Overnight in Patacancha

On Tuesday, Annie, Keri and I headed up to Patacancha to spend the night and hang out with the nurse in the clinic up there. Patacancha is about 13 miles from Ollanta and takes about an hour and a half to get to by car. The altitude is about the same as Cusco so 12,500 feet (meaning, it gets darn cold there overnight!). We made it in the taxi to this town called Huilloc. At Huilloc, the entire town and more was working on installing a pipeline so there was just this huge line of workers with pick axes and shovels digging a huge trench. The car could not pass as they were digging up the middle of the road. We had to get out and walk the rest of the way to Patacancha. It took about an hour to walk uphill to the town. I wasn´t prepared to walk uphill for an hour and I had gotten some horrible blisters from my hike last weekend that opened up again on my heels during the walk to town.

We were meant to arrive at 10ish and meet the family we were going to be staying with. However, due to the walking, we didn´t get to town until 11:15 and had no idea how to find the family. We just knew we were staying with Asunta and her family. Luckily, the town is so small that you can go around asking "Do you know Asunta? Do you know where she lives?" to pretty much anyone (even a 7 year old girl) and they will point you in the right direction. So after about 10 minutes of wandering around, we found who we were looking for. Her husband took us down to the clinic when we had organized our beds and such.

The clinic in Patacancha is actually a heck of a lot nicer than any of us had thought it would be. It is staffed by one nurse, but she does pretty much the same thing that any of the nurses and doctors do in the clinic in Ollanta. She delivers babies, she treats wounds and infections. She obviously takes a lot of pride in her work and workspace because her clinic was very clean and organized. Much better than the clinic in Ollanta. The nurse, Marisol, was so nice and so great with the patients. She spoke Quechua with all of the patients but then would talk to us in Spanish to explain what the problem was. We were able to help her with insurance forms and triage. We also talked to her quite extensively about what she needed for the clinic.

They are actually building a much larger clinic right next to the existing one. We were asking if they were going to be staffing this clinic with at least 2 nurses, but she did not know. The old clinic will be turned into a dormitory for women and students who come from long distances for services and school. There is quite a nice high school in Patacancha.

The houses in Patacancha have electricity and running water, but many share a communal bathroom that is really just a toilet. So, the amenities are not great but I would feel comfortable going to Marisol if I was sick. It is the same up in Patacancha as down in Ollanta, though, they really only have a handful of antibiotics to choose from. We worry about the antibiotic resistance these people must be forming. If you give the same antibiotic for every ailment (even just a cold) you are only setting these people up for a serious problem in the future. No wonder everyone keeps getting the same intestinal infections and respiratory infections. Parasites are a big problem in the mountain communities so they take a pill every 6 months to keep the parasites out of their system.

We really enjoyed hanging out with Marisol. I plan on spending a week up in Patacancha with her in May. I can stay at the clinic as there are 3 extra beds in the maternity room. We had our dinner at our homestay and then sat mesmerized by the stars for a good while. It was freezing up there but the stars were the best I have ever seen. Our room was 50 degrees (thanks to the thermometer in my travel alarm clock). You may think 50 degrees is not that cold, well, I am here to tell you differently. We slept with all of our clothes on, ie. 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of wool socks, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweat shirt, fleece vest, gloves and hat. I was still cold even under 3 alpaca blankets. Once you get cold, it is just so hard to warm up.

In the morning, we woke up, ate breakfast, thanked our homestay family (who if I do come back in May, she owes me a weaving lesson!) and then began our hike down to Ollanta. It isn´t a difficult hike down b/c you are following a dirt road, but it takes a good 3 and a half hours. When you add in the blisters on my heels, I was ready to be in flip flops by the time we made it into Ollanta. It was a beautiful day though, so at least we were walking in the sun and not the rain. We had to pass over a couple areas of landslides but it wasn´t bad.

One funny thing did happen. When you need to use the restroom, you just find a somewhat hidden place and do your business. Well, we had rounded a bend and thought we were hidden from view so Keri and I both dropped our pants and started peeing. I guess we weren´t too hidden from two little girls who were herding their cows. The littlest one, probably about 6, came running down the hill towards us, giggling and laughing. By this point, we had finished and were walking on down the road but she stopped and looked at Keri´s pee like it was something extraordinary. Like she wanted to see if white people peed like she did. It was hysterical.

We made it back to town, had a shower, ate lunch and then went off to teach our weekly public health lesson to the after school program. Yesterday was the importance of exercise. The kids still remembered our hand washing song from last week so we sang that again before talking about exercise. They loved the posters we drew (Keri and I are tapping into our artisitic sides each week). We then set up a circuit training with push-ups, sit ups, mountain climber, jumping jacks and running in place. They loved it. Of course we had brought water for afterwards. Next week is nutrition!

So that brings us to today. I worked in the clinic this morning just doing triage and pulling charts. I don´t think anyone had swept the floors since we cleaned on Sunday so I spent an hour doing that. There were hardly any people in today. Tomorrow will be a big day.

We are serving breakfast again at the clinic. I expect we will have a lot of people since the weather has been good this week and the roads are passable. Then at 4:30pm, we are heading to Cusco to catch a night bus to Puno. From Puno we will head to an island in Lake Titicaca for the weekend. We will return on Monday. There are at least 6 and maybe 7 of us going. It should be a lot of fun.

So I will write again when we get back. I have more photos to download so I will do that after the weekend as well.

Hope all is well with everyone!