adventure nursing and health campaigns

so as if all the hiking we did on the llama trek wasnt enough... my first day back at work Pooja and I were sent out with two other nurses on what I like to call adventure nursing. Basically, we are given a big cooler of yellow fever vacinnes and sent out into the outskirts of ayacucho to vacinate anyone who needs them. I had no idea that walking to the outskirts of Ayacucho would basically mean hiking straight up on the worst terrain possible for 2 hours. The nurses here have a completely different job then back home. Poor Pooj was wearing black dress shoes. You´d think I´d be used to hiking into higher altitudes after the weekend, but no... I could barely breathe and was sweating like a beast. We´d crawl upwards and diagonal from worn tin door to worn tin door, knocking and offering free vacinations. We got to vacinate everyone, from 2 year olds to decrepit old ladies. I feel like all I saw that day were syringes, dogs, dirt, and boogery children. But, it was all worth it for 2 reasons. The first is, Pooj and I were the ones giving the vaccinnes! Its so fun sticking people with needles, thank god I get to do this for the rest of my life. The second reason it was worth is was that we ended up at the top of this mountain, looking down on the whole city of Ayacucho, at these holy caves where people go to worship and light candles. They were beautiful caverns with overly dramatic crucifixians and paintings of Jesus everywhere.... for some reason one statue of Jesus had a cowboy hat on though... I´ll have pictures of that eventually.
But work only got more interesting today...
We arrived at our clinic at the usual time of 8am to find all the nurses and doctors outside talking in a group. They were all going to march and protest for who knows what because there are basically riots and protests and strikes here constantly. So as we waited outside the empty clinic for our driver to come back and get us, I found a really tiny puppy. As we sat there playing with it a woman comes up to me and starts talking really fast. See, everyone here thinks we´re American doctors because of our white lab coats, so its very common for sick people to run up and tell us their problems. Anyway, this woman starts showing me a dry rash around her mouth and I´m like ¨si... si.... si...¨and then all of the sudden she pulls out her giant boob and sticks her humungous nipple in my face!!! She´s trying to point out some rash or irritation on the nipple but like I just cant get over how monstrous it is... Pooja starts cracking and has to walk away, I´m just like completely dumbfounded because we´re out on the street in public and this is going on. So my answer to her problems was not helpful.... ¨no estoy un medico¨ and I tried to push her towards the clinic. I didn´t wanna stare at her nipple anymore.
After that wonderful first hour of today, we were sent off to this giant health campaign. What I have kind of figured out thats going on is that the health insurance here is holding this huge campaign for everyone possible to come get help in like any department of healthcare. So when we got there it was something like 600 people in a horribly unorganized crowd trying to get the help they desperatly need. We were put into triage and tried really hard to get everyone´s histories together and send people off to the different departments. It was extremely chaotic and frustrating and even sad because these people NEED to see a doctor but so many of them don´t have medical histories, etc. No one knew what they were doing and where to go and the hardest part was the very second any of us volunteers step out of the triage tent, we´d get swarmed by people asking a million questions that we don´t know how or just can´t answer. This campaign will still be going on tomorow, even if another paro occurs, and they really need help so I have to head back there this evening at 5 and then again all day tomorow. Then Thursday we´re following the campaign to another part of Ayacucho for one final day of chaos. Should be exciting...
As much as I love all that I´m doing here and all that I´m learning, I´m pretty eager to go to Lima on Saturday and relax for a few days before I come home.
I´m gunna miss everyone here so much though.