Ok, ok

I promised BJ that I would blog, so here I am. BJ has already posted all of the interesting/ exciting stuff, but I will add my two cents. I finished up with finals last week, and they all went well. I am glad to be done with the semester. In the meantime, I have been running around town, doing errands and preparing to leave. I am actually all packed up, minus a few things, and just have a few more things to do. I looked at a plug adapter that I bought for Argentina, and realized it was the wrong one today. Darn. I will have to go back and get the right one. For the past couple of weeks, I have gathered medical supplies and hygiene supplies. The medical supplies will be donated to the maternity hospital. It is a community hospital, so not nearly as nice as some of the privately funded hospitals in the area. They lack many supplies we take for granted. Our goal is not to go in and "save" them (thus undermining their self- reliance etc.) by donating tons of stuff, but we do try to bring a few things that might be hard for them to get down there. It is sort of our way of saying we care, and thank you for letting us observe and learn in your hospital. We will work in the labor and delivery unit, the mother baby unit, and the NICU there.
The hygiene supplies have a unique use, which I will explain shortly. We spend part of our clinical time in the comedores, which I explained a little bit in an earlier post. It is pretty sad, but this government funded program provides, for many children, the only meal they will eat that day. Even more hard to accept is the fact that it does not provide complete nutrition (a typical meal is a bowl of white rice, with a few onions or other similar vegetable in it, some beans, and a piece of bread) and that in some neighborhoods, where the children have to bring their own bowls in order to get food, the children take the food home and share their small meal with the entire family. Our role in this program is to monitor their growth and health status. We measure their heights and weights, test their hemoglobin levels, and do lots of teaching. One of the main things we teach about is hygiene. I/ we have collected sample shampoos, soaps, and lotions, and toothbrushes/ toothpaste that we will pass out to the children as we teach them how to use them. It may sound crazy that they wouldn't know how to use them properly, but many of them just haven't had access to the things we will be teaching. It will be interesting to see how that goes.
While in Argentina, I will be visiting a few sightseeing places. We will go to Salta, Buenos Aires, and Iguazu (the waterfalls that would put Niagara to shame) for sure. Getting to Tucuman, where I will be living for the majority of the next 6 weeks will be an adventure in and of itself, but that will be a story for another time.