Thursday, August 5, 2010

Wrapping up our last week in El Sauce

Our last week in El Sauce involved visiting the only remaining community - San Jose.  A large village of 60+ houses, it took us two days to complete.  We felt a great sense of accomplishment as we headed home that second day. We invited the guides to attend a farewell dinner on Thursday evening and they accepted.

Thursday morning we met with Dr. Peña.  We discussed plans for a final presentation in El Sauce the following week.  There was still some data entry to be done, but we planned to finish it by Saturday, thanks to the hard work of Cathy and Jess, our two main data-entry people.  We explained that the data would still need to be reviewed for any errors, and that would have to wait until we returned to the US.  But we agreed that we would be able to present some preliminary statistics as part of the presentation.

We also discussed our intent to donate more medical supplies to El Sauce, using the money we had made selling Selva Negra coffee in the spring.  Though money was tight due to our move to El Sauce, we as a group felt very strongly about providing something tangible to the healthworkers in El Sauce.  We had already distributed some medical supplies donated by MedWorld and UNC doctors and nurses.  But we wanted to use the Selva Negra funds for an urgent need identified by the health center.  Dra. Velasquez and Paola (two of our local project stakeholders) told us that the 'Casa Materna' currently does not have a lamp for obstetric examination.  Pregnant women who live far from the health center arrive at the Casa Materna around the time of predicted delivery date, and wait to deliver there.  Also, women with pregnancy complications stay at the Casa Materna so that they can be monitored.  Casa Materna is associated with the health center but it is a separate building. Dra. Velazquez and Paola also requested that we purchase more strips for urine testing.  Blood tests are often not possible due to the lack of laboratory equipment, and so urine tests are much more commonplace. We gave Alex, the UNAN -UNC coordinator $300 to purchase these items and planned to present them to the director of medical services at the health center after the presentation.

Thursday evening was a blast. Several of the guides joined us for dinner.  The owners of Hotel Blanco surprised us by bringing in a band especially for us - they played typical Nicaraguan music as well as some cumbia and dance songs.  We sang and danced until the late late hour of 9PM, when everyone was tuckered out from the long day.  We were very grateful to the staff of Hotel Blanco for giving us such a lovely send-off.
The group at our 'cena de despedirse'



The band!

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