Shannon Costello

Of course you all think the title means ‘lazy’ but it actually refers to the local sloth that lives on the plaza. Unfortunately I haven’t caught a glimpse of him yet, but I am really, really hoping. Dave saw him on the first day- he has pictures to prove it. I am starting to believe I am here. The weird anthills are helpful for that. We saw one today about the size of a basketball, 20 feet up a tree. I saw a butterfly that looked unfamiliar, but the local pastor told me they migrate from Canada, which made it seem a lot less special.

I have given up worrying about looking like a tourist. We walk through the town, see a chicken, and feel that we simply have to snap a picture. Today I took a picture of a store front with a table out on the sidewalk that was piled high with raw chickens, ready for the pot. No they weren’t covered. The local pastor asked if we were concerned about bacteria, but I said it had more to do with culture shock than anything else. Apparently, by the way, there is no term for culture shock in Spanish. However, he knew what ’shock’ meant, so no big deal.

We took an hour walk through town this afternoon, about five of us and the pastor. I serve as interpreter, because the pastor is very interested in talking to as many people as he can. He took us by the creek and talked to us about pollution. He said that Bolivians sometimes feel that they don’t need to worry about pollution so much because of the United States attitude towards pollution. I think he was referring to things like us not going along with the Kyoto treaty, etc. Of course one of the team members was from Vermont and hastened to assure him that there are definitely Americans who care about pollution. He also told us about a protest that happened here 6 months ago. The people from the country-about 40,00 of them- staged a massive protest and came down one of the roads into town, but the townspeople came out with about 200 rifles and so they detoured. I’ve heard that the political situation is much more stable around here, though. And the next elections aren’t until December or so. I’m guessing that protest was around the time of the referendum.

I suppose you can tell from all these peripheral details that I’m feeling pretty good about life at this point. I LOVE interpreting. I feel intensely useful while I’m doing it, and for the most part I am doing it well. Some people are harder to understand with others, and the fact that I have been working mostly with patients who are hard of hearing further complicates things. I am getting good at explaining how an audiogram works, and today I interpreted while Dave counseled two people who were receiving a hearing aid for the first time. One of them was a woman of about 46 years…she looked so much older it was shocking to hear she was that young. It was nice to see them smile as they explained that the volume was great. Imagine being able to hear well after struggling for so long. As one patient who we were not able to help said, it is hard to live like that.

They have done a few surgeries, but I have not been anywhere near the operating room. Besides working with the audiologist, I have done some running around, ok, floating (my doom), between a couple of other consulting rooms. The audiogram takes about ten minutes, so once the patients are fairly started, I speed down the hall to make sure the other doctors still have interpreters. I guess I just like being popular.

It is hard to measure motives sometimes. I want to do things for the right reasons, and not so other people will think I’m a good person. But then I want people to be happy with me…I helped wash the dinner dishes last night, and I’m sure I was hoping other people would notice and be impressed….what a wretched woman I am….

Yesterday, the first day, was a long day. We got to the hospital at around 8 and worked until about 7. I took about 10 minutes for lunch, including the time I took to walk to the room where lunch was served and back. Very satisfying work, though. Wayne mentioned at dinner that we can’t keep up that pace the whole trip, though, or we will burn ourselves out. Today just happened to be easier. Most people cleared out by noon and only a few came back in the afternoon. But I just realized it is about 5:30 already. I guess we worked a fair amount anyway. The doctors would like to be busier, though.

Well, I’d better stop now…..