Today was my first day volunteering at the Santa Rosa Public Health Center in Cusco, Peru. My day began at 8:00 when Gabriela, the director of Casa Ayni, the volunteer organization, arrived to show my how to get to the health center. We walked from my house to the bus stop and then took the bus to the Santa Rosa bus stop. After getting off the bus, we walked about a block to a small blue building that was crowded by a swarm of people outside. The building itself is by no means impressive; if anything, it is the opposite. Upon entering the health center, my initial impression of the building was confirmed. The walls and floors both consist of chipped concrete and all the rooms are very small. Nothing looks overly clean, although it did have a smell that was somewhat like the scent of sanitizing cleaners. There was quite a bit of dirt covering various parts of the concrete floor in the main area. It definitely would have extensive health code violations if it were in the United States.
In the health center, there is one hallway with a handful of rooms for patients, including medicine, obstetrics, and a small "pharmacy." Another area has various nurses stations as well as a room for dental visits. In the back there is a small laboratory where blood work and urine analyses are done. There also is a small room filled with files lining every wall with a small desk in the middle where a few ladies work on processing the paper work. Outside of the health center is the waiting area. There is a small dirt space lined with a few small benches where people waiting to be seen sit. I asked another volunteer named Mike from the US if they always have to wait outside and he said that they always do, even when it rains. In Cusco, it in the rainy season right now, so it rains very frequently. All of these areas are connected by one main lobby, hallway type space, which is where I spent most of my time today.
In the main "lobby," there is a lady sitting at a small desk who receives the paperwork from the office area and takes the patients' weight, height, and sometimes blood pressure. After I finished helping the ladies in the office pull files from the crazy mess of paperwork, I went to the help take the weights and heights with Mike. We would walk out to the front and call out the name of the person whose file we had. We took the measurements and then relayed them to the lady at the desk (unfortunately, somewhere between the busyness of the clinic and the language barrier, I never got her name... oops). Mike told me that today was an exceptionally busy day as the waiting area was packed with people. We were very busy weighing and measuring people and did that for most of my time there. There were various people who came in to the clinic: small children and pregnant ladies, and elderly people and teenagers.
Although the whole process seemed a little hectic and chaotic, it seemed to work for all the people working at the health center. It was a little difficult at times to try to be helpful without feeling like I was getting in the way. It was especially a challenge because everyone working there only speaks Spanish. While my ability to talk in Spanish is fair, I am not used to listening and responding in a such fast-paced setting. I am excited about learning new health-related vocabulary and improving my ability to understand and speak quickly in an area outside of the classroom. Today I was very thankful that Mike was there because he was able to explain a few things to me in English that I did not understand. He has not been learning Spanish for very long, so I was able to help him in that aspect as well. I think that it is going to be a fun 8 weeks volunteering at the health center. Mike told me that they often place volunteers not on their medical knowledge but on their ability to speak and understand Spanish. I hope that as my language abilities improve I will be able to help in other parts of the health center as well.
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