner. The restaurant (“Hecho en México”) was fabulous, and the conversation – a mix of Spanish, English, and medical jargon in both languages – even better. Since everyone was all dolled up already, we went ahead and took a “family photo” of our group to add to the table sporting the picture of the SMA group from UNC last year. We have had to improvise a lot on this trip, and these perfected skills came into play when we cleverly wrapped our framed picture in newspaper and “ribbon” from a colorful department store bag – but Kelly and Alex loved it.

On Tuesday, we returned to the middle school (la secundaria) in one of the towns we had visited last week. We ended up screening and counseling over 60 kids. Out of all those kids, only two were identified as needing glasses, which was pretty incredible. Dr. Ashkin was even kind enough to check out a few of the hypochondriac and miscellaneous medical complaints and concerns that first year medical students are bound to have - a few external ear infections, and Jason's longstanding concern about his inability to pop his ears.



Today was busy as well. Dr. Newman joined us and was a real help in providing counseling and addressing questions out in the community. We got through over 50 people for general screening, as well as a bajillion kids (okay, so not quite that many, but it felt like a lot) for the vision screenings. We collected data for our studies, too. It was nonstop action, with all hands on deck (including Rafa, of course) but we got a lot accomplished and Dr. Newman had a lot of great advice for counseling the people in the communities. While we feel like we have gotten our health fairs down pat now, having the insight of the doctors who have come to help us has been important in continuing to improve our work.

SMA to JR: Come in, JR! JR, do you read me?



Out on the town in SMA

A busy weekend here in Guanajuato! On Saturday our friends in JR came to visit and to explore our city. We went to a restaurant/bar called Mamma Mia (very popular with the local expatriate/retiree community for its pizza) and watched the Spain vs. France soccer game. Spain pulled out the victory, which pleased the crowd assembled to watch the game. We then explored the market, visited a chocolate store, and made our way down to Parque Juarez – represented as a large green polygon on our map that had always intrigued me. We found a basketball league playing their games here in the park, which was fun to watch. The park itself was in a very nice and affluent area of SMA. We parted ways for dinner because we had already planned to eat with Alex and his family (and Kelly’s dinners never disappoint). We ended up going to La Galleria – the fancy bar where the karaoke competition had been – for a while with Kelly, Alex, and their neighbors. We had hoped to see their son and his wife again, but had to leave before they arrived so that we could meet up again with the folks from JR back in el centro. We had a few miscommunications getting back to the group, but we ended up having a lot of fun in el centro, enjoying a live band that is apparently pretty famous throughout Mexico, but they insist on giving free performances in SMA because it is where they got their start. 


This morning arrived too quickly for our liking, but we scrambled to get out of the door and to the bus station… only to realize that the bus to JR had already left (again, due to more miscommunications: I think one loses the ability to communicate clearly in their native language while trying to get a handle on speaking a second language. I really do not believe we are this bad at communicating in general, seeing as doctors have to be able to communicate and we all probably listed various extracurricular activities and leadership positions that supposedly showed our abilities to communicate when we applied to medical school – but I digress. We sucked at communicating this weekend, to say the least). We took the bus to Celaya that made frequent stops, successfully transferred in Celaya at the CostCo (yes, you heard me – the CostCo) to the bus that went out to Juventino Rosas and eventually did met up with the JR group again on their home turf! We got to check out their house, meet Mari, the wonderful lady taking care of our classmates, and walk around town. There was some sort of political campaign rally going on, so the jardin was packed and it was difficult to get a good sense of what it was like, but we ate delicious crepes at Rinconcito’s. We then met Dr. Narvaez and took a tour of his sanatorium. Dr. Narvaez is one of the members of the delegation in JR that has helped host and organize PPS in JR over the past 7 (or is it 8?) years. He was incredibly nice, very welcoming of us SMA-ers, and just an all-around great guy. He told us a few stories about things that have happened in the clinic and some of its history, which was fascinating. He explained that there is always one person in each group of students that comes down that reminds him of a famous “artista” (or actor/actress). Nellie apparently reminds him of Cameron Diaz – which I can see, when Nellie is smiling. He declared that I reminded him of Jodie Foster – which I will take as a compliment and an improvement from the last time I was compared to a celebrity. Some woman at a wedding told me when I was like 10 that I looked like “a young Barbra Streisand.” Oh gee, thanks.

Welcome to Celaya! Home of the CostCo!

To cap off our time in JR, we caught the overtime period and penalty kicks of the England vs. Italy soccer match in the Eurocup. Alex had pointed out to us the day before that it really didn’t matter who won, as both team names began with “I” and ended with “A” (Inglaterra and Italia, in Spanish). We watched the game in a little bar where a large group of men (and some fellows who looked to be around 15 years old) were drinking beers and tequilas while jamming to the jukebox (I kid you not, a Spanish version of my favorite Bee Gees song was played). Once the Italians claimed the win through penalty kicks, we headed back to the bus station and caught our return ride to the CostCo of Celaya. In Celaya we were caught in a rainstorm and had to run through the rain to catch our connecting bus to San Miguel. Once back in San Miguel, the cab driver wayyy overcharged us. We had become wise to the ways in which some cab drivers would charge us more by virtue of our American-ness after a few days in San Miguel, and had begun handing them the correct amount rather than asking for the charge or letting them decide the charge. However, this guy tried to charge us 60 pesos when we knew that it should only cost 30 pesos (40 at the most). Even after we explained that our ride down to the bus station that morning had only been 30, he told us that the reverse direction was 60 (so not true). But alas, unsure of what to do, we begrudgingly paid him his 60 pesos, reminding ourselves that 20 pesos really wasn’t too much of an issue. Still, we did not like being taken advantage of purely because we were Americans and might not know better.

Kelly’s delicious dinner of chilaquiles (fried tortilla strips in this amazing sauce, with beef and beans and topped with cheese) soon erased any bitter tastes from our mouths due to our taxi experience, though!



Arm Wrestling, Churches, and THE CUTEST DOG EVER

Today and yesterday were spent visiting the same community – general health checks for adults on Thursday, vision screenings for the kids at school on Friday. Thursday we had our biggest turn-out yet, I think – over 50 people were screened and Lauren, Jason, and I managed to do it all sans Michael, who was helping out at CASA. Granted, we still had Rafa to help us a lot, but out of us four gringos, Michael’s Spanish is undeniably the best. Thus, the three of us were pretty proud of ourselves for managing to stay afloat without Michael, despite the high demand for our services. When we pulled up to the health building, the whole premises was flooded with hazy brownish-gray smoke… from the trash the town was burning in the yard. That was just how the town disposed of their wastes. Two children were playing in the smoke-filled yard while a few women looked on, like this was no big deal. Meanwhile our eyes were watering and our noses stinging as soon as we stepped out of our car. Rafa explained that there is a trash service that comes through the town so they really don’t need to burn the trash, but he didn’t know how often the trash collectors came. So we performed health screenings amidst rather unhealthy conditions (and with the stereo blasting as the DIF lead another exercise class – an extra challenge for Jason the blood-pressure guru, but he was able to distinguish the lub-dub from the techno electronica dum-dum-dum thumps). When we returned home that afternoon and were exchanging stories with Michael as to how the day went, we mentioned the fires and he said that we all did smell like we had come from a bonfire rather than a health fair, but at least there was a good explanation.

Jason, Lauren, and I returned to Banda today to screen the children (Michael was out helping with Dr. Clark at CASA again). We actually only had a few kids whose parents’ wanted them to be screened, so it was a pretty relaxing Friday out in the community for us. This gave us time to challenge Rafa to a few arm-wrestling matches – all of which he dominated. The combined strength of Lauren and me, using all of our arms, was barely an obstacle to Rafa. We swung by the house to pick up Michael and then we took Rafa out for lunch at (where else?) Media Naranja. We did a bit of Mercado perusing while we were in el centro, and decided to stop in one of the other churches in the area we hadn’t seen yet. I’m glad we did, because this one was my favorite one I’ve visited so far – yes, even better than the inside of the Parroquia, in my opinion. It is named after Saint Francis (San Francisco, of course!) and the floor had a beautiful tiled pattern in shades of blue. Things of interest included:

1)      Giant CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs dangling from the bottom of the ornate crystal chandeliers – I mean, they’re not LEDs, but good for the Church for being energy-conscious. While a funny sight, surely there must be a better way to disguise the more modern-looking bulbs – like even just a little bit. We also saw this phenomenon in La Parroquia – so Dad, maybe you could start working on some churches to convert their lighting into LEDs…

2)      While statues and replicas of the Baby Jesus are fairly common in Churches (especially around Christmas), I do not think I have ever seen a statue/replica of Baby Mary – yes Mary, Mother of God, represented when she was a baby. Here we found “Maria Niña” depicted as a blue-eyed, brunette baby – I guess since we celebrate her Immaculate Conception, the baby that followed this event would be special and statue-worthy, but I had no idea that Maria Niña was even a thing. So I thought that was really fascinating.

3)      The statue of St. Anthony of Padua that we had seen in the parade of los locos this past weekend actually resides in this church while not on the parade route, so we said hello to him again.

Giant CFL bulb!







Maria Nina



Kelly cooked one of my favorite dinners tonight – Enchiladas con Salsa Verde – followed by my favorite dessert – Mango Champan. We also got to meet Alex and Kelly’s son and his wife, as they came in to visit from Aguas Calientes. They brought along their little three month old bulldog puppy, “Tanque” (“Tank”) - and it was SO SO SO unbelievably adorable. So chubby, so much excess skin, such sad eyes, and such a funny ungainly wiggle-run.

I think we will try to attend Mass in this church at some point before we leave – as we stepped back outside into the square, Michael and I both immediately commented on how much we liked that Church and its atmosphere.

Ooh, we're halfway there - ooh! Putting on our health fairs!

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in SMA for 2.5 weeks – and that we only have 2.5 weeks left! The time has really been flying by. On Monday we joined the DIF at one of their mobile health clinics… which was very different from what we had expected. The clinic took place in Alonso Yanes, a town we had already visited twice. The mobile clinic itself was actually a doctor’s office on wheels, with one room for check-ins, and one examination room. There weren’t any doctors, but the nurses that accompanied the mobile clinic performed pap smears on the women in the community. We were told that we could shadow the nurses, and that “we” really meant just the girls – so Lauren and I got to see some ob/gyn in action. It turns out that the mobile clinic, while equipped with stirrups and speculums and swabs, was NOT equipped to measure weight, height, and blood pressure… so that’s where we were able to be of use. However, since this was the third time we had visited Alonso Yanes, a lot of our checks were on the same health-conscious folks who had attended our health fairs in the past, so it felt like a lot of déjà vu. Still, we had fun joining in with the ladies of the town as the DIF aerobics/dance instructor led everyone in a zumba/salsa-like session.

That afternoon, we met with Dr. Quiroz, who is responsible for bringing PPS to San Miguel from JR three years ago and getting the program up and running here. He was a fun and amiable guy, insisting that we try his tequila while discussing how our trip was going so far and what we had in mind for the remainder of our time in Mexico. It was great to finally get to know him after weeks (and months, really) of hearing about the great doctor who had been instrumental in providing us with this amazing summer experience. Hopefully we will get to see more of him in the next few weeks!

Today we visited a new town, Guanajuatito. We set up shop in the primary school and did a lot of vision screenings, followed by general health checks once the kindergarteners had vacated the premises for the day. We have come to notice that every time we think the day is winding down and we have checked all those that want to be checked – someone else will show up. This usually happens after we have taken down the eye chart – but sometimes it happens after we have literally packed up every single item into Jason’s gigantic backpack that only he knows how to arrange so that all of the elements of our “mobile lab” will fit. It is very hard to turn people away, and we usually end up unpacking again. The way someone always seems to arrive every time after others are long gone is pretty funny though. It is a little bit of an indicator of what our futures as doctors may hold – that line between when we can stow the stethoscopes and go home to friends, family, and situations that do not involve the “M.D.” after our names, and that desire to do our jobs well and be there for our patients, even if they might need us outside of normal office hours. Right now it is only a slight inconvenience (again, mostly for Jason, as he alone can repack the bag, although he is always a great sport about it) and we are only being detained from our typical afternoon activities of reading, yoga, studying, and siestas for a few minutes – but I hear that something of a difficult balancing act occurs later on (and something about inconveniences to having families?), so I guess I’ll keep you posted on how that pans out.

Dia de los Locos, indeed!

Well, la fiesta de los locos did NOT disappoint. We headed into town early, per the advice of our host family. The parade was supposed to start at 12, so we got there around 11:20… and stood around, watching the streets become lined with other spectators. But 12 came and went, with no indication that the parade would begin in the foreseeable future. Our friend Kip from the Lion’s Club called us while we waited and invited us to stop by his place, grab some ladders, and watch the parade from his street. So we did just that. We placed a small ladder, a larger ladder, and a good-sized step-stool behind the crowd and had an optimal view of the parade – as well as prime positioning for candy to be chucked at us.

It was also as entertaining to watch the people watching the parade – some had umbrellas tipped upside down:  the better to catch candy with, of course.  While we watched the diverse array of costumed people dance their way down the street and collected Mexican dulces, we came to the conclusion that it was sort of a reverse Halloween. We were stationary, while those in costumes came around giving the candy to US. You may know that my hand-eye coordination is limited at best – well, it is MUCH more limited while I am on a ladder, so I myself did not catch too many candies. However, we used my sun hat as a catcher’s mitt and my classmates were much more adept at catching than I was. Lauren even managed to catch a candy that landed up her sleeve.

The types of costumes could best be described as, “Anything goes!” but there were a few groups of people associated with floats that had themes. The Simpsons are wildly popular here in Mexico, so there was a whole slew of Barts, Lisas, Homers, and Marges boogieing by. An Avatar group was pretty impressive with their blue costumes and foliage-covered float. Looney tunes, Disney, Wizard of Oz were all represented. Interestingly, there was a whole group of people dressed like Jim Carey in “The Mask” – yes, while it was a popular film in the states circa 1994, it is apparently still a popular topic of discussion in Mexico.

Our original plan was to have dinner with Kip and his wife, Marge Ann, that evening. But once we had had enough of the locos, we returned our ladders to them and just began our evening with them earlier than anticipated, to everyone’s delight. They have been so warm, welcoming, and helpful during our time here in SMA, and we enjoyed homemade guacamole, Kip’s very strong margaritas, lots of conversation, delicious spaghetti and salad, and the warm SMA evening air. We are not sure how we have been so fortunate to meet so many kind and wonderful people during our time here engaged in various activities in SMA, but they have made our trip that much better.

Today was back to reality, however – we ventured out to Cerranitos, a town much larger than we were accustomed to visiting, and one that was literally right off of the main road. Their need for health services was not as great as it had been in other communities, due to their relatively close proximity to San Miguel, but we did have plenty to do there, all the same. Tonight we enjoyed the sounds, smells, and lights of a thunderstorm outside that brought a significant amount of rain – good news for the region as they are currently two years deep into a severe drought. We also enjoyed the thunderstorm and the rain it brought INSIDE – there just so happens to be a small hole in our roof, so that was pretty fun to discover. Tomorrow we are planning on helping out with the DIF’s big health fair – still pretty unsure about what that will entail, but excited to see the different branches of the DIF in full force in the community.

UNC, Mariachi, and the Giant Tree

The weekend has been a busy one thus far. Friday was filled with another health fair – we returned to Alonso Yanyes again, with Dr. Clark in tow. Together she and I gave a women’s health charla, and with some last minute inspiration Jason’s baseball cap was commandeered to be used as the demonstration tool for the self-breast exam. The ladies of the community were all very amused by that. The Mexican paparazzi were out in full force again, hoping to catch Michael’s dental charla and witness how salt, baking soda, and water can come together to make homemade toothpaste. Apparently this film crew that keeps following us out to the communities is actually working on a documentary. We are hoping they will send us links to the videos once they’ve aired, we are all really curious to see the interviews and footage from our fairs (as well as the other things that might be included in this documentary).

As we had already visited this town before, we finished a bit earlier than usual and so Rafa took us on a side trip to see this gigantic tree a few towns over. It was indeed a very large tree, tucked up in a small rural village in the hills. The network of roots was extensive – and actually several of the smaller trees nearby were really just offshoots from the roots of this one huge tree. The tree also produces water, apparently – there is a spigot coming out from the network of roots, and we even saw some of the local women come by to fill their buckets with the water. Dr. Clark rinsed her hands off in the water, too.  The giant tree was also the perfect time for a PPS SMA photo-shoot that mostly consisted of silly shots – but several serious yoga poses were also captured.



Look! We can spell "PPS!" with our bodies!


Friday evening was our first real night out on the town – our fellow med students in JR had taken the bus into town, and we met up with them. We wandered around el centro, swapped health fair stories, played a pick-up game of soccer in the middle of a crowded market, hired a mariachi band to serenade Nellie for her birthday, then ate dinner at a snazzy restaurant that Rafa had recommended. Rafa and Dr. Clark also joined us, so we were quite the large party. After dinner we hung out in the jardin in front of La Parroquia for a bit, where festivities for the big weekend were beginning (some sort of zumbathon, followed by a salsa concert, lots of people, that sort of thing). Rafa then took us to a bar nearby and we enjoyed drinks out on the rooftop terrace, with La Parroquia all lit up behind us.
 

The birthday girl, surrounded by her mariachi serenaders!


This morning we went out to see Casa Esperanza. During one of our mornings at the DIF before heading out to the communities, we had met this really nice man who runs this organization. We got to talking and he invited us to check out their place. The organization is kind of like a school and afterschool program for kids in San Miguel that have really tough home lives. Casa Esperanza provides food for them, tutoring and homework help, additional lectures and workshops to teach valuable skills, and psychologist support as well as support for their parents. We were all really amazed by the organization and all it has been doing to help these kids. Our new friend Farhad was pretty amazing and so excited to show us everything. We talked a lot about ways to get involved with the group in the future and are hopeful that we can find ways to help!

We met up with our friends from JR for lunch today at our favorite SMA lunch spot – Media Naranja. We hope to visit our fellow classmates on their home turf in Juventino Rosas next weekend. Tonight featured another stellar meal from Kelly – cabbage tacos, or tacos de col (col as an in “cole” – like cole-slaw, get it??) They were really flavorful, especially once the olive oil/garlic/onion/pepper mixture was drizzled on top. Dinner was followed by my favorite dessert – champan de fresa.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day in SMA: it is la fiesta de los locos (literally, the party of the crazies), and the whole town will be swamped by a giant parade (un desfile) where people will be dressed in costume. The few details/advice/warnings we have received about the event are as follows:

1. Wear a lot of sunscreen.
2. Be prepared to be pelted with candy that the “locos” are throwing – they apparently really like to throw the candy at the Americans.
3. Plan ahead for limited bathroom options.

We are also slated to have dinner with our buddy Kip from the Lion’s Club at his incredible home in the heart of SMA, which we have been eagerly anticipating. If going to Mass can be squeezed in there at some point, tomorrow should be an excellent Sunday – and of course a skype date with Dad first thing in the morning to celebrate Father’s Day from afar!



The case of the missing eye charts, and the never ending story (of wire transfers)

Another action-packed day in SMA and the surrounding communities! We returned to San Francisco, the very first town we had visited. We had been warned that there would be a lot of people today, and since we hadn’t done glucose checks and vision screenings there yet, those were our main goals for the day… until we started unpacking and realized that the eye charts (“Snellen charts,” if you will) were missing. No one could remember packing them up from our last community, and for a few minutes we were uncertain if we would be able to perform vision screenings at all. The school in the community had already excused kids from class for the vision screenings, and their parents were there. Luckily, Rafa saved the day – he went down the road (which was quite a ways, down a dirt/gravel road) to a local doctor and fortunately was able to borrow his Snellen chart. From then on out, it was a lot of vision screenings and parental consent forms and child assent forms and dietary nutrition surveys as part of our research project. The day ended up being very successful despite the rocky start, and we now have a repacking procedure to make sure all of our supplies come and go with us!

Jason, providing vision screenings to the kids in San Francisco

We spent another afternoon (this makes the fourth or fifth, at least) trying to coordinate banking and wire transfers over skype and email in order to be able to pay our host family. All parties involved (us, the banks, our contacts and UNC going to the banks for us, and our host family) are getting a bit frustrated with the saga that has involved two separate identities, two corrections to the wire transfer that were actually incorrect, and three separate banks (I think – but I’ve sort of lost track). Alas, we hope to sort it all out soon.

With one more health fair tomorrow, we have a lot to look forward to this weekend: the JR crew called us up and told us of their plans to come visit this weekend, which should be fun; meeting up with Dr. Quiroz at some point, who helped get the SMA branch of PPS up and running; some sort of parade thing in the city on Sunday; dinner at Kip’s house on Sunday. A fathers’ day BBQ in the back yard and teaming up with an organization that helps kids in SMA with difficult home lives for some breakfast/charlas/hang ing out are also possibilities for the weekend.

Hitting our stride, with help from Dr. Clark

Our trip out to La Cuadrilla was more successful than yesterday – the town knew we were coming this time, and many people showed up to have their blood pressure, glucose, and vision checked! We only got a little lost on our way out there this morning – it is amazing how many little towns are out there once you turn off the main road – but after that everything went well. Dr. Clark was a huge help talking with everyone, giving medical advice, filling out surveys, and even meeting one of the women that she recognized in a documentary about immigration – “Letters from the Other Side.” The TV crew again showed up – luckily Michael brought his Mexican TV personality and wowed the media again. We saw over 40 people, which was a lot of finger-prickin’, glucose-checkin’, blood-pressurin’, waist-measurin’, eye-screenin’, survey-takin’ action for one day. Apparently the town we’re going to tomorrow will have an even bigger turnout, so hopefully we’re prepared for that!

This evening we got our hopes up for rain – which, according to some people, hasn’t happened in SMA in like 2 years – however, dusty conditions prevailed. Descriptions of nasal mucus ensued (hey, we’re all med students here) and from the combination of the dusty conditions out in the communities and the pollution in the city, we’re talking about some pretty interesting nasal mucus. And you know it’s pretty late for me to keep blogging and I just wrote a whole blurb about nasal mucus, so that’s probably a sign that this entry should come to an end.

The Unexpected Health Fair

Well, even though today went differently than planned (you may be beginning to sense a pattern…), it was still a good day, nonetheless. We were very excited that Dr. Clark would be joining us out in the community, and equally excited when we found that we would be traveling by suburban again. However, when we got to the community we discovered that no one had informed them that we would be coming. We waited around for a while and joked with Dr. Clark that she had cursed us by coming to visit the SMA group after we had heard about some of the difficulties that she and the group in JR had encountered with the new padre (apparently the new priest would not let the charlas commence without attendance to Mass in the communities, first). Eventually we were able to talk with some of the community leaders and discuss the situation. The directora of the school was very friendly and asked us to let us know when we would be returning because she thought that the people in the town would really be able to benefit from the health fair. So our new plan is to return to this community tomorrow, although we’re still not exactly sure where the communication broke down between the DIF and the community.



Following Dr. Clark through SMA, her little "doc"-lings!



So instead of putting on our health fair, we instead hung out with Dr. Clark in SMA – we saw the lovely house she is renting in el centro and were a bit envious of the convenience of the location, we took her to our favorite SMA lunch spot (yep, that’s right: Media Naranja), and we walked through the artesian market to peruse the souvenirs, postcards, paintings, and jewelry. In our typical fashion, we stuck out just a little bit – not only did we look like a group of Americans, but we were all still wearing scrubs from the aborted health fair attempt.  We did, however, change before we made our trip to Office Depot this time (it had been a few days since we had been there, after all – I think we’ve only had to go there 5 times so far, but it’s a good thing –we’re using up all of our screening sheets and recommendation forms because we have been able to see so many people out in the communities). Hopefully we’ll be able to have our health fair tomorrow and get Dr. Clark in on the action – we know she will be a great resource and help to us, and it has been nice to be around someone who knows the ropes in SMA!

A little bit off of the beaten track, and a little beaten up by the bumpy track

A few changes in plan today – we were all set to go to the big health fair being put on by the DIF, but instead the DIF decided it would be better to spread out resources and so we instead went out into another community. Today’s community was called “Artesano de la Luz” and it definitely seemed like the most economically strained of the towns we have visited so far. Lots of people showed up for health checks though, which was great. We were screening machines, and were able to get a lot done. We did not do our charlas today, as Rafa had explained that this town in particular had very little access to any sort of health care, and so the checks would be more valuable. The people in this community were, as ever, extremely kind and very gracious.

Another change in our plan today – the chevy suburban we have been ferried about in by the DIF was being used for the health fair, so… we got to ride in one of the trucks. It was a much bumpier ride than we had grown accustomed to, especially once the bumps were no longer caused by speed bumps in the city but instead by unpaved roads as we moved farther out into the countryside. But all things considered, it was a good day with a lot of screenings and surveys collected.

Another knock-out dessert tonight – fresa champan. Like the mango champan, but strawberry flavored.

The Patron Saint of Air Conditioning, and other topics

We have spent a pretty tranquil Sunday in SMA. Our one major activity for the day was to go into el centro and attend Mass at La Parroquia – which we did. It was a very lovely service, with lots of incense and a more traditional chorus than the mariachi band of last week. We thought we had our neighborhood down, but the cab driver took us to a different Calle Paloma in our neighborhood, and was a bit miffed when we told him that this wasn’t where we wanted to go, even though that is where we had told him to go. We had an assortment of our snacks to count as our lunch for the afternoon – my lunch consisted mainly of oreos and peanut butter, along with a nutri-grain bar and handfuls of multigrain cheerios. We compiled some of the data we collected from our surveys this past week, and worked a bit on stuff for next week, including the report on the various communities that the DIF has wanted us to compile. This coming week will be a little different, as the DIF is putting on health fairs, featuring REAL doctors of various specialties, so we’ll be tagging along, continuing with our glucose checks and vision screenings. We’re not really sure what else will be expected of us at these events, but we're intrigued to see how it goes and excited to meet the doctors working with the DIF.

We have tried various strategies to keep cool in our warm little domed room. It is heated by the Mexican sun streaming through the windows, the four hard-working non-energy efficient Lenovo laptops, and the various activities of four high-energy people in the same space. Our rotating fan, fondly rechristened “MasterCrap,” (as it was the least expensive fan in the store yet was grandly titled “MasterCraft”) does manage to cool the room down by the time 4 am rolls around… but we all take turns throughout the day, shuffling in front of it as it oscillates, redistributing warm air, wishing wistfully that it was cool air. In true Latin American Catholic fashion, we looked into which saint could reasonably be attributed as the Patron Saint of Air Conditioning, and Sister Mary Martha (who has a very entertaining and informative blog, by the way, called “Ask Sister Mary Martha”) had declared Saint Nicholas to be the Patron Saint in question. Apparently others have asked her this in the past, so our query was not that unusual, really. Her logic was as follows:  he moved from somewhere hot to the North Pole, so clearly he knew what was up. We also caught much of the Spain vs. Italy soccer game, which got me to reminiscing about my time in Spain, watching my host family watch Real Madrid games… which got me to reminiscing about other tv programs in Spanish, namely the telenovela for children loosely based on High School Musical called “Patito Feo.” So tonight Lauren and I watched an episode of the Mexican version of this Argentinian show(so that does make it a Mexican show based on an Argentinian show based on an American show) on NetFlix – oh yes, it is on NetFlix. It was very entertaining, and I worry that I am a bad influence on Lauren.