Volcanos, sunburns and Buddha

Touring around on our last day in Philippines on the 29th took us to Taal volcano, which is one of the smallest but still active volcanos on the islands. Vendors on the street persistently shouted to offer us a 'boat ride' to reach the volcano, even chasing our van on their motorbike just to see if we had changed our mind. We did end up riding a banca boat to the base of Taal and tightened up our flimsy tennis shoes to hike the volcano. Like true Americans, we denied any offer of help riding horseback on the way to the top and huffed along in 95% humidity. Of course, the 3 in our group who are taking doxycycline for malaria (with increased sun sensitivity as a side effect) got scorched by the sun. Sunscreen just mocked us as we tried to avoid the inevitable. Besides Tiffany and Ben also getting hit by some heat exhaustion, we were still stoked to reach the rim of the volcano!

We flew to Cambodia on the 30th and were immediately impressed by our first impression of Phnom Penh. Maybe it was the free wine and corvoissier on our flight or the delicious Thai food we had, but this city is better than we were expecting. Spent our first day getting a somber tour of the Tuol Sleng prison and the Choeung Ek killing fields, where they tortured and executed nearly 1/3 of the country's population during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. It was hard for us to see evidence of the brutal tactics that Pol Pot and his combatants took, killing any educated citizen including most teachers and doctors in order to maintain control. Cambodia is still trying to recover but making great strides. Later in the day, we got a review of Buddhism and Hinduism and saw many many temples, buddha statues and pagodas.

Tomorrow we split our group with half of us going to Sihanouk hospital with Dr. Gossman, and the others to an orphanage. Probably more graphic stories to come from our hospital experiences there!

Stay tuned....
Kelsi

Filipino Fruitstravaganza!

As you might imagine, the mean streets of Manila are lined with carts selling the whole spectrum of strange and exotic things, the most numerous of which is some of the most delicious-looking fruit you've ever seen. Despite the healthy allure, we were told by several local people that severl Oregon Trail-esque diseases would result if we gave in to temptation and stopped for some (American GI tracts and Filipino water supposedly don't mix).

Thus, we kept our animal urges for tropical fruits under wraps until Thursday night, when we walked to a local supermarket and went on a tropical fruit bonanza. Two types of lychees, a bunch of mini bananas, a papaya, a Korean pear, a guyabano, many mangoes, durien candy, starfruit, pineapple, and dragonfruit; enough for a dinner for six.


Overall, the "fruit dinner" was fantastic; the odd grocery store experience (massive selection and Asian fruit packaging), the exchange rate (the whole meal was $15 or so), and the freshness of the fruit all conspired to make it a righteous feast. We hadn't had many of these fruits before and came up with a group consensus of how to describe them:

Guyabano: Tastes like a banana and honeydew melon smoothie with a strange twist; the crew was split on whether or not to recommend this one.

Lychee: Peeling one bears eerie similarity to eating a hard boiled egg...the outer shell looks like an artist rendering of HIV and the inside actually looks like an egg, though the fruit tastes more like a juicy kiwi + coconut



Papaya: The papayas here are sweet with a subtle coffee flavor; really delicious!
Picture = starfruit eyes and papaya mouth?


Korean Pear: Probably the most refreshing fruit we've ever tasted; it's a mildly sweet pear but very crisp and juicy

Starfruit: Rather like a watery apple. A bit sweet and bitter, but not heavy on taste.

Dragonfruit: GORGEOUS appearance but weak on taste. Tiffany says that they taste much better homegrown and very ripe.


Mango: Seemingly the favorite fruit of the Philippines for a reason: they are awesome here. Picture = mango, being used to demonstrate the tiny-ness of the bananas here. But so delicious.


The pictures say more about the meal than words can. We set up shop with a 40 cent kitchen knife and several bags of fruit in our hotel's cafe and didn't rest until only four pounds of compost remained; hope you enjoy the photos!

Why are we leaving this marvelous place?

Yo, PPP here again writing to you from the Philippines, on our last day here (tourist day- I'm visiting my grandma and the rest of the crew are going to Taal and climbing a volcano in a lake).

Though we want to continue our adventure, the general consensus of the group is that WE DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE; the people are soooo friendly and nice and have to be the HAPPIEST people on Earth, the food is delicious, and the KIDS ARE AMAZING! Some of us are seriously considering moving here when we are done with med school (yours truly included). That said, we have also been able to help sooo many people (1000+ in approx 24hrs of clinic time).

On a more personal note, I've never felt so fulfilled in my life; other than getting satisfaction in helping these people and easing their suffering, I've gained a lot of confidence in myself and my abilities and I can definetly see why being a doctor has the be the greatest job on Earth.

Peace out!

Day 5 with HWW Philippines - Baseco

Our first day working at the Baseco community center started out with a crazy ride on a banca, basically a Filipino canoe with outriggers and a crazily rigged-up tiny engine. Apparently, just a few years ago, banca was the only way to get to part of the Baseco barangay (community), which is on the coast, and mostly reclaimed land. After we got to the end of the community, we ran into a pick-up basketball game in progress, and Gossman decided (as usual) that he needed to dive into the middle of it, which somehow turned into a 2-on-2 game between Ben and Alyssa (representing Notre Dame, hollaaaa!) and Paul and Gossman. We were not impressive, and yet they were vaguely impressed. Paradox.

If I remember correctly, Baseco is about 20 or 30 hectares in area, and has a population of about 200,000. Obviously very, very dense. And since it's so low and near the sea, whenever there is a typhoon or anything, the water rises and drives tons of people out of their houses, which they just build again when the water goes down. Filipinos are definitely resilient. And so happy. All the people we've met have been so friendly. Absolutely amazing.

In the clinic today, we were partnered with the fabulous Filipina nursing students again, and we worked steadily from 10am-2pm, and 3-5pm. Jose estimates that we saw about 380 people. That is a lot of people. Speaking of which, our total of patients for the week so far has passed the 1000 mark. *cough* Wow. Wackiest clinical adventures today: Kelsi expressed a pretty crazy abscess, Hank chopped off a pyogenic granuloma, and Alyssa and Ben both scared small children by being huge and pale.

After we got back from clinic and taking a thousand pictures with the nurses, we went back to the hotel, where we ran into two of the ladies we had worked with during our first day here, in Laguna. They had come by to say hello and bring us some thank-you gifts for working here (see what I mean? SO friendly). We all ended up going out to eat together, and the restaurant we went to had a show involving lots of different kinds of traditional Filipino dance. Which was AWESOME. People doing crazy tinikling (jumping around between poles that are being bounced on the ground), flipping fans around, literally running up each other. Craziness. BUT THEN. The show became interactive. Most of us got up there for some tinikling, but the highlight of the night was when one of the girl dancers came and kidnapped Hank and took him backstage for a while. We were all wondering where on earth he had gone when suddenly he was back, dressed in a grass skirt, halter top, and headdress, shaking his hips with the dancing girls like there was no tomorrow. I have not laughed that hard in a while. So ridiculous. Pictures will be uploaded at some point. I am 100% positive I have never moved my hips like that in my life, and I actually have the X chromosome to do it. Props to Hank. And to Dr. Gossman for his equally impressive dance, involving him in his scrubs with no shoes on (classy man, that) onstage twirling pom-pom things around and head-banging.

Today was a good day.

-gigglingly submitted by Alyssa

Just wanted to confirm Paul's admission of obsession with the kids here. He worked his little table for about 1 and a half hours longer than the rest of us did today. He's a machine. Also, his grandma and great aunt, etc, are super awesome. But Dr. Gossman can't dance.

5/26/09 - Day 4

What up? This time it's Paul Pena bringing you the latest from the Philippines.

Today, we went to Payatas again, but this time we were joined by 10 nursing students and another doctor. Having them certainly allowed more patients to be seen; we had 6 stations (approx 2 nursing students and 1 med student at each) with Dr. G roaming and the other doctor checking up patients. The nursing students were especially helpful in translation as now we each had a translatr and didn't have to rely on my disgraceful mockery of Tagalog.

We started bright and early at 9:30 and went until 3:30. According to the log, we were able to see 364 patients, about 70:30 of children to adults. Many patients complained of cold and fever or needed wounds treated. The more interesting cases included TB, scabies, asthma, sores around the mouth, perforated ears, failure to thrive, pus in the ear, removal of a massive pimple that was causing eye pain (this list is lacking as I didn't hear of all the other stuff the rest of the crew encountered).

We definetly got along with the nursing students (3rd and 4th years who were mostly 19 yrs old). We took a lot of pictures together, traded e-mail addresses, and just had a lot of fun. Some of the highlights included teaching Tiffany pickup lines in Tagalog and playing a game from the immensely popular Filipino game show, Wah-Wah-Wee (Kelsi won), in which Benji belted some mean Celine Dion. It was a very enjoyable time (the whole experience, not just Benji)

After that we went to my aunt's house in Quezon City. I introduced them to my grandmother (or lola).and we just relaxed and traded stories over a bottle of Johnny Walker. Then my aunt treated us to a Chinese restaurnt and we feasted like kings. It was glorious.

Overall, it was a very productive and fun day!

On a personal note, I just wanted to say I LOVE THOSE KIDS that we saw. I loved playing with them and interacting with them. In fact, they started to call me cuya which means big brother in Taglog.

Additionally, the whole experience has really increased my drive to become a doctor. I LOVE THIS STUFF. If I could, I would do this for the rest of my life. I LOVE IT.

Peace out, everyone!

Tourism day!

Hey, it's Alyssa again. Sorry I'm hogging the blog-writing so much. I think Hank's going to do tomorrow.

Anyway, today was our culture day in Manila. Obviously on this trip, our main focus is the service work, but we want to at least try to get a decent comprehension of the area's history and culture while we're here as well. So first thing today, we headed off to Intramuros. It's an old stone fort built by the Spanish after they took over Manila. It was originally a wooden fort (built by the Moors, I think), but the Spanish tore that one down and built the stone one in its place. Most of it is gone now, due to shelling in WWII, but it's still pretty awesome looking. We had a very enthusiastic tour guide who kept insisting his name was Georgie Porgie, who took us around in a horse-drawn carriage type thing and at one point stopped at a place with a piano to play us "Let it be" by the Beatles. Question mark? Anyway, it's a gorgeous area, and also very interesting for the Jose Rizal memorial they have there. Rizal is the Philippines' national hero, who was a doctor and writer who exposed the corruption of the Spanish in the Philippines and helped advance the cause for Filipino independence. His writing is absolutely beautiful. I recommend reading his final letter "Mi Ultimo Adios," if you can read Spanish, or find an English translation.

After that, we went to a couple museums for some history, art, etc. One thing that was interesting to earn about was the amazing diversity of the Philippines. 7100 islands, hundreds of different languages and cultures. We also went to a big outdoor food and handicrafts market" that was pretty cool, though we obviously couldn't get any food there.

Anyway, time to get off the internet. Tomorrow we head to the Hope Worldwide center in Payatas for more clinical work. And right now, we're off to some place called the Hobbit House that Ben found in his guide book. Apparently, it was opened years ago by a Lord of the Rings enthusiast who employed only dwarfs as waiters. Interesting...

Day 1 - Manila

Well, the computer here at our guest house moves at approximately the speed of sloth, so I'm not sure how much I'm going to get written before our internet card times out.

Anyway though, our first day working with Hope Worldwide was amazing. Jose picked us up at 7:30, before which Paul's grandma mysteriously brought us all burgers for breakfast without any of us but Paul knowing she had come by. After making our way through some awesome Manila traffic, we got to Hope's Laguna center, a beautiful center for physically and sexually abused children, that functions to advocate for children, increase awareness of abuse as a problem, work with abused children and their families, and in some cases, give abused children a refuge place to live and get a good education and healthcare if their home situation is beyond help. We were paired with a dentist today, and after our tour of the site, we have basic physicals to all the kids there, while she checked out their teeth. It was a great way to ease into the experience. We've all done history-taking and physicals in class, so we at least sort of knew what to do, so it kind of broke us in gently into caring for real patients, not just actors like we do in class.

After lunch, we went further into the Laguna area, into the shanty town area, where we set up in a little government clinic and treated about 100 children for various things, mostly skin wounds and scabies. This was an interesting learn-on-the-fly experience, since none of us have any diagnostic skills yet. Thank goodness Dr. Gossman is here, or we would all be lost! Kelsi and Ben were both a big hit with the kids, who were fascinated by Kelsi's blond hair and Ben's red beard. Not sure if that makes them circus attractions or celebrities. So many pictures were taken. So many.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and we have the day off. One of the Hope drivers is going to take us around the city to take in some of the sites, which should be a good time. Not sure where all we're going yet, but Intramuros is high on the list.

Gotta get off the internet, thanks for checking our blog! We'll try to write again soon! -Alyssa

Made it!

Well, we're all safely here at our hotel in Manila, pretty tired after a very long day of traveling. I'm not really sure how many hours there were in our day today, but it was more than 24, haha.

Meeting with Jose tomorrow at 7:30 to go to Laguna, our first work site!

Write more later, off to bed - Alyssa