Well it´s May

Well it´s may...At least I got out three posts in April..that´s an improvement right? I know I have said this several times but seriously time is just flying here. I mean yeah there are definetly those days where things seem to just drag on and I feel pretty useless, believe it or not, YES that still happenes...lol but in general the weeks literally are going by sooo fast!!! Im coming up to my one year anniversary here in Ecuador, and almost my half-way point of my service...although I still have a couple months for that (August). But if I think about it in semesters. I´ve already been working here at the University for practically two semesters. By August I will have only TWO LEFT! This obviously makes me reflect on what I am doing, what I plan on doing and all of the stuff in between.

 In this post I would like to focus on work because there is a lot of stuff going on. Frist, a medical brigade is coming to Salasaka-an indiginous community close to Ambato, and I have been assigned, well really volunteered to help coordinate (¿how hard can coordinating a ONE-DAY brigade really be?). The Brigade will be in Santo Domingo for the majority of the time (May 19th-23rd) and then travel to the Sierra for the 25th. So my job was to go and talk to the president of the community and coordinate (really remind- because the brigade had already talked to him about where and when , etc..) with him the logistics, then talk quickly with the director of the hospital in Pelileo to let him know as well about the brigade.

 I have only been to Salasaka once, when the coordinator of the brigade was here doing water samples. I only knew of the small sub-centro, so thought I would go there and ask where I could find the president . The nurse was super helpful and showed me where to go to talk to the presidente. I walked the few blocks that she indicated to me and arrived at the building that appeared to be municiple...strangely enough all the doors were closed and I heard children inside. I knocked a couple times and tried to look into the windows...nothing. Ugh...I knew this was going to happen, nothing can be as easy as it appears, ESPECIALLY here in Ecuador. A guy walked by and I asked him where exactly the Offices were, turns out I needed to walk around the building to ANOTHER building where they were doing construction. I tip toed through the mud and concrete piles, and crouched under the scaffolding to get to the door (none of this would fly in the states) and proceeded into the office of the presidente. FINALLY! He looked at me kinda weird at first- remember this is an indiginous community so Americans obviously look like complete FOREIGNERS! I explained the purpose for my visit and he welcomed me to sit down. I had all the information that the brigade had given me-places, times, etc... We started talking about the places and he began to make a list of what communities the brigade had visited and where they had not. Little did I know, the brigade has been coming to Salasaka for the past 5 YEARS! So the communities that I had written down apparently had already been seen by the brigade and the president thought it would be a good idea to be in two new communities. I told him the date and the time and that they would need space, etc. Everything seemed to be in place.

 After this I needed to go talk to the director of the hospital in Pelileo just to give them the heads up that the brigade was coming etc. So I went to the internet cafe to print the oficio and e-mail the coordinator of the brigade letting her know that we changed the communities. Come to find out the brigade was planning on going to the two new communities in August and didn´t want to change plans...great.... After several e-mails were exchanged we came to the agreement that if this is what the community needed the brigade would make the changes necessary to go to these new two communities. I printed out the oficio and was on my way to Pelileo. 

The hunt for the hospital took about a half an hour. Ecuadorians here don´t like to admit that they don´t know directions, so they will normally tell you to go a couple blocks and turn left...or right...pretty much making up whatever they can to make it look like they know where you need to go. I finally found the hospital and asked for the director. He was in a meeting, typical. I had some time so I decided to wait. Luckily the wait was only about 20 minutes. I went in to see him and chatted for awhile about he brigade and handed him the oficio. He had heard of the brigade and was interested in it but said that he would need authorization from the Dirección Provincial de Salud de Tungurahua, pretty much the boss of the area. This place was located in Ambato. All I had to do was change the words asking permission for this director to help facilitate the brigade. Didn´t seem too complicated...WRONG.

 So I changed the oficio and went on my way to the Dirección Provincial. Here the secretary greeted me saying that the director was not in and that she could receive the oficio. She read it over and said that in fact it would have to be turned into another lady who had to look over the brigade and what not to see if they could have permission. I was getting frustrated and agreed to have her turn it in. She said there would be a response on tuesday morning, that I could come in then to see the response. I left the oficio with her and was determined to come on tuesday with results from the Dirección.

 Tuesday morning I got up and went to the Dirección....the secretary looked through the list of oficios and said that there was no answer. But if I wanted I could call this lady in the afternoon, when she was in her office to see what the result was. I explained to the secretary that the brigade already had the permission, we just needed to inform the director about what was going on and get permission for the doctor in Pelileo. She asked where the permission came from and that I needed to have it in writing!!! Ahhhhh how frustrating!!! This whole affair was getting complicated by the minute. The brigade never gave me any permission number and I had no documentation. I told her that I would call the lady in the afternoon. So at around 2:30 I called this mysterious lady that was making my life wayyyy more complicated that it needed to be. She said that she had not looked over any oficios and that maybe in the next two days would have an answer.

 At this point I already had a car lined up from the University to take me to the hospital in Pelileo, because supposedly I was going to have an answer by then to tell the doctor..not the case. I took the opportunity to go anyway, dropped off the oficio-the doc wasn´t in..surprise surprise...and then on the way back stopped into the municipio to talk to the presidente reminding him about everything. He remembered but said that I should call him a couple days before the brigade, just in case...ay yai yai..Ecuadorians...

 Today is Wednesday. I need to go back to Pelileo and talk to the doctor but it´s practically impossible to know when he is in the office and when he is not. I do not know when they are going to have an answer for me at the Dirección Provincial but the fact is the brigade is coming regardless....I think my best options now are to go in and talk directly with the director of the dirección Provincial and explain to him, and then talk to the doctor in Pelileo...

 Wow so I went into way more detail than I though I would...I´ll write another blog talking about the other work!