Heeyyyy. We’ve been over my Dengue, my revolutions and revelations. I know.. BOOORING! Fret not. I’m going to steer this Blob back to where we started.
Feeling well blood-plateletted, I returned to the jungle grind this week. As all Wednesday mornings go, I rallied the troops at 7 am to start the next –from city to campo (countryside)- medical adventure. In one SUV enter 8 people and their overnight bags, tons of meds, groceries, hartos litros of potable water and my VIP guitar. The important task of careful cd or Ipod playlist choosing transposes and… we’re off! Driving here is a trip. My favorite is the constant back seat commentary from the newbie Americans. “Heyyy Raquel…digamos (do we say) that here in the Bolivs the red lights do not apply?. Just like everything else, I learn as I go and YEP I’d get in a lot of accidents if I didn’t learn quickly which red lights do and do not apply.
It’s always fun to get back to the clinic. Life is way more than tranquilo out in the jungle. Wait I fantasize. On the way to the clinic and deep inside the jungle… life is prob pretty tranquil. But in the spot that they cleared out for clinic, docs, impatient patients, emergencies, trauma and drama, alter the ambient just a bit. Have I explained yet about my dual existence? Jungle (Wed morn thru Sat afternoon) - tranquil surroundings, people who have never seen doctors in their life, silly bursting at the seams clinic. City (Sun thru Tues) – carbon-copy contrast to jungle life. Santa Cruz is the plastic-surgery fancy car shiny mall new money Miami of Bolivia. In the private city clinic (the pride of my Bolivian doc and boss—and where I meet campo patients every Mon and Tues for further care) my joke is that when I finish with this job my bono bonus will be the same as everybody else’s… new breasts, new nose and why not? sure, throw in a new tummy. My joke in the Campo is ha ha, uhhhhhhhh you have cancer and need chemotherapy and we would have to close our clinic to pay for it. Uhhh your gonna die kinda soon. Luckily you don’t know what cancer is and you think there was a strong wind, a stronger rain, and that your bones hurt as a result. The doc gave you some aspirina and now we’re all smiling as a result. ~? Not all patients’ interactions are like that. Cancer and chemo of course are worst case scenario. We also help save people in a moments notice… without them ever knowing what would have happened had in that moment we hadn’t been there.
Each week clinic arrival is kinda just like the movies. Up pulls the white man in the modern SUV to save the day. No kidding, it’s only half like that. The travel is as follows: 1 hr of traffic and road construction autonomia, 40 min of amazing scenery, 20 min of Palacios’ bumpy/muddy/often flooded road. Getting there is always a happy moment. 1. I can breath a sigh of relief that we arrived safely. 2. It’s the jungle for goodness sake. It’s cool to roll up and see the awaiting Micros, taxis, a horse or two (the mixed transport by which the patients come). And the welcome back greetings with our clinic buddies are always warm and loving. My post-dengue return made it all that much sweeter.
Ok readers here’s the agenda for next Blob.
n Character profile of “clinica buddies.” Character profile of life actors in general
n Realization of how my life is akin to a taxi driver. But not at all in the chauffer or even transport sense.
n Realization of what my deal is about context. In language, jokes and how I live my life
n How I am getting really excited about the movie I’m gonna make one day. How when I walk down the street all I can think about are fascinating slow contextually without context movie scenes. And how I feel that I might be living inside the movie right now.
n This weeks’ story about how the clinic’s horse has disappeared/was stolen (we had two), the casero clinic caretaker/security/fix it man announced his resignation, how Dona Maria is a nut job and her words can’t be trusted for anything, how the Nuns did an unexplained emergency appendix operation on one of our patients (and did 4 more that night on not our patients), how the lab tech we have just “doesn’t show up” for three days, how the Portacheulo doctors we work with are also problematic no shows, how the Founders just announced construction plans to build a $110,000 new dormitory to “accommodate the gringos”, how I don’t get how a non-profit in financial and personal crisis can be SOOOO disconnected from the real-world……..how little Jefa Boss Rach has lots of important conversation about work, ethics, life, feelings, passion, shame, respect.
And I love you all.
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