Baños

My first weekend was exceptional.  Baños was easily my favorite destination in Ecuador.  For a town so small there were plenty of interesting things to do and fill up a weekend.

Acerca de Cerveza

If you go out to a bar or restaurant in Ecuador a beer should cost you anywhere between $1 and $2.  There are two brands of beer:  Pilsener and Club.  Both brands come in 300 ml (~12 oz) bottles but Pilsener is quite commonly found in 578 ml (~22 oz) bottles.  The best deal that can be found in a store is usually $1.25 for a large bottle of Pilsener (578ml).

Any establishment that sells beer is going to sell Pilsener.  Consider yourself lucky if you find Club or any other types of beer.  If you find anything beyond the national beers it will probably be Budweiser or maybe Corona, but you’ll pay a lot more for it.

Mi Familia Anfitriona

Just as when I studied in Spain, I feel as though I got really lucky with my host family situation.  My host family in Quito was really nice.  The family consisted of a mother (Cristina), father (Rigoberto), and a daughter (Anita).  The daughter is 25 and the parents are in their 60s.  Rigo is retired and Cristina works as a secretary for either a school or a school district office.  Anita works as a clerk at some sort of retail store, but she is currently taking online classes.  She used to be a medical school student, but dropped out and now is studying to be a social worker.  Her boyfriend, Alex, is not much older than her (late 20s), but he has already graduate from med school and is a medical director at a small hospital outside of Quito.  Cristina and Rigo also have two older daughters who have families of their own.  Two granddaughters around 8-10 years old are at the house often.  They spent a couple nights with their grandparents when their parents were away.

The picture above is of the apartment complex we lived in.

El Subcentro de Cochapamba – A day on the streets

For the third and final day with Dra. Sancho we went around the neighborhood verifying that all the children have been vaccinated.  We started at the clinic.  There was a group of about eight people that morning including doctors, nurses and volunteers ready to go out on this door-to-door  vaccination campaign.  After a brief discussion on what to look for, we separated into groups.  Daniel and I went with Dra. Sancho.  

El Subcentro de Cochapamba – A day at the office

So Thursday was an ordinary day at the office for Dra. Sancho.  She saw her patients in her office the entire morning.  And when I say she saw them in her office, I mean she actually saw them in her office.  Every doctor’s office I have seen in the United States has multiple exam rooms and the doctor and nurses rotate around and serve the patients in the exam rooms.  However in Ecuador doctor does not leave her office because her office serves as both an office and an exam room.  

El Subcentro de Cochapamba – Going to grade school

Wednesday was day one of the whole reason why I came to Ecuador – to gain more experience observing the practice of medicine.  The next three mornings I would spend shadowing a pediatrician named Dra. Silvia Sancho in a neighborhood clinic in the north part of Quito.  This neighborhood was known as Cochapamba and like basically everywhere in Quito this neighborhood was situated upon the hillside.

Los Primeros Días en Quito

Saturday evening I arrived in Quito having traveled all day long from Seattle with layovers in Dallas and Panama City.  Sunday was orientation day.  We took a Spanish test and were placed in our classes and then later took a walking tour around the city to see where all the hospitals were at.  I was placed in the advanced level Spanish class with other students who had pretty extensive experience in Spanish.  This was the highest level class they were offering, however I was quite disappointed when we spent the first couple hours of class going over ‘ser y estar’.  We later moved on to some medical vocabulary terms like how to say parts of the body and common illnesses; however, as far as Spanish grammar is concerned, I didn’t learn a thing during my two weeks of class.  It was all review.  And quite honestly, I could teach myself vocabulary from a book.  But the teacher, Marisol, was nice and it was good to practice.

For lunch I and the other students would typically walk a few blocks to any number of restaurants.  There were traditional Ecuadorian sit-down cafes, some fast food specialty type places, and then some restaurants which could be classified somewhere in between.  It was possible to get a full meal consisting of a meat (often chicken or beef), rice and beans (menestra), fried plantains, salad, and a drink for just $3 if you ordered the Menu del Día.

Monday and Tuesday I had class for a few hours in the morning and then a few hours after lunch.  Wednesday began my first day shadowing physicians.