03 October 2009

Stories Through Photos

So far life is good. I'll leave it at that and continue with some pictures and commentary...



The building in the front is the clinic and the building in the back is our apartment.

A view of the front of the clinic. In the mornings this is where the patients wait to be attended.

The first floor of the dorms/apartment buildings is where we eat...kind of like training tables.

An average street in Santa Lucía. Narrow and steep. These are just the "urban" roads. Once you get out of town the roads are much more...interesting...

My office/desk. Pretty nice huh?

The outlying clinic in Santa Rita...about a 25 minute drive from Santa Lucía

This girl and her baby sister were waiting on their mom who was being seen at our clinic in Santa Rita


No better way to secure things to a truck than duct tape...I haven't found any goma yet in this country, sadly.

Alex and I are in charge of any and all reparations here at the clinic. Here you see the dental suction machine after we got our hands on it. It's nice to not have any official rules or codes, we can do whatever we want and it's a success. As you can tell, things like duct tape and wire ties are pretty key.

After a long day's work hanging electrical boxes and messing around with a generator, Alex and I ventured into town to find some dinner but could only turn up this box of frozen chicken wings. Without a microwave, we improvised and just cooked them in a frying pan. Delicious.

Sundays at the clinic, our cook doesn't come so we have to fend for ourselves. Alex is quite the gourmet and whipped up some vegetable lasagna, and here Leslie and I are working on brownies for dessert. It's always a collaborative effort.

Another one of Alex's amazing creations in the kitchen...barbeque chicken pizza from scratch! Seriously, if you come to visit make sure to be here on a Sunday...

Everybody pitching in to clean up after the big meal...even doctors can do dishes!

View from the top: Early Sunday morning we decided to hike up to the cell towers high above town. It was about an hour walk but straight up, kind of like walking up school section road for about an hour. It was worth it though, to see the morning fog clearing out above town.

Santa Lucía from afar...the clinic is at the very top of town, the long red roof.

The mountains around here are really amazing, every time I'm out I add another one to the list that I need to get to the top of.

The hiking crew: Alex, Edgar, Alan, Yaniré, me...and Yuki the dog!

We've started playing basketball a few times a week, it's good fun and good exercise. This is me celebrating probably after hitting a 3 in Alex's face to finish off the game


This huge frog hopped it's way into our room as we were cooking dinner in Concepción. Wildlife is sweet.

Out for a Sunday swim at the river...not the clearest water around but refreshing just the same.

The view from our balcony in our apartment/office. The only thing missing from this shot is me in the hammock.

The rainy season here brings some pretty awesome night-time thunderstorms. It's nice to sit out on the balcony listening to the rain fall and watching the lightning brilliantly light up the sky with some chill music playing in the background...