Empanadas

Ok. The most important thing to discuss today is empanadas. There is this little tienda in Panajachel where all they sell are these uber deep fried hunks of deliciousness. I´ve had 7 since last Thursday - 2 last Thursday, 2 last Sunday on the way back from Xela, and 3 today. That´s right, my tolerance is increasing rapidly. Pretty soon it´s going to be a full blow addiction.

There have been some changes at the clinic. Three students left over the weekend and we´ve gotten three new folks, all from UVA. So it´s a new vibe, but a good vibe. The UVA students typically come down and do Spanish school in Xela for a few weeks then migrate over to Santa Cruz. They often have their own projects to work on, as is the case with two of the new students.

Today, Peyton and I gave our little presentation on el reposicion de hormonas (hormone replacement therapy). It went just fine, and now we have the rest of the afternoon to study, take care of business, etc. Tomorrow we do outreach clinics as usual. I think I´m going to try to get in the group going to Jaibalito, somewhere I have yet to go. It should be fun!

Peyton and I actually saw a few patients in clinic today. Craig was teaching a beginner Spanish class to some of the newer folks so they had us see a few patients. One had some back pain that we think was MSK pain and the other was a little girl who came for a check up on her finger; Craig removed her nail a week ago after it got slammed in something. She was fine today - healing well.

Overall I´d say I´m adjusting to life here pretty well. It´s not much of an adjustment, though. Life is pretty simple. Eat, sleep, exercise, study, go to class, go to outreach clinic, and occasionally make the lancha voyage to Pana to get empanadas. Oh, and of course take time to update my emo blog (as Peyton calls it).

Today I brought pictures on my usb drive, but I forgot the climbing pictures so I´ll have to upload them later. So I´m going to add pictures to previous posts, or maybe make a few new posts with pictures, we´ll see.

That about does it. It´s 3pm and it hasn´t rained yet, which is nice. Usually it rains by now and doesn´t stop until late at night or early morning. But it is hot today, so some rain might actually be nice.

Hasta la proxima vez!
SH