We made it

Hello Everyone!

Andy, Celia, and I made it safely to Cochabamba, Bolivia. Andy and I flew into La Paz on Sunday morning and after adjusting to the altitude with the help of some medicine we were ready to meet up with Craig (aka Sam-uel), Pete (aka Pedro), Cory, and Mark (aka Marcos). The group ate breakfast at a little café and then headed around town to do some site seeing. In the morning we were able to see part of a mass at La Iglesia de San Francisco, a catholic cathedral. We also perused the indigenous market, the witches market, and the black market. The witches market had everything from llama fetuses and herbs for spells to prostate medication, which was pretty interesting to our group. We stopped for lunch and then continued our site seeing to include the black market, which turned out to be fairly benign and was made up of mostly stalls separated by blue tarps selling knock off sunglasses, clothing, and shoes. Andy and I left La Paz around 8pm and arrived in Cochabamba at 10pm.

Monday morning we were able to sleep in a little bit, which was wonderful considering we had next to no sleep on the flight from Miami to La Paz. We went with Juana to the burn clinic for about an hour in the morning and were able to spend some time observing a debridement of a little girl with second degree burns on her face. From the little amount of time that I spent in the hospital, I can already tell that I will be learning a lot and getting to see things that I would not be exposed to in the US. Celia arrived around lunch time and we were all able to eat lunch together. Tomorrow Celia, Andrew, Eva, Josh and I are having our official tour of the burn clinic as well as the hospital with Dr. Montano. We will keep you posted on our adventures and experiences in Cochabamba!

Jen Dorsch