Giving My Blog Meaning

I fully intended for my next post to be about hospital trips 2, 3 and 4(I know the suspense is killing you), and the following to be about all my animal adventures, but present circumstances have forced me to write this post. Hold tight though, you will soon hear about hospital trips and animal attacks, and in case you were worried, I still have both legs.

When, I chose 'Off the Grid' as the name for my blog (and, yeah Dad, I'll give you credit, you helped come up with the name) I meant to evoke the idea of going off the American grid, off the known path, and stepping into a new adventure. I had no idea that the title "Off the Grid" would literally come to fruition.

I am usually a person who worries about everything, who plans for every possible worst-case scenario and who overanalyzes everything. It is for that reason that I find it interesting that I was so unprepared for my adventures here in Ecuador. I don't mean to say that I don't have enough sunscreen and bug-repellent to last a lifetime, or that I forgot to pack my underwear (Dad made sure to ask me before we left the house), it means that I did not really grasp what living in a developing country would be like. I never really thought through what life would be like, I just told myself, "You went to Spain and thrived, you can surely go to Ecuador and survive".

When I got here then, I was hit with major culture-shock. Whether it was remembering that I couldn't drink water out of the faucet (after 2.5 months I still try to fill my water bottle up at the faucet), or passing shack after shack on buses from Quito to the jungle, or having to constantly be aware of where I am walking for fear I will fall into giant manholes (really, there are 10 ft. deep holes 5 feet wide that just appear at intersections with no caution tape), everything was different. A lot of this is due to the fact that I am living in a developing town in a developing country. Sidewalks are surprisingly unwalkable, chickens roam the streets, roosters crow at all hours of the day, hospitals store materials in old gatorade bottles, recycling is unheard of, raw meat covered with flies hangs from hooks in open air stores, and many homes in town consist of tin roofs perched atop old boards haphazardly nailed together. This was all incredibly overwhelming to me in the beginning, and it took a few weeks before this became the new "normal" for me. A supportive technical team and welcoming and ever-worried neighbors helped with this transition.

My new normal has literally taken me 'Off the Grid'. I've briefly mentioned this before, but starting the first week in November, all of Ecuador began rationing power. Ecuador's power is hydroelectric and since Ecuador was suffering from a major drought, this meant we did not have power. Ecuador bought power from both Peru and Colombia, but this was not enough, and so, starting that first week of November up until today, daily scheduled power outages have happened in cities throughout Ecuador. At first these outages were 6 hours in length, then 4, then 3, and now just 2. In the beginning these outages disrupted my days, but soon I began planning around them, charging my computer when there was power, making sure my various lanterns and flashlights were ready to go, planning my meals (I quickly learned it is no fun to chop vegetables in the dark), and making sure I always had a good book to read. While the constant rain pounding on my roof since 4 this morning proves that Ecuador (at least the Oriente) is no longer in a drought, the power outages are still present. I am told the outages are scheduled to stop the 21st of December, though who knows if it will actually happen.

Water has also been touch-and-go. While I only drink filtered water that is delivered weekly in large jugs, I cook and clean with the tap water. During my first few weeks here, the water went out from 8:00 until 4:00 daily while road construction on the other end of town happened. I found these water outages just as disruptive as the power outages. More than once I came home from a day in the field, covered in chicken poop, dirt, sweat and bug repellent, made a beeline for the (cold) shower, and discovered that there was no water. Today the water has gone out once again, but this time not due to construction, but because of, according to my coworkers, the massive amount of rain we received that is overwhelming the water plant. I woke this morning at 9:00, ready for a day of laundry and cleaning, and discovered,when I went to brush my teeth that the plan would have to be scrapped.

When I get frustrated with these inconveniences, I often look out my windows at the mist settling on the tree-covered mountains and think "I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world". And in that way, living 'Off the Grid' has become my new normal.

That Time I Spent an Evening in an Ecuadorian Hospital

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I headed out on my nightly walk to the town center. This walk is usually one of the highlights of my day: the sun is setting behind the mountains, the temperature drops (a bit) and I am able to talk to all of my favorite neighbors and shop owners since every one is out at this time of day. On this particular day I decided to take my camera, and I was snapping pictures of the church, the central park/plaza, and the hospital. I am convinced that the pictures of the hospital are what precipitated future events. Before heading home, around 6:30, I stopped to buy some bread and some folders for the office, and then I headed back home, crossing through the central plaza.

The central plaza is not lit during the night, I assume due to our power shortage and power cuts. So, I’m walking through the park, thinking what a good evening I have had, and suddenly my left leg has fallen into some sort of hole up to my knee. I look down to see that my leg has slipped through a sewer grate. Before you accuse me of being clumsy, I must point out that this sewer runs across the entire pathway, so there is no way of walking around it. Anyways, my first thought is, “Wow, this is embarrassing” as there were three teenage boys sitting on the steps of the church laughing at me. My second thought was, “I broke my favorite pair of shoes”. My third thought was “I’ll have to wash my leg well when I get home”. I knew I had scraped my leg up (I did fall through a metal sewer) but at that point did not know to what extent. It wasn’t until I was examining my shoe again that I noticed my leg was literally gushing blood. I looked again and freaked out when I saw my shinbone. It was certainly one of those moments where I thought, “Shoot, I am in Ecuador, I don’t have a cell phone, Spanish is not my primary language, and that hospital is not a hospital I want to go to”.

I really had no idea what to do, and decided I would walk the 10 minutes home and ask my neighbors for help. That plan changed about 30 seconds later, when in a lot of pain and definitely not very composed, I decided to stop at the pharmacy and ask the pharmacist there what he thought I should do. I have gotten to know this pharmacist pretty well, as he has helped pick ticks of my body, has greeted me daily as I pass his store, and has also warned me that I may be kidnapped since I am the most beautiful girl in Archidona (quite an odd compliment if you ask me). I walked in the store, and he immediately asked “Laurita, qué pasó?” At this point I was a bit overwhelmed, and this simple question sent me into tears as I struggled to explain that I fell into a metal sewer grate (this is a difficult task when there is no word for sewer in Spanish). He immediately pulled me into a back room filled with needles and bandages and medicines and sat me down on the bed. Knowing that I did not want this man giving me any serious medical treatment, I asked him what he was doing, and he replied that he was merely cleaning off the wound. A few seconds later, he looks up and says, “You need to go to the hospital, RIGHT NOW”.

I hurried my way across the street to the hospital, all the while thinking how crazy this was, and then struggled to enter the hospital, as it was already closed. I wandered around for a while until I found a man with keys that unlocked the door but did not lead me in any direction. Eventually, I found a nurse and explained the situation, and then I sat in the hallway until someone came and let me into the operating room. I walked in, quickly surveying the room, and couldn’t believe what I saw. There was blood on the floor and the stepstool, there was no sheet on the bed (a plastic vinyl bed) the walls were crumbling, and there were dirty dressings all over. After this crude introduction, the nurse started asking me dozens of questions, fixating on the fact that I was not married, single, and living alone. Exasperated, she finally asked, “Is there anyone you know here that I can use as a contact?” During this time I started feeling as if I was about to pass out, and having fainted many times before, I knew it was coming. I tried to communicate this and my need for something to drink, but lacking the word for faint all I could come up with was, “I feel very sick, I feel like I am going to fall asleep, I need something to drink”. The nurse did not seem to care, and told me to just take deep breaths. I continued to feel worse and worse, until I remembered that before falling in a sewer I had bought a meringue when I bought my bread. I immediately reached for my purse and began rummaging around until I came up with my crushed meringue and started stuffing my face. It was at this point that the doctor came in, and I repeated “I feel” and he adds, “Like you are going to die” and I said “No, I feel very sick and like I am going to fall asleep, I need something to drink”. He came back with a shot glass full of water, and I quickly downed it before laying down on what I am sure was a very contaminated bed.

I am convinced the doctor as well as the nurses think I am totally insane, as I insisted on a play-by-play of everything that they were doing. I did not want the doctor cutting, injecting, or sewing anything before I knew it was happening. I would be this way even in the U.S., but after seeing that the liquid he was using to clean my leg came out of a Gatorade bottle, I was even more convinced that I needed to know what was happening. While some of you may think I am blowing all of this out of proportion, I will say that a hole that goes to your bone in the U.S. is one thing, but it is a totally different situation when you are in a developing country, alone, speaking in another language.

The problem was that it was a very deep cut (as I said, to my bone) but there really wasn’t any skin to cover it up with. The doctor ended up cutting off what little skin remained before cleaning and then anesthetizing the leg (directly in the cut, multiple times). I think this is the moment the nurses (I use nurses because I am relatively sure I was the only American girl ever to step foot in the hospital, and for this reason EVERY nurse in the hospital stopped by) determined I was crazy. I took one look at the huge needle (at least six inches long) that he was going to stick into my cut, and said “And WHAT are you going to do with that?” and quickly turned my head away. The nurses started laughing hysterically, and after I explained that I can’t look at needles or any of that kind of stuff, the doctor switched to a much smaller needle. After that, he sewed me up with three very tight stitches (when I went to get them removed the other doctors were commenting on them). I used this time to practice my Spanish, and so further solidified my status as the crazy American girl as I lay on the dirty bed while the doctor worked on my leg, chewing away at my meringue while talking about anything and everything. I like to think I kept the doctor and the nurses entertained that evening. Knowing that the entire hospital would be referring to me as “La Loca Gringa” (the Crazy American) anyway, I seized the opportunity to take a few pictures of the hospital, which of course prompted more laughter. So after many shots, many perplexed looks, three stitches, and a stack of prescriptions, I was ready to go. I had to pay a whopping $7.50 for my medical services (perhaps this explains the blood all over, they can’t afford to hire a janitor), and was instructed to go back to the pharmacist to get my pain medication, antibiotic and tetanus shot.

Probably laughing at something I said.

Notice the Gatorade bottle.

This is when things got even more interesting. Apparently, a very large soccer game was going on in Ecuador, and as TVs are limited here in Archidona, the pharmacist had 6 of his closest male friends crowded into the pharmacy, all happily drinking, smoking and cheering. They all parted to let me by, and I told the pharmacist what I needed as I tried my best not to block the screen. I was given my first two prescriptions without a problem, but the pharmacist insisted that he give me the shot there, and that the flask was too big to take to the hospital. I, not wanting a man who had been drinking to give me a shot, tried my best to convince him to let me take the shot to the hospital, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Thus, in front of 6 Ecuadorian men, I dropped my underpants and hiked up my dress to get my tetanus shot in the butt. I can guarantee no one was watching the game at this point. And with that shot, so ended my Medical Adventure in Ecuador, or so I thought…