Ok, so...

Wow. So I've been here just over 3 weeks now!
First off, Argentina is quite different than USA (obviously!) but in a lot of ways the people here are similar. My host family is really nice: Ana Paula, mom; Nahuel, dad; Luca, boy, 5 years old; and Morena, girl, 2 years old. They live in a small house in the small town of Unquillo, Cordoba, Argentina. This town is about an hour away from downtown by bus, but the busses here are very nice and run frequently. Ana Paula's parents live about a 5-minute walk away, very close, and her brother also lives in Unquillo, about a 5-min car ride, and has a wife and 2 kids, 9 and 3. My family doesn't have a car, but the majority of families do even though they are older models, and all stick shifts. The whole family is really nice, and Bebe, Ana Paula's mom also hosts volunteers. However, the kids are a little bit annoying just because they scream a lot and are always getting into trouble, but when they are behaving, they are pretty cute.

I work Monday through Friday at a small clinic here in Unquillo, about a 15-min walk from my house. It has about 25 beds, most of the time about half occupied, a 7-bed ICU, about 4 rooms for consultations including x-rays and ultrasounds, and a 'Guardia,' which is like the walk-in consulting room. I am shadowing a doctor who is mainly in charge of the patients who are admitted into the general area, and in charge of the Guardia, whenever he is in the clinic. I also think he supervises most of the clinic and is one of the head doctors. To me, he seems to specialize in general or family medicine. We see a lot of patients who have flu-like symptoms, or breathing problems, including a good number of people with pneumonia/bronchitis. Additionally, most of the patients are older and have trouble getting around and have bedsores from laying in the same position too long. For most of them, the clinic is the first step to going somewhere where they can receive full-time care dedicated to people who are bedridden. Mostly, I've been helping out the nurses, which includes changing beds (including diapers), feeding some patients, assisting them in fetching their supplies, and folding gauze - they have to cut their own gauze here, and we fold it and put it in paper to be sterilized.

Overall, at the clinic it was kind of overwhelming at first, and hard to communicate because of all the new words in Spanish, and in general just not knowing how things were supposed to go. Sometimes it can be pretty boring if there aren't very many patients, or in the down times, and there isn't a whole lot of variety, and they really don't see any trauma other than someone who is just under observation after a car accident (i.e., no injuries). I was kind of hoping to see more and possibly be able to see surgeries and deliveries, but I think we do surgery but I don't know where! Also, most of the time spent with the doctor is just listening and observing, although now we get to take pulse and blood pressure and transport patients and fetch supplies, and have been spending more time with the doctor in the walk-in room.

It's definitely been tough because I don't have a lot to do outside of my work at the clinic. I'm studying for the MCAT, but can only do that so many hours a day. Additionally, because I am so far from Cordoba, it is hard to meet up with other volunteers, and I haven't really clicked with that many of them (because I didn't go clubbing with them the one night), so I don't know that many people. There is another volunteer in Unquillo, at Bebe's house (the grandma of my family) and he also works at the clinic with me. He's nice, but we don't really hang out outside of work and volunteer socials. But I do have plans to meet up with some girls on Tuesday for dinner!

It was also very hard at first because taking Spanish classes didn't really prepare me for actually talking to people and living with a family. I'm now at the point where I can understand more or less most of what my family is saying if they speak a little bit slower than usual. I've learned a lot of vocabulary and grammar in this month! One thing that is really different is the use of 'vos' instead of 'tu' (you), which is kind of confusing and they sometimes have different verb forms for this which we never learned. They also have a really heavy accent, pronouncing 'll' like 'j' instead of like 'y', and that is really hard to get used to. Mostly, it was just not knowing enough vocabulary, such as for items around the house or the clinic, and having trouble conjugating verbs on the spot in sentences. But it's getting a little bit easier, and I'm learning a lot. Although some people just don't understand that you aren't from Argentina, they don't slow their speech down at all, or just think I straight up don't speak spanish (or castellano, as it is referred to here). Hopefully I will be much more fluent in another month and a half!

Anyway, that's about it for now. I've been quite a bit homesick, for family and friends and just plain old American things. And I also have a bit of a cold - it's a lot colder here than I thought it would be because it doesn't snow here, and they don't have central heating, just a gas 'stove' heater that they turn on, and small electric space heaters for at night. But it's mostly just the changing seasons and the drastic changes in weather - warm and sunny during the day, but cold at night.

Oh, and I get another volunteer in my house on Sunday - Liz, from the States. More on volunteers (and our socials) later! And Busses! and Language! I promise to post more! te prometo!

Chao y Besos de Argentina!
(Bye and Kisses from Argentina - it's what everybody says because you always kiss people on the cheek hello and goodbye!)