EBAIS visits

EBAIS stands for Equipo Basico de Atención Integral de Salud or, in English Primary Health Care Team. They are made up of a physician, a nurse, a pharmacist, a medical records technician and a primary care technician. The EBAISs serve 3,000-5,000 people each and work out of clinics strategically situated to provide accessible health care. These primary health care facilities provide basic care, prenatal check-ups, consults for chronic patients, pretty much anything you would go to a general practitioner for. They refer patients needing more specialized or advanced treatment to second-level care facilities—hospitals and larger clinics with specialists and lab equipment. From there patients can be referred to tertiary-level hospitals that provide the most advanced care. Ideally, patients are always counter-referred to their primary care EBAIS so that the team can continue to follow-up with and monitor patients. This week we visited two different clinics and got to see an EBAIS in action.     

The first visit was to Agua Buena, a small community near San Vito (the city near Las Cruces) that is relatively well developed. The roads are paved or at least graveled. The community is actually densely populated enough to have two EBAIS (teams) working in one clinics. It was interesting to see the organization, the flow of patients and to talk to the pharmacist about some of the challenges they face.  I was surprised at how efficiently the system seems to work, especially having visited “government clinics” in other countries that essentially are buildings that never get staffed.  Staffing is an issue for many clinics because the EBAIS team is so small and hard to replace if someone gets sick or needs to take a personal day, but overall the way clinics are run is relatively efficient. Because each EBAIS serves a limited community, the primary care technician keeps data on every household in the community, making things like vaccinations, health risks and prenatal care easy to keep track of.  

Unfortunately, I failed at taking pictures of the actual clinic. However the second day when we visited a clinic in the Ngöbe indigenous territory we got to walk around the garden at the cultural center that Alexis Rodriguez created to preserve their traditions, medicinal plants and language.

We walked across this very unsteady suspension/swinging bridge across the river…eeek!

Hector shows us a legume that the Ngöbe use as a coffee substitute

The area around the cultural centers

Tuti-fruiti Cornbread

Such was the general consensus on what tonight's dessert tasted like! While the food here is great--I definitely appreciate the balance that we get, there are sometimes oddities.  Every morning has turned into "guess what flavor jelly this is" and at lunch we play "what flavor is the juice?"

Anyway, on to more pertinent things than food...
Today was our first day off--we have classes or field trips Monday-Saturday, so a few of us went into town for church this morning. Unfortunately, church was at 10:00 when we thought it was at 8:00. We spent those extra two hours wandering around town and talking to Carlos who had brought us into town. we even stopped at a bakery...yum! Church was distinctly Latin American--slightly chaotic, loud, and long with great worship music and friendly people. While I'm not sure how much of the sermon I actually got, it was nice to be worshiping with other believers. 
The rest of today I spent doing readings for tomorrow and Tuesday and catching up on a little sleep. 6:30 breakfasts continue to be really early!

We are winding down our time at Las Cruces; Wednesday we head back into San Jose for our homestays with host families. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. It will definitely be a change of pace from all of us living together, but after a week of that, it might be a good thing. I'm looking forward to meeting my host family and getting to know them, but I know from past experience that it can also be a challenge--especially with linguistic and cultural barriers. If you're looking for something to pray for, my interactions with my host family (as well as with my fellow students) would definitely be on my list. My hope is that in everything I say and do,  Christ's love is reflected.

Wonders of the botanical garden

It's late (actually only 10:15, but when breakfast is at 6:30, that's late) so I don't have time for a long post. BUT I did finally take some pictures that I wanted to share. This morning we went on a walk through the botanical gardens, stopping to talk about some the plant species both native and introduced. Technically, none of the plants in the garden are truly native because they were all cultivated by the original Wilson family but some are Costa Rican plants while others are from other parts of the world.

I'll hopefully have more time to post tomorrow (or at least on Sunday--our only day off), but for now, enjoy these pictures! 

This little guy is an agouti--a member of the guinea pig family. They're everywhere here and look like a guinea pigs on stilts!

Up the stairs through part of the botanical gardens is the Wilson House where we are staying.

Roommates ready for our first hike!

The flower of a wild (non-commercial) banana plant. 

Las Cruces

After six long, bumpy hours on a bus (fortunately quite comfortable and airconditioned) we arrived at the OTS Las Cruces station about 10km from the Panamanian border on the Pacific side. It was, of course, rainy and cloudy when we arrived, but there was a break in the weather so we unloaded our luggage without getting wet.  Despite the clouds and the rain, the station is really quite beautiful. We are staying in dorms at the original house which is right in the middle of the original botanical gardens. The walk down to the dinning hall is a quite windy, but interspersed with beautiful flora and fauna. I keep waiting for sunshine to take pictures, but cloudy ones might have to do!

We've all settled in quite nicely; there are 4-6 people per room and we have a big common area where we are currently all doing our readings for tomorrow (or facebooking and blogging!). I finally unpacked and reorganized some. It seems silly to unpack for just a week, but I literally had one sock in one bag and its pair in the other, so it had to be done. That has definitely helped the OCD side of me that was longing for shelves and organization.

We joke that we are turning into old people--it's 8:30 and most of us are in our pj's and thinking about heading to bed, but with breakfast bright and early at 6:30 a.m. we have to have an early bedtime. Tomorrow after breakfast we are headed into town to finally buy snake boots, notebooks, etc. so hopefully by being out in the morning we'll beat the rain! Classroom time starts tomorrow afternoon, but I haven't really seen a schedule for the rest of the week (kind of driving me nuts, but I'm being flexible!).  

Starting Out

It's been a crazy last couple of weeks--MCAT, medical stuff, family vacation, Jessie visit, packing--but I'm finally in Costa Rica! I wouldn't say settled yet, because we leave for another part of Costa Rica bright and early in the morning, but that will kind of be the norm. This semester involves lots of traveling between the capital (San José) and different biological stations in other parts of the country. While I'm excited to see diverse areas of Costa Rica, I've already realized that unpacking and repacking bags is going to get old really fast.

Today was lots of time spent sitting in a classroom as we had orientation. Snake boots, taxis, rice and beans and of course the syllabus were all topics of conversation. It was a long day, but we did have breaks in between when we had the chance to chat and get to know each other. Altogether, there are 23 students, 3 faculty and one TA. We all live and travel together except on break, so we'll be getting to know each other well!

Tomorrow is a six hour bus ride to an OTS biological station near the Panamanian border. Once we're there we'll do some shopping for last minute supplies (and those all important snake boots!). I will try to start taking pictures soon!