Day 8 Dalaguete, Philippines

It's my Friday! The hospital has decided to let me keep a state side work schedule, so I'll get Saturday's and Sunday's off as well as major holidays. It's starting to feel fairly routine, I know what to do when patients come into the ER. The only thing I'm still nervous about is approaching patients without other nurses present because of the language barrier. I'm starting to catch clips and phrases of the speech easier, but I can't exactly understand an entire conversation. I like listening to the nurses talk to each other because it gives me a chance to work on my bisaya comprehension skills.

I almost got to do an IM injection, but the patient was nervous since I had never done it before and requested that a nurse do it instead. Can't say I blame her. Would you feel comfortable if a foreigner who doesn't even speak the language wanted to stick a needle in your arm?

I spoke with Sister Reginal Pastrana (the head of administration here at the hospital, and the person who graciously allowed me to come volunteer) today and we talked about how the hospital was founded.

Apparently the late Catholic Cardinal of the region witnessed numerous motor vehicle accidents occurring during the transportation of vegetables from Dalagute. He decided to have a building donated for use as a hospital in order to provide primary care and stabilization for serious injuries until patients are able to receive care at tertiary facilities. She wanted me to understand that the hospital here is underfunded, but that in the major cities the hospital are comparable with the rest of the world. I totally believe that, but primary facilities like this one are of immeasurable importance because of the amount of early care given. On a macroscopic scale, hospitals like this keep the entire country healthy because they keep economic highways healthy. What I mean is, places like Dalaguete are where natural resources are abundant (in this case, vegetables), but they are far from bulk populations. By keeping the population of outlying regions healthy, the rest of the country can continue to function.

Anyway, here are some pictures from first few weeks in the Philippines:

Mr. Vonnegut helped me survive the 11 hour flight from Seattle to Korea.

Typhoon helped me out with the flight, too.

My Grandma and Grandpa's house in Cebu City.

Animal feed sold at the market in Dalaguete.

The best way to get around in the city.

Some of my awesome coworkers! From left to right: Lim Lim, Natalie, and Ian.

Me prepping a syringe for a skin test.

This is the girl from my previous post who knocked out her front teeth
in a motor vehicle accident. I'm cleaning one of the wounds here.

After work, Ricky and his family took me to a fiesta in one of the neighboring towns. A fiesta here in the Philippines is actually a celebration for the patron saint of the town. Here's what it looked like: 

That's the closest I've ever been to commercial fireworks! We were probably about 20 yards away from the launching tubes. A few times I could feels bits of material on my face that fell after the fireworks exploded. This video doesn't do it justice, but the fireworks were loud enough to set off a car alarm.