...in the internet cafe. I'm laughing because it's just so quintessentially "Christmas in America on crack."
The internet cafe where I regularly write to you all from has only just begun playing Christmas music. This is actually quite late in the season for Yuletide Cheer for the Phillipines. They generally start celebrating around SEPTEMBER. And you thought Christmas was crammed down your throat. ; )
Aaaaaanyways, Christmas is little more than a month away, and home is a little less. Today marks the half-way mark of my time here, and I definitely feel that it has been time well spent.
Monday we got a new teacher, who will be with us through the rest of the program. He is a Doctor who grew up and lived in India until 2004 when he moved to New Zeland where he now resides, teaching and practicing. He went to schools in Germany and France through a program the EU started, so he has a lot of knowledge on medical programs in all sorts of countries. Also, he's only 33. Makes you feel really accomplished, right? haha. He's a very nice guy and really has an idea of the complete difference in practicing medicine in first and third world situations, which I really appreciate.
So our class has been getting to know him as he's been getting to know us in our delirious states, as we're all exhausted from working crazy shifts at the crazy hospital.
I actually had monday off, so after class, Jen and Emily left for the hospital while Mike went to sleep in preparation for his overnight shift, and I hung around the house and read for a while and then went out to our front porch to watch the sun set behind the mountain that we see from our place. It was the only day I've been able to see the actual top of the mountain, since it's always covered in clouds. So I watched the sun go down, and then decided to sit and stay for the arrival of the stars. I must have sat on the porch for a good 2 or 3 hours just watching as one by one all the stars took their places. There wasn't a cloud in the sky all night, so it was really quite breath taking. I just love to look at a sky full of stars, espacially since it's quite rare for me; coming from southern california and all of its hustle and bustle.
Anyways, after that I went inside and ate dinner while watching Monster's Inc., which I love. When that was done, I looked over to find a little frog hopping alongside the wall. So I scooped him up and found a little jar and named him Ferdinand, and he now hangs out on the dresser in my room.
After that, I found a gigantic Cane spider on the celing of the kitchen, so when Mike woke up we went in and killed it. I have a really great video of our battle (complete with machete!), so I'll have to get a good chunk of time and a really good connection so that I can upload it and you can all laugh at our screaming. But seriously, the spider was probably a little smaller than my hand. I'm not exagerating.
So that was my day off.
Yesterday was my first shift at the hospital. Everyone came back with pretty good stories of smooth deliveries, so I thought that it wouldn't be as bad as I had expected last week. So after class, Emily and I put on our scrubs and headed to the hospital. We just walked in and down to the Maternity ward and into the Labor room. No one even questioned our being there, which I thought was just so backwards from how it is in America.
Now, there are two different labor and delivery areas. There's one for "regular" women, and there's one across the hall for women with infectious diseases... or so they claim. Upon further discussion, most of us students just feel that it's for the Mungyan women, as those are the only women that are put in there. I don't think they screen them really, they just tell us that they have Hepatits and then point and call them "Minority". We've slowly become very aware of the actual racism between the Tagolog and Manyang people. The Mungyan have their own ward in the hospital, and the nurses in the maternity ward, although they're snippy with all the women, are particularly snippy with the Mungyan women.
Another strange cultural difference here is that the women giving birth are expected to do it 1. Quietly and 2. By themselves. That is, without thier husbands or boyfriends or anyone but the midwife and nurses in the room. Well, them and possibly any other woman who may be giving birth at the time, as there is only 1 delivery room with 4 beds in it.
So, no one familiar in the room, and, oh yes, I mentioned that they are expected to be quiet throughout the experience. (yeah. you read it right.)
The nurses will tell the women to be silent and will even close the womens' mouths if they cry out. They'll even tut their tungs and the women as if to say "for shame" if they cry. IT. IS. NUTS.
So yesterday Emily and I get to the hospital and go in to find a women giving birth in the "infected" labor room. We go in and the nurses are all chattering and one of them is showing a catalogue of clothing and pillows that she's selling to all the other nurses. There's little nurses up on stools around the woman pushing on her stomach as if to push out the baby (WHICH YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO!!!), and every now and then one will pull out her phone to text someone. The baby finally comes out with the chord wrapped around it's neck and I thought it was dead. Thankfully, it was not. He was fine, and I was thankful that the first birth I'd ever witnessed was not... well... a failure. Although, it was pretty mind-boggling.
I don't have the time to explain my entire time there, as I really have to get back to the house and sleep, but I'll just say that if you're a parent whose child was born in the United States, you should be very very thankful. Because the conditions here I could go on about for quite some time.
All in all yesterday, I witnessed 2 births and 2 deaths, I suppose you could say. There were quite a few women there who had miscarried and needed to be... cleaned out? I guess that's the nicest way of putting it. It was very sad, to say the least. One of the fetuses, which was 4 months old when it died, was simply put in an old, plastic medicine bottle and then one of the nurses took it into the labor room where there were 3 other women who were preparing for the same operation. Goodness. It was a heavy day, and I'm not sure if I've shared too much with you all, but if anything, I hope it makes you thankful for where we live.
Anyway, I'm running short on time, but I wanted to update since I probably wont have many opportunities to write til next week.
I'm working the 11pm-7am shift tonight, get home at 7.30am tomorrow, leave for out medical outreach at 8am, go do that til mid-afternoon, go home and sleep, and then work another 11-7 shift.
Good thing I'll be able to sleep in the car on the way to the little tourist beach village where we'l be spending our "Holiday Weekend" for our mid-school break. I'm not sure if we'll have internet access there, but if we do I'll be sure to let you know how my marathon medical experience went (If I get through it in one piece!)
Sorry for the lack of pictures this time, I've been backed up in my uploading since the connection's been slow, but I did manage to get up a few new pictures.
Alright, that's all, I'm going to get some sleep.
Marleigh loves!
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