Thursday, October 4, 2012

AND THEN

At the end of your typical non typical medical visit--you are invited to stay one more day in order to judge the National English Singing Competition. Gotta love Peace Corps (-: Now, to make sure our clothes are in good enough shape to appear on tv.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

PILLOWS. and your "typical" medical check up

Pillows...mmmmm So we are in Managua for our close of service medical check up. This means we do get to stay in a pretty luxurious hotel for a night or two--you know, running hot water and AC (Whhhhaaatttt?!) and PILLOWS! I woke up this morning thinking "why is this so amazing? i mean besides the obvious factors of sleeping with a blanket and the welcome anticipation of a hot shower---the answer--PILLOWS! I slept with TWO of them last night and feel like a queen! Maybe I should explain a bit about pillows here in Nica-land: they are tough to come by....and usually consist of lumpy balls tossed inside a bag of sorts--think sleeping on rolled up socks or something--in fact, i have many a Nica friend that don't even use pillows. It's weird to think that back home people have pillows everywhere they don't even use--they are "decorative"---that's gonnna be strange....people throw their pillows onto the ground at night (why are you treating your pillows like that!?) and then pile them on the next day....anyways, sleeping with two, firm, pillows last night was a thrilling experience! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Typical PC medical check up...is there such a thing? Is anything typical during PC service? maybe just that nothing is typical---that's typical... Ok, so your end of service med stuff is a whirlwind of --general physical exam, getting stuck with 2 needles--one a blood test the other a test for Tubercuculosis (sp?), you go to the dentist, the girl doctor, provide a urine sample and everyone's favorite--good 'ol poo in a cup three days in a row.....you do all of this in TWO DAYS and a morning. In addition, you are expected to squeeze in every administrative task you may need to get done while in the big city= a little hectic. This time in particular, the taxis in the big city decided to go on strike--resulting in mild protests in the street/street closures etc. So for safety reasons, I had to be carted around by private PC vehicles which is pretty luxurious in and of itself--but crummy in that because there are so few drivers you just have to arrive maybe 2.5 hours early to some appointments and stay an hour or two late at others waiting for the drivers...meaning you miss administrative appointments back at the office and constantly juggling to reschedule them all whilst thinking about those fecal samples you have to turn in at some point in the next two days....note: supposedly these samples are only good for an hour-hour and a half--so even if i wanted to carry them around while being carted from doctor to doctor--I couldn't be sure they would still be acceptable....hmmm many of you may be saying "ew" right now. I do apologize if this is too much information! Being desensitized to this kind of conversation is a result of my time here and possibly should be a requirement for joining! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------