Parasitos!?

Hey folks and friends. I have found myself here in Antigua with a lot of time to spare while waiting for fecal exam results. I may have parasites. Don't worry its not like before, no dehydrating rear end explosions, just a consistent dull abdominal pain and some serious gas. I thought I would be safe and get checked out while I'm here and medical care is real cheap-free.

On the lighter side, I have some time to blog. A suppose a lot has happened since I last wrote words on the blog. There have been a total of 6 births in Calderas since I have arrived. Unfortunately, 3 of those 6 ended up with cesareans in the hospital. I has been challenging at times to have differing opinions about the birth process than Eulalia. Two of the three sections, in my mind, were relatively normal births that were just taking a long time. I think that I would have probably been less upset about these decisions to go to the hospital if the situation at the public hospital were different. The women are not allowed to have anyone with them and, if it is not an "emergency" (which can be disputable), all laboring women wait for a bed in one big waiting room together with only plastic or metal chairs to sit it. On average women wait 12-24 hours to get seen or to get operated on. During this time there is not sufficient staff to attend to them. One of the women told us later that she was waiting next to a woman whose baby had died inside of her 3 days earlier and she was waiting to get it taken out of her. This same woman received a tubal ligation after her c-section and I don't this I have ever seen such a poor suture job. The sutures were incomplete and sloppy and a piece of pink flesh was protruding from there the incision was not closed all the way. The incision itself was 10-12 inches long which is completely unnecessary for either procedure. This would have been a easy-win medical malpractice suit in the states but here if you are poor and a woman, you have no rights. That's all I will rant on that topic.

I have had a lot of down-time...a whole lot of it. As I have previously posted, I have been playing guitar and tejiendo (weaving) but there are some days I get some serious cabin fever. I guess babies aren't born everyday in a rural mountain community and there isn't much I can do about it.