It’s hard to believe I only have one
more week in Ecuador. The past few weeks
have been amazing. Last week I was able
to participate in a health fair at the local clinic I’ve been working
with. The topic was diabetes and my
classmates and I were to prepare some presentations and talk with people about
diabetes. We arrived at the clinic around
nine and I expected we would start soon after.
However, as we were all waiting to start talking with people a high
school marching band rolled up and started playing for everyone. This was followed by a karaoke singer and
before long my classmates and I were dancing with everyone else with our white
coats on. Eventually, we did end up
talking with people about diabetes and I gave a small presentation to a class
of elementary school kids on the importance of exercise.
Initially, I was perplexed at this event
as it seemed more like a party to me than a health fair. However, it was explained to me that this is
a typical Latin American health fair.
The reason it is more centered around having fun and interacting with
people in a different way is so that patients can feel more comfortable around
their health care providers. This helps promote
the idea that going to the doctor’s office doesn’t need to be a scary thing. I also had the chance to go to a local school
and do eye screenings for kids. This was
a ton of fun and I wish that healthcare providers in the U.S. had more of an
opportunity to get out into the community and provide these types of
services.
My Spanish seems to be improving a
lot and I’m already trying to think of ideas of how to continue improving my Spanish
once I return home. A couple days ago I
was eating lunch with my host family and their five-year-old grandson. My family asked me if my Spanish was
improving and I replied, “yes, it’s improving everyday.” And then their grandson said, “yes, I’ve been
teaching him a lot”. We all laughed and
I think we all knew it was true.
pic: my class at the health fair
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