I'm finally back in Cajabamba again after being away for about a month for physical therapy. Lucky enough, one of the Cajabamba hospitals does have a physical therapy program as well, so my therapy will continue here.
As for how things have been going for the last few days...We are facing a serious water shortage in my site. The water has been getting shut off earlier and earlier, now at 2 p.m. until the next day. One of the nearby rivers has dried up and rainy season does not start until a month and a half away. Because we are not as fancy as other countries, transporting water from other towns do not apply here. Hopefully, it'll rain sooner this year, but in the meantime, we've stopped flushing the toilets regularly and I've started bucket bathing.
Second, a group of US doctors were here in Cajabamba for two days for a medical missionary trip. Of course, I got to translate again and the experience was awesome! I am a little in love with Spanish right now, so getting the chance to speak Spanish for hours on end is a dream.
Equally as exciting was that one of the doctors lent me their scrubs. As such, we (or maybe just me) were "Grey's Anatomy" yesterday. I had them call me Dr. Yang...Awesome! And the patients themselves even called me "Doctora"....Awesome, awesome! When the photographer from a newspaper started taking pictures, I used my stethescope to listen to one of my "patient's" heart so that I looked very official. (Only to sit down again immediately once the picture was snapped. He he. I was maybe a little too giddy with excitement.)
Anyways, I'm sure that the US doctors didn't think anything weird of it. In fact, I think they were complimenting me when they said that they could tell I had been in the Peace Corps for a year....surely they were impressed by all the good work I've done.
Unfortunately, the rest of the day was less eventful. There were some truly awful cases, probably made worst by the fact that I live here, too. A 9-year-old girl had really enlarged lymph nodes. After the "other" doctor (hmph!) checked her over, she thought it could possibly be cancer or something else.
Which brings me to my next point, about 7 hours away from my town is a city called Trujillo, where people from my town go back and forth regularly. It is also the place where a boy has just died from the Bubonic Plague and where other cases have been reported. The 9-year-old's enlarged lymph nodes and other symptoms are consistent with the plague's. So sadly, a Bubonic Plague diagnosis would be better for this girl than the latter since treatment is available. Isn't it strange the problems that third world countries have to deal with?
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