" For all the bad, mezcal. For all the good, also." -Traditional Oaxacan saying
Besides having killer bloating and painful GI movement, it was a good week. Last week was the first week of clinical rotations and classes. It is a pretty packed schedule.
Mondays and Tuesdays we have UCD courses from 10 to 3 pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays we have Spanish classes at Becari Language school from 5 to 7p
m, and clincal rotations are Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for 4 hours each day. We also have to accomodate to family meals, which consists of breakfast and la comida, which is the biggest meal of the day, usually between 2 and 3pm. It is kinda hard to get used to eating meals at 8 am and eating again at 3pm, but I usually get a snack around noon. The host family took me and Alexa (my housemate who is 
from UCSB) to a mayordomia, which is a celebration each parish has for their church. It is on the saints day on which the church is named after, and one family from the community is given the honor of preparing the food for the entire community. It is a very traditional celebration, where a mass is celebrated in honor of the saint, and food and dancing follow. Madrinas (or sponsers/godmothers) are also a part of the celebration. They help prepare for the celebration by decorating the church, providing desserts, and more. The little girl in the photo is a madrina infantil (child sponsor) and she was so proud to carry around that basket of goodies, to be handed out to the community after the meal. They prepared mole negro, a Oaxacan icon, and dr
ank a shot of mezcal! Okay, since I had been ill, the nun sitting across the table from me highly encouraged me to drink it, because it helps digest the highly greasy mole. It is INTENSE! Mezcal is made from the maguey plant, which is the same succulent that is used to make tequila, but processed differently. Tequila comes from Jalisco, while mezcal comes from Oaxaca. So mezcal prevents indigestion and helps break down fats and other lovely stomach problems from occurring due to the Oaxacan party foods. I also drank a Corona and some tepache, or pinepple beer. It is homemade fermented pineapple rinds and sugar, and it is pretty good. Hey, if a little alcohol helps with indegestion, more alcohol helps more, right? Then on the drive home, my host sisters wanted some cotton candy, and made our toungues insanely colorful. Car ride+ sugar+pre-school children= awesome!
Mondays and Tuesdays we have UCD courses from 10 to 3 pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays we have Spanish classes at Becari Language school from 5 to 7p
m, and clincal rotations are Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for 4 hours each day. We also have to accomodate to family meals, which consists of breakfast and la comida, which is the biggest meal of the day, usually between 2 and 3pm. It is kinda hard to get used to eating meals at 8 am and eating again at 3pm, but I usually get a snack around noon. The host family took me and Alexa (my housemate who is 
from UCSB) to a mayordomia, which is a celebration each parish has for their church. It is on the saints day on which the church is named after, and one family from the community is given the honor of preparing the food for the entire community. It is a very traditional celebration, where a mass is celebrated in honor of the saint, and food and dancing follow. Madrinas (or sponsers/godmothers) are also a part of the celebration. They help prepare for the celebration by decorating the church, providing desserts, and more. The little girl in the photo is a madrina infantil (child sponsor) and she was so proud to carry around that basket of goodies, to be handed out to the community after the meal. They prepared mole negro, a Oaxacan icon, and dr
ank a shot of mezcal! Okay, since I had been ill, the nun sitting across the table from me highly encouraged me to drink it, because it helps digest the highly greasy mole. It is INTENSE! Mezcal is made from the maguey plant, which is the same succulent that is used to make tequila, but processed differently. Tequila comes from Jalisco, while mezcal comes from Oaxaca. So mezcal prevents indigestion and helps break down fats and other lovely stomach problems from occurring due to the Oaxacan party foods. I also drank a Corona and some tepache, or pinepple beer. It is homemade fermented pineapple rinds and sugar, and it is pretty good. Hey, if a little alcohol helps with indegestion, more alcohol helps more, right? Then on the drive home, my host sisters wanted some cotton candy, and made our toungues insanely colorful. Car ride+ sugar+pre-school children= awesome!
But the highlight of the week (the cherry on top of a sundae I was too sick to eat) was clinical rotations. Alexa and I were assigned to Centro de Salud Santa Cruz Xoxoctlan, which is in Xoxocotlan (ho-ho-koh-tlahn) a suburb of Oaxaca, a 20-40 min bus ride south of the centro historico. Centros de Salud are government run primary care clinics and are open access- that is, anyone (insured or not) can receive care. In Mexico, 54% of spending in health care is private and the shotty condition of the public system is a big reason for it. Xoxo has a fairly basic centro de salud, with a handful of primary care physicians, slightly more nurses, a dentist, a psychologist, a nutritionist, a pharmacist, and a community health representative. The only x-ray machine is for dental; no ultrasound, and hells no on an MRI or CAT, and all paperwork is completed by typrwriter-yes-typewriter. All instruments are heat sterilized on site-no sterile and disposable instruments like plastic caps on the otoscopes (the instrument used to view in the ear and nose), no one time use thermometers: seriously, they have the basic stuff.
So what is the common Oaxaquenos ailment? Well, DIABETES, DIABETES, DIABETES. 7 out of 10 patients we see in consultation, and nearly all patients over 40, are diabetic. More to come on clinic in next weeks post!
Sunday was eventful! Our new exchange student sister from Holland came on Saturday, and we invited her to our outing today. Alexa, Kirsten (my Dutch Oaxacan sister), Prof. de la Torre and I went to Mitla, a village about 1 hour outside of Oaxaca that is home to small, but interesting mixtec ruins.
It was small, not nearly as impressive at Monte Alban, but the detail of the buildings were really neat. They did not use any adhesive or clay to make their designs- everything is carved and places in a position and weight is applied to keep it in place. It is 95% original, with restoration only for preservation or safety of visitors.
After we returned from Mitla, the family took us to have la comida at Santa Maria del Tule, a small suburb outside of Oaxaca to get some empanadas, tlayudas and quesadillas. This town is famous for the worlds biggest tree- biggest girth, not heigth, since Sequioas are the champs- but this tree is 14 meters (approx 43 ft) in diameter. Its volume is 816,829 cubic meters and weighs 636,107 tons!
It's the kind of tree I dream of living in, like the ultimate treehouse. You get that feeling of inferiority; as though the human species isn't as bad ass as we would like to think. Sure, we have cognitive processes and opposing thumbs- but can we live 2000+ years? No, this tree has more power, more experience, more fitness than we (humans) could ever imagine to achieve.
