Getting ready for Planchaloma
On Thursday, Melody and I finally got to visit the Planchaloma clinic, where we will be spending most of our time here in Ecuador. Planchaloma is a small community located in the mountains about 2 hours from Quito, and the clinic there is the largest we have seen yet. It offers dental, OB-GYN and general medical services, and even has its own ambulance! It was great to meet the staff and talk with them about our plans for while we are there, and also see Amanda and Lila’s projects from last year still going strong!
During our time in Planchaloma, we will be working on some community education programs focusing specifically on TB and the importance of recycling. This will include going to schools where we’ll give talks and lead activities to teach children about these topics, as well as hanging posters in the clinic so that patients can learn about these topics while they wait. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been working on our TB posters and have tried to make them as pictoral as possible so that even patients who are illiterate will be able to understand the signs of TB. Fundación is hoping that by increasing community awareness about tuberculosis, they will finally be able to control the disease as they have been able to do in the other areas they have clinics in.
Along with preparing for the projects for Planchaloma, we’ve also been busy getting the technologies ready to demonstrate! This has included practicing using them as well as translating the user manuals into Spanish. It’s certainly good that we started while we still have pretty readily available internet access, because much of the vocabulary we need is not what we learned in our typical college-level spanish class (or maybe I just missed the lesson describing how to read hematocrit levels!).
We also had a chance on Saturday to visit the famous market in the town of Otavalo, thanks to the wonderful Maria Alicia! We spent the morning and part of the afternoon perusing the booths and picking up souveniers, and then visited some towns nearby as well. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for 2 weeks already, and I’m very anxious to get out to Planchaloma and start helping in the clinic and getting to know the community there. We should be moving out there later this week, so chau for now so we can get back to our preparations!