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.

"Guys! I found Jesus!"

We were really able to enjoy this Saturday in San Miguel – the dogs and musical gas-tank delivery trucks allowed us to sleep in til around 8, we had a leisurely breakfast with unhurried coffee time, and then we set out to explore more of the city. We made it down to the plaza principal and finally got to see the Parroquia up close. It is a beautiful, beautiful church, inside and out. The full title of the church is La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel. There has been a church on this site since 1555, but it’s been destroyed a few times, and the turrets and a new façade were added between 1880 and 1890 to give it the form seen today. Inside there were many beautiful wall murals in some of the side chapels and near the ceiling, including a lovely illustration of the story of Juan Diego and the Virgin of Guadalupe. While still looking around, singing began and in processed several families with infants clad in white… we took the beginning of the baptismal Mass as our cue to exit respectfully, but we may try to attend Mass there tomorrow.

Next we called up our friends of the Lion’s Club, whom Jason and I still had yet to meet due to our side trips on Wednesday. Our plan was to take Kip, the incoming president, out to lunch, but instead he invited us over to visit his house in el centro…. His home was only the most gorgeous dwelling-space I have ever seen. From the calle, we walked into a little covered foyer that then opened up into an open-air sort of square filled with flowers and plants and fountains and statues. Off of this square came an office, the kitchen, and stairs leading up to higher floors and various covered and uncovered patios. As we ascended to the rooftop, we had a wonderful view of several of the turrets and domes of San Miguel’s various churches. It was one of the most striking skylines I have ever seen.  We enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice with Kip and his wife, and discussed everything from art to eyeglasses to autism. They’re such kind people, and getting to know them better and being able to see their house was a real treat. There are some 12,000 foreigners (mostly American and Canadian) that live in SMA, many of whom have retired here. It is quite an interesting dynamic, and now we can really say that we’ve seen many different aspects of Mexico.

We had lunch at Media Naranja, which was delicious. Lauren, Jason, and I had chicken burritos with a mango salsa – so fabulous, and so filling. Michael’s tortilla soup was rich, creamy, and delicious, too. We roamed the streets, perusing the souvenirs and the artesian crafts of the area. Our next plan was to climb our way out of el centro to return home. I mean, we knew it was hilly, and yes the streets and sidewalks were paved with cobblestones, but we were determined. No taxis - unless Montezuma came a-calling – then we would hail a taxi. We did manage to climb up one really steep street, and then climb up a steep staircase/neighborhood, only to find a large crucifix and the face of Jesus overlooking the city. If you ever have to guess what might be at the top of a very steep hill in Mexico, a crucifix is a pretty safe answer. Sure, we could have gone on through the cacti, the broken glass, the rocky terrain, and other various obstacles to eventually reach the main road, but since we were wearing sandals… we instead opted to descend once again and just grab a cab. Still, it was quite an adventure, and we got to see a lot of SMA today.