If you're going to San Francisco - San Francisco, Guanajuato, that is!

Today was a taste of the weeks to come – we went out to our first community today, a little town called San Francisco. Alex dropped us off at the DIF at 9 am, and we hopped into the Suburban with our very nice and extremely knowledgeable and helpful DIF representatives, Rafa and Victor. They drove us down the paved highway and then out onto the unpaved roads – just a little bit of a bumpy ride! We arrived in the town and they showed us to the local school. We set up shop and began performing blood pressure checks and measuring height and weight on people in the community who came to the health fair. We ran into a few difficulties when asking if they had any questions about their health – this would often open a whole plethora of symptoms in rapid, rural Spanish. As we’re not ACTUALLY doctors yet (and no, four med students that have each completed one year of medical school do not equal one doctor), and we are not really supposed to give medical advice or recommend medications, it was hard to think of what to say next. Luckily we will be helping out with a health fair put on by the DIF for a lot of these communities next week where there will be doctors present, and so they will be able to get more satisfactory information then. We were, however, able to give counseling on diet and exercise, and Lauren and Michael performed their charlas to great effect. I think everyone enjoyed playing the game, “Saludable o No” (“Healthy or Not”), and I also learned something new - how to make your own toothbrush and toothpaste using every day things in your house and outside.  We definitely have a lot of room to improve, but this was a good first effort, and we’re very excited to continue to work with the people at the DIF. They have a lot of really great programs already in place and have really been instrumental in helping us get set up with our programs so far.

Highlights from today include yet another fantastic meal prepared by Kelly. We had “tortitas de papas con pollo” tonight (like little round patties of potatoes and chicken that were sort of fried/sautéed) – and with some sour cream and spicy salsa, they were fabulous. We also learned many lessons about love and relationships from Alex during our dinner conversation – the top three items a man should do to please a woman are:

1. Have clean shoes. This is a no-brainer.
2. Pay attention to the little details.
3. Kisses. Muchos, muchos, muchos besos.

But alas, good night for now - we Americans have quieted down in our room for the night – which means that now all of the neighborhood dogs have begun barking in earnest…