Peruvian hospitals and other types of chaos

We've been at Dr. Tony's for a week and a half now and are starting to get the hang of things. We basically have two types of jobs as volunteers: hang around the house, spend time with the kids, and help the nurses and the teacher; or go with groups of kids into Lima for their medical appointments. There are people hired to take the kids in to the hospitals, but often they need extra adults to hold hands or carry little ones.

On my first full day in the house, Dr. Tony asked me if I would be willing to donate blood for one of their patients, a 25-year-old with aplastic anemia who seems to need transfusions almost weekly. Tony assured me that all the needles and medical facilities are safe and hygenic, and I admit that his being an American doctor made me trust his judgment. Ridiculous fact #1 about Peruvian health care: there are no blood banks to speak of. If someone needs a blood transfusion, they have to go find a friend or relative to donate specifically for them. So I agreed and took the bus into the hospital in Lima with a very nice employee of Tony's named Norma. The hospital was an old building but clean enough, but the disorganization left me pretty much speechless. In order to donate blood, we had to get an order signed by somebody, except that nobody seemed to know who that somebody was, and Norma couldn't get anything helpful out of the nurses for a long time. When we did get the order signed, we had to go back to the front of the hospital to pay 70 soles for the donation (ridiculous fact #2.) Then there was more waiting, a very nice young lab technician who flirted politely with me while I sat around, a bunch of questions in Spanish about my medical history, and then the actual donation. Then Norma had to go wandering around the hospital (with me in tow drinking Gatorade and eating cookies to get some blood sugar back) looking for Hipolito's doctor. No pagers, no schedule of where the doctor is at what time--Norma, not the nurses, had to go walking around asking people if they had seen the doctor. This lasted for about 15 minutes until we discovered that the doctor was not in that day. So instead of leaving the proper paperwork with the nurses, Norma was told to come back tomorrow to give the donation slip to the doctor, who would then give my blood to Hipolito. Meanwhile, as Norma is looking for the doctor, the nurses and various people in the hospital wing are standing around a big Nativity scene for the Bajada de Reyes, which is a lovely little ceremony in which the baby Jesus and the rest of the nativity figures are taken down to singing and clapping. I don't know which was a bigger shock to me--the fact that the Catholic faith was so public, or the fact that they were all singing and taking down the figurines while poor Norma went wandering around looking for the doctor. Luckily Hipolito didn't seem like he needed the blood right that minute; he was sitting up and talking to me and hugging people who came to visit. He's a very sweet person and he has since come back to the house, but he hasn't stopped needing blood donations.

Probably the biggest surprise to me is that the hospital chaos, like the chaos that is Peruvian driving, doesn't surprise anyone here. On another occasion I went with a group of kids to physical therapy, and the therapist that two of them see wasn't there when we arrived, so the kids just shrugged and said they would come back tomorrow and settled down to wait for about two hours while everyone else was seen. It was unbelievable.

The house is more relaxing than going into Lima, but it too has its organized chaos. The kids get up before 6 am and have breakfast at 7. We usually help the little ones who can't walk to bathe and brush their teeth after breakfast, or else I go downstairs to hang out with the older kids and help the teacher by reading to them or putting on music for them to dance to on the patio. The babies come downstairs to play for an hour at 10. Lunch is at 12 and the kids always want to go to the park afterwards, where the older boys play soccer, some on crutches which is very impressive, and the others swing or run around playing. It's a beautiful area and a very nice park with lots of green grass and flowers around. In the afternoon the adults usually take breaks, often at the little coffee shop down the street; the kids eat at 5, Dr. Tony goes to daily Mass at 6:30, and when he gets back the adults eat dinner. Catherine and I have been trying to do English lessons for the bigger kids from 8-9 at night, and then they go to bed. I'm starting to learn all the kids' names and to enjoy their wonderful different personalities... more later on individual adorableness.

The kids got stuffed wool llamas as presents yesterday, so my llama count is officially up to 0.5!