Another holiday

Today was Corpus Christi, which is a national holiday here (even though Bolivia no longer has a national religion). I will have work at the hospital again tomorrow, but my Spanish class has been canceled.

I spent the morning reading (I finished Revolutionary Road) and hanging out with my host family, and then after lunch I took a big walk around part of the city. I started out going to Hospital del Niño so I could take pictures of my morning "commute" I am doing this week (and in a couple weeks again). It's only about a 20 minute walk, but I'm always sweaty and exhausted by the end, partially because of the bridge I have to cross. You can see Puente de las Americas in the photo on the left as it looks before you cross it. The photo to the right is what you see over the edge, in the middle of the bridge. I know that it might not look like much, but it terrifies me. I try to walk as far away from the railing as possible, but it's really only a two-person sidewalk, and the drop from the sidewalk into oncoming traffic doesn't look like fun either. To say the least, my heart starts pumping and my palms get sweaty every time I cross the stupid thing.

Once over the bridge, I have left the neighborhood where I live (Sopocachi) and entered Miraflores Bajo - which is where the medical district is. Hospital del Niño is situated a little back from the street, and the entrance is on a sidestreet from the main avenue (Saavedra) of different hospitals, clinics and the medical school.


Yesterday I got to sit in on Grand Rounds at Hospital del Niño. Three different cases were presented - a burn victim, a child with gastrointestinal problems, and another with neurological damage. My descriptions are vague because my understanding of everything is also vague. After Grand Rounds I shadowed a generalist and a dermatologist in the clinic. Lots of pneumonia and eczema, with one case of chicken pox (the varicella vaccine is not one of the vaccines given to Bolivian children - mostly due to cost) and one child with a bad case of flat warts all over her face and neck. The dermatologist slapped a patch on her arm and (when I asked what she was doing) said it was a type of vaccine for HPV. I think something was lost in translation though, because I can't find a vaccine for HPV that works after the fact.


I walked up through Miraflores via Avenida Busch after that. I actually walked further than I meant to, and then didn't reach the place that I had intended to see when I planned the walk due to dwindling daylight and gigantic mountains. But it was a nice 3 hours... the streets were pretty empty due to the holiday, and I got a better feel for part of the layout of La Paz.