Shannon Costello

I’ve been telling people that you know you have been far away from home when your plane flies into Miami and the palm trees look normal.
Even riding home from the airport at one in the morning was shocking. 175 was so big and smooth. All of it bothered me. The sidewalks in [...]

I doubt I’ll have time to hit an internet café today, so I’m actually writing this by hand.
More adventures yesterday. The morning was steady but not too intense. We accepted any patient that showed up at the door. We would examine a woman and then she would ask if we would see [...]

I didn’t really delve into what I was thinking about the ‘grito en tu silencio’.  It’s poetic, I guess, so it doesn’t say anything very directly.  I guess I think about quiet consulting rooms, where no one is making a lot of noise, but there is so much fear…or how my system is on overload [...]

‘Agotada’ is a great word for exhausted.  I don’t quite know if they are related words, but ‘gota’ is drop, as in drop of water.  I imagine something that has been squeezed dry…
I’ve been wanting to describe the consulting room where I work with Dave.  I estimate that it is about 13 by 13 feet, [...]

We saw the monkey this morning while walking to the hospital.  The hospital is about 6 or 7 blocks from where we are staying.  The people here are very nice about offering rides.  They showed up the first couple of days to drive us in, but have been willing to accomodate our desire to walk.  [...]

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 [...]

Ok, here we go again. I know you will all think I do nothing but access the internet, but I am actually waiting for about half the team to finish what they are doing on other computers. Melanie and I are the only ones with bolivianos right now, so we need to be [...]

The first night was definitely the worst.  We were unable to stay up later than 6pm- we were soooo tired.  But then I woke up at 1 in the morning and had real trouble getting to sleep.  What is culture shock, anyway?  At that time I figured I could define it as “psychological trauma caused [...]