Bolivia

Getting to Bolivia was not supposed to be this hard. I will spare you the details, but it involved 30 hours of travelling (when it should have taken about 12) and involved 3 boats and about 5 different busses. After I finally arrived, I also got to spend half the day in customs. That was by far the hardest (and admittedly the scariest) time I have had so far. But thankfully, praise God that I am here safely at Hospitals of Hope where I look forward to a very interesting few weeks. 

My first few days at the hospital have been interesting. The hospital is only about 30 beds and the majority of patients are here for the clinic. However, they have some really good traumatologists here and do a lot of orthopaedic work (oddly enough). Most hospital patients come in through the ER, and the majority come in from car accidents (which doesn’t surprise me in the least). Today there was a car accident and 2 men came in with broken limbs and a lot of lacerations. I was holding my breath as I watched healthcare in a third world country...washing and reusing things that I wouldn’t think twice about throwing away, splints made out of cardboard, broken x-ray machines, restraints made by tying people down with cloth....they had to work with what was there. It has been quite a learning experience. 

Aside from hospital work we do a lot of things in the evenings. Game nights, Wally ball, visiting local orphanages, and last night we went to "English Club" were another mission group works helping others learn English. Well, I am going to head back to the hospital...there is an in-service on suturing....I don’t think they will have us actually do it, but they want to show us how.

Love and Miss you all, 

Heidi