Dengue and holidays

I'm writing this blog post from a very different location to the last few, as I have, for the last week, been spending my holidays with the Heron family in Lima, Peru. I think that it was certainly a needed break,as I had been in the home for 5months before taking any time off, which is a long time to be working those kind of hours. So it has been much enjoyed, and a very relaxing time so far.

Before I left for my break, we did have some very exciting incidents at the home which, as ever, happened on the weekend that Yani and Salustio were taking there weekend off. Our home was not, as it had seemed, spared the dengue fever epidemic that has been sweeping the whole city. On Friday, one of the girls had a fever and one was complaining of stomach pains. By Saturday, the little girls fever had totally gone away but was complaining of a stomach ache: now, bearing in mind that this is a girl who makes the most of every sniffle,every mild cough to try and work her way out of everything, i didn't take much notice. However, by the next day, while at church one of the other girls took a major fever in the middle of her sunday school class, and I had to send her home with one of the older girls in a moter-bike taxi. I ended up taxi-ing back all of the girls, as the pregnant girl began complaining of dizziness and pain in her belly! Slightly concerned by now about all this (having thought that all complaints were mild!) I went into the village to look for a taxi to come to the home, and pick up the girls to take them to the clinic (I didn't want them walking in the sun). I couldn't find one, so Ihad to go to the next town on the bus for 15 minutes to find a taxi to take me all the way back to the home and then to the clinic: needless to say, that while I did find one, I was grossly overcharged!

On arriving home with the taxi, I heard one of the other girls had begun vomiting, so she got in alongside the pregnant girl and the two little girls, and Esther, who spent a few weeks volunteering at the home. The idea was that she (who doesn't speak Spanish!) would wait with the other girls while I went in with them for their appointments. Unfortunately, it didn't end up being that simple! The problems started when the taxi driver ran out of petrol, and had to go by foot to buy more, while my little girls are suffering and moaning in the back.

When we got there, the second problem came when the 50B I had been given 'in case of emergencies' didn't quite hold out, and so I had to go find a cash machine to get out more money. Being at the clinic was certainly a different experience to my normal experience of hospitals: every time they needed anything, they sent me out to the pharmacy to buy out, which meant leaving Esther surrounded by people telling her things she didn't understand! I did not find the nurses to be particularly compassionate individuals, probably because they have so many people with dengue coming through. We were instructed to give the three girls with high fevers cold showers, which I would normally have expected the nurses to at least help with, but they just pointed us to the shower. When one of the little ones dind't want an injection, the nurse just made some kind of a crass remark about her not being very brave and sat on her legs to hold her down! Not very impressive.

The other major cause of my stress was the pregnant girl, as no one seemed to want to tell me what was wrong with her, and they got distracted from her fever, dizziness, headache to deal with her apparent yeast infection. (Is there anyone in the home who doesn't have a yeast infection?!?!?!?!) The doctor really upset her by telling her, in quite a brutish way, that if she didn't get her fever down the baby would die. Eventually things calmed down a little, I sent two of them home with Esther, and stayed with one as she had to go on a drip, and the pregnant girl who had to wait to have her temperature taken again. The incompetancy of the nurses was reflected yet again when: as I was sitting watching all the patients on drips sleeping, a nurse came in and despite my protestations that 'they are all sleeping' turned all the lights on as 'they can't just stay there sitting in the dark'.... why oh why? Eventually I managed to leave after having been in the clinic for about six hours. Considering that Sunday was supposed to be the day I had to get through before going on holiday, it was quite a day!

I managed to escape on Monday, with a day to sort things out before flying out to Lima on Tuesday. Lima seems to be a lot more westernised than Santa Cruz: it has mcdonalds, pizza hut, kfc and starbucks! I haven't seen a great deal of it, but from what I have seen the streets are a lot wider, a lot cleaner than in Bolivia. And youc and you can the mountaints, which I like!

I have mostly just been doing a lot of relaxing, a lot of reading books, a lot of chatting. I got a bit of an upset stomach which put some plans on hold unfortunately! We may be going bowling tonight which should be much fun. its also been really good to be able to see where such good family friends have been living for the last 16 odd years.

I think thats all i have to say for now. I have officially been in South America for six months now, which is a bit terrifying, my time here is actually drawing to a close. Thank you for continuing to read my blog, and I really will see you in not too long a time!