Getting a little "Alison" time

So I went on a nice hike on my own this morning and had some time to think as I listened to my iPod and urged my legs to just keep going a little longer. I only hiked up to the first Canteras (quarry) but the first 45 minutes is pretty much all uphill over rocky terrain so it is difficult. It is a nice hike because it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the Canteras and then only about an hour to go back down. So you feel like you got a good workout without really killing yourself. My friends went on a longer hike today but I decided to just do my own thing as I´m still fighting a respiratory infection and hadn´t worked out in a week. I wanted to go at my own pace.

With my two and a half hours of "Alison" time, I thought a lot about what we are trying to create here in Ollanta. Awamaki Health has the potential to really become something big. The more Ben, Keri, Annie and I talk about what we would ultimately like to establish, the more excited we get. We have to remind ourselves to start small. So we have set out some short term and long term goals. We are creating our mission statement and trying to see what we can accomplish before everyone leaves. Annie is leaving next week, Ben leaves in the beginning of April and then Keri leaves on April 21st. We have a lot to do but we are motivated.

My plan now (since the Peace Corps is out) is to return home in July -- but really it is August b/c I am traveling for weddings in July until the 27th -- and just work for about 5 months and save money. I will work on Awamaki Health things from afar like getting public health education curriculum finalized, getting supplies for teaching classes, and searching for and applying for grants. Then I will return down to Ollanta in January or February of 2011. I will stay here, working, until the summer and then hopefully move to wherever I get accepted for nursing school. I am really hoping it is Yale, but we shall see.

Friday was an eventful day in the clinic. We have started implementing "Chocolatada" on Friday mornings. Normally, Fridays are extremely busy because people who live up in the mountain communities come down for medical care. So we, Awamaki and the doctors at the clinic, have decided to serve breakfast to the people. I also want to implement some bathing stations (at least for children) but that may take a little while. Anyway, we also decided that we needed to start implementing a cleaning schedule. We are starting on Sunday with a major clean of the whole clinic. So on Thursday, Keri and I joined Miguel for a shopping trip in Cusco. We got 50 plastic mugs to serve the breakfast in (it is like oatmeal but more liquidy) and tons of cleaning supplies.

The chocolatada was not so successful yesterday because we had tons of rain Thursday night and so the roads to and from the mountain communities were not passable due to landslides and mud. We were able to serve most of the breakfast to the people who were able to come in and then we jumped in the back of the health center truck (pretty much an oxymoron when it comes to public health) and joined the Intern, two nursing students and two techs down at the area where people lost their homes to see patients. We were able to give the rest of the breakfast to the kids down there. Elio saw about 30 patients (they literally just line up and see him one by one). All Elio had was Amaxycillian, Ibuprofen and children´s vitamins so pretty much whatever you ailment was, you were getting the same treatment as the next guy. Then we all piled back in the back of the pick-up (along with a father and his 4 kids) and headed back to town. We all had to get out when we came to the bridge b/c it was not safe for the truck with all of us in it to drive across. So we all walked across.

So Sunday is the big cleaning day. We are roping all of the Awamaki volunteers into helping. We all are meeting at 7:30am to go hike around the huge Incan ruins in town for a couple hours (Miguel got us free passes) and then we are heading to the clinic. I think our host sister, Shura wants to join us too!

Tonight is a pizza party to welcome two new volunteers.

So, big weekend. Next weekend will be fun. We´ve got a group organized to go down to Puno and Lake Titicaca for the weekend.