Last Day in Huancayo

Martes, 22-Julio-2014

Hypertension Campaign

Since we are basically pros now at taking vitals and talking about hypertension we did another campaign at a different school. This one went by much smoother because more people heard about it prior to today. There were a lot more adults who came which was very exciting! We set up in the schools courtyard area and had four stations. 

The first station was hypertension and diabetes presentations. Erin, Cassie, and Sean talked about both topics with everyone and helped them better understand ways to stay healthy. 

The next station was height and weight. All children and adults were weighed but only a children were measured for height. The fellows working the station would fill out a piece of paper and then send the adults over to my station. 

Yet again I was at the vitals station! It was a lot better this time since we were working with adults who have larger veins and are better at staying still. We recorded blood pressure, pulse, and respiration rate for all adults. If the BP was elevated at all we would send them on to see the doctor. 

The final station was where people could see the doctor. Dr Franćois was working with sick children or kids with weird vitals. And the other general doctor was seeing all the adults who were at high risk for hypertension and/or diabetes. 

Torre Torre

There is not much information about the eroded geological formation but it's pretty famous for Huancayo. In fact it's the only tourist attraction in my Peru guide book for Huancayo. 

The boys were finally back from their Machu Picchu adventure and so it was a full house again! Franćois offered to come with us and show us around since he'd been several times. He was bouncing around all over the towers while the rest of us were taking in the scary height and amazing views. 

We hung out, ate lunch, and took lots of pictures. It was a very chill afternoon activity and it was nice to have everyone together again!

Anatomy Lab

Back at the Medical School we were able to go into their anatomy lab and see the cadavers. Huancayo's medical school has a very good fetus cadaver lab which I had not seen before. They have the fetus at many different stages of development as well as right after birth. 

The students had also pulled out two adult human cadavers for us to look at and examine. We learned that these cadavers are not provided by the medical school. Instead medical students must got to the local morgue and ask for unclaimed bodies. An unclaimed body costs 50 soles and then the students must get the cadaver to the medical school, usually by way of taxi!

Final Fiesta 

In order to have a good last night in Huancayo we knew we had to have a fiesta. David and Aniña have seen how our house gets when we drink so they explicitly said we could pre game but there was to be no fiesta en la casa. We invited Carlos's house over for picarones and to help finish the excess liquor and beer we had accumulated over the past few weeks. Everything was going fine until Carlos showed up and our casual hangout quickly escalated to a drunken night. Several people from Carlos's house went out to a club (on a Tuesday night....) but most of our house stayed in since we have an early bus to catch to La Merced in the morning!!