HuanchacoPau'mericaHuanCHAco: Trujillo, City of Sounds

The title will make sense by the end of this post; that is my promise. To begin, though, I'd like to take you through the last day or two in the hopes of painting a better picture of what a day in the life of an Imaginations volunteer here is really like. For this volunteer, at least. The day begins at 6:30 A.M. when my alarm goes off and I rush out of bed to avoid succumbing to sleep once more, as I don't want to be late, despite the elasticity of "Peruvian time." The day begins at 6:35 A.M. for Nic, program coordinator and my roommate, when my alarm goes off once more because I hit the snooze button by accident (sorry Nic). I turn on the shower and stare at the water for a few seconds in anticipation. Water is heated electrically here, but whether the water is warm or not depends on how full the water tank is and the pressure it produces. It is like a game of roulette; you never know what you'll get. More water pressure means hot water, and lack thereof means that the morning just got interesting. Today began interestingly. After the shower, I headed down to my typical breakfast of oatmeal (read: water with some pieces of oatmeal in it), an orange (in season/so good), bananas and yogurt (also liquidy but delicious), and bread. I hope you like bread.

I leave the house promptly at 7:40 A.M., always chuckling at the irony of my being exactly on time for an event that has no real schedule, as work simply begins whenever the doctor wants to show up that day. I catch the micro(bus) a few minutes away from my house, climbing aboard to the incessant chanting of the person whose job it is to collect money and jabber absurdly pointless yet fascinatingly catchy phrases to hurriedly command anyone who will listen .When climbing on it's, "sube sube sube sube," (up up up up) and when getting off it's, "baja baja baja baja" (down down down down). No matter how urgent his voice, or how desperate his tone, no one ever moves any faster or pays any attention to that guy. The best part of the bus ride, aside from the fact that the roof is usually at around 5 1/2 feet and I'm 6 feet tall, is the melodious advertisement of the money-collector guy. They make the big bucks for their ability to advertise which parts of town the bus passes through, including Huanchaco, UPAO, and America Avenue, among others. No matter who you are, how close you are to the bus, or in which direction you're headed, these guys are certain that YOU are interested in THEIR bus. You just might not know it yet. So they help you by shouting and pointing to you as the vibrant yellow and red bus that clearly says "HUANCHACO" on it passes by, just so you don't miss it. Man am I going to miss that bus.

Taxis are too complex a subject to broach, so I won't even go there. Honks. Just honks everywhere. For too many different reasons. Always.

Anyways, upon arrival to the posta medica at Villa Del Mar, I meet with Jackie and we wait for the doctor to arrive. Once he gets there we jump right to work. Oftentimes he just points to us when a patient walks in and we have to take the patient history. In Spanish. Oftentimes frantic, rushed Spanish. It sounds pretty urgent, even when we have no idea what it means. The doctor usually steps in at this point and asks a few questions, then has us take vitals or probe whichever area is painful to try to figure out the problem. Our first day there was a guy who was hit in the chest by a bull's horn and wanted to know if his ribcage was broken or just bruised. Yeah, welcome to Peru. There are plenty of babies with fevers and coughs, along with a few UTI cases and the occasional bronchitis. Today, however, a guy came in with an infected toenail that needed to be removed. It looked pretty bad, but I thought it was good that he'd be referred to someone that could remove the nail for him. At least, I thought that was what was decided upon in the rapid Spanish exchange. But then the guy took off his shoe and sock and put his foot on the table a few inches from me, and the doctor got out a syringe and a pair of pliers, and then I'm pretty sure my heart didn't beat again for about 8 or 9 minutes. As it turns out, removing a toenail is a very simple process. And apparently about as uncomfortable and painful as one would expect. Honestly though, I think this guy got more anesthetic than a woman in a surgery we sat in on in which her back tumor was removed while she was awake (and in which the doctor got a phone call from his mother. And answered it). So it could've been worse.

Once all the patients are treated we are free to go. We got done a bit early today, so Jackie and I decided to hop on the Huanchaco micro (the only way to travel) to head out to the nearby beach town and walk around. We had pre-lunch lunch (it makes more sense when you're here) at a seafood place, and it was pretty good. We walked on the beach and saw the fishermen and their millenia-old boats coming in to shore, and we discovered what it is that they catch: crabs. Better yet, they sell them right when they hit the shore. We were debating buying some, but practicality beat novelty and we continued on our way. Getting back on the micro to Trujillo I was greeted by a busload of escolares (schoolchildren). One boy in the front moved over and motioned for me to sit down. People here usually move over to block the seat in order to signal that they don't want anyone sitting next to them, so this was an exciting development to me. His name was Pedro, and he is a 9-year-old whose favorite subject is math. We chatted for a while, and he is now the coolest person I've ever met on a bus (though there wasn't much competition).

45 minutes after my pre-lunch lunch, it was time for lunch. Today we had cream of squash soup with popcorn and chicken with rice and mashed potatoes (butter may or may not have been more abundant than potato in the dish). No complaints about any of the food so far. After lunch is siesta until about 4, at which point we have our medical classes. I can't really explain what we learned in class today, but I can say that it precipitated Davel's having to lie down shirtless on a couch while people poked him. So it was worthwhile in my book. Then it was time for dinner, and then a chunk of the group jumped on the bus to Huaraz, a city in the mountains, for the weekend. And such is Peruvian life.

The cacophany of high-pitched sounds produced by a bus full of school children, the unhappy grunts of patients lying awake during intensive surgeries, the delicate cough of a newborn with fever, the clear yet somehow mysterious cries of the micro money-collectors, the awkward silence when patients realize that we don't speak enough Spanish to fully appreciate their concerns, the lapping of the waves as the fishermen glide onto shore, the obnoxious ringtone slicing through the silence of the operating room, the chattering of the car horns becoming little more than background noise... it's a beautiful place where you'll never feel lost.

The sounds will guide you home. Just don't miss your micro.

Blake Thomson