already july!

today is july 7th or 8th. june went by pretty fast, and july already seems to be moving along pretty fast too. things here are flowing along pretty well. all of the time, with so many little things in the hospital, in the street, everywhere, the depth/richness of the culture becomes apparant. the way people talk, the different accents people have, body language, etc. it is so, so interesting. i feel very lucky to have such an intimate look into another culture. there are many things that are always hard, but i guess i have gotten more used to them.
sometimes i get annoyed with the american midwives who come here for 1 week and have so many ideas of things to fix at the hospital, and so many questions for me that i cannot answer about the system here...they notice many things that i have already been dealing with for 4 months, and some of it is also their culture shock. i get really frusturated too, i feel overwhelmed too, at the enormity of the problems of the hospital, the healthcare system here (there is no healthcare system), peoples' apathy, etc. but...if i tried to fix everything at once i would go crazy and also, it's not my place to do that. it's very interesting, the constant influx of american volunteers. they all have really true observations and god ideas, and they witness death here and it is sad, and hard to understand, when we come from a culture where we can fix practically everything, where there is always a next step, a further option, for finding help. the opposite of here.
there is alot of death here. a couple of weeks ago there were 2 women who died from eclampsia. one of them was only 25 weeks pregnant. newly wed, first pregnancy. it happens. it is very sad. babies die, there is no NICU in this hospital, there is barely oxygen. babies who are slightly premature, who would definetly make it in the states, they die.
the woman who i was worried about, whose family took her out of the hospital, who could barely breathe and needed to be on oxygen etc, who i wrote about last time, well, i never saw her again. i imagine that she has died.
last week one morning when i arrived at the hospital there was a procession to behind the hospital in front of the morgue, and a large group was mourning the death of an 18 year-old, who had died at the hospital. i just was there, as a witness, it felt natural to be there. people were all mourning together...women throwing themselves on the ground, weeping...chanting...this one woman kept chanting: "pa gen moun anko...pa gen moun anko" which means something like "there is no one left anymore".....afterwards i asked someone what problem the 18 year old had had, and they said "nothing" in a very sad way, almost as if to say "people die here for no good reason"...
there have been more births recently; i have been in almost 100 births now since feb. today we had 2. there have been some interesting births for sure. nothing too crazy. also i am trying to focus on postpartum care with the students, having them follow up with the women and babies from the births they do, doing pp education, newborn exams, etc. i have also been spending some time with them in the prenatal clinic. we always do pn, pp, post op care with them in addition to labor/birth.
it has been really hot. it cools off a little when it rains. i miss cool weather. i never thought i would say that. i do miss cool weather. i think el paso may have been hotter than here, but it's a different kind of heat, it's so humid here. and i wear more clothing here.
still contemplating every day how long to stay...there are good reasons to stay longer and to go...i love learning a language...i'm at the point now where i'm just absorbing so much...feeling more ready to delve into French as well...
my friend sergio from el paso is visiting me right now...it's been interesting...it's cool having someone see where i am...there is nothing to do here though...but it's cool. i hope that he's happy he came. i think he will be leaving in 2-3 days. i wish i could make it more comfortable for him here, but the reality here is that nothing is easy. nothing.
so...maybe i will leave this post at that...i love all of you...thank you for your comments...i look forward to seeing all of you again one day...
reina