It is day six here in Ecuador and we are now all really busy working in the hospitals and in the community. All of us have been divided into three groups: Group one is working at Vernaza, group two is working at Soto Mayor (the maternity hosptial) and group 3 has been out in the community. After a week then the groups rotate so that we all are able to have a chance to be in each area. Everyone has been really busy and we are all exhausted when we get home. Since I have in the group out in the community this week I will report on how that is going. Community is working with a wonderful foundation called Hogar de Cristo who provide houses, microcredits, classes, andseveral other services to people in the community living in extreme poverty. This year they have asked the nursing students to help them by 1. Doing school health screenings on children in several different schools and 2. Organize and find members to join a Hypertension and Diabetes group. Every day, 2 students go with a guide into the communities to screen and teach about hypertension in the sub-centros and also in various homes in the neighborhood. We have all found that this part of our community experience is very similar to missionary work. (contacting, teaching, knocking doors, inviting to a meeting, etc). The people here seem very receptive to our teaching and eager to learn and improve their health. The school health screenings started out being the craziest, most unorganized thing ever with children running everywhere, but by today we are pleased to announce that we have figured out a way to make it work and were able to finish all of the children at the school we were assigned to this week. Those children who had low hemotocrits are being given Iron suppliments and every child is also recieving anti-parasite pills as well. We have all agreed that the experience here has been so enriching and wonderful and we all hope that those people that we are serving are also benefiting in some way as well.
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