Day 10: Brigade in the village of El Zurzular

July 7th, 2010

El Zurzular Brigade day 1: This village is visited by Global brigades very often. Global Water Brigading was done a year ago so the village now has chlorinated water. This resulted in a huge decrease in the amount of parasitic infections. Due to the tremendous amount of rain from the night before, it took over 2 hours to drive to the village. This is our last village and most of us have already rotated in to every station. I signed up for pharmacy and also rotated in with the OB/GYN clinic.

When rotating with Dr. Jenny, our OB/GYN doctor, I performed 2 pap smears! It was quite the experience. I was nervous in the beginning because I had never done it before. The whole experience was quick. First I observed the procedure and then after some time I performed two of them. Shital was also there to help me practice and learn about the different instruments. I really appreciated that.

After rotating out, pharmacy was slammed with prescriptions all throughout the afternoon. We ended up doing over 500 prescriptions! Thankfully there were a lot of people working the pharmacy and most of us were already experienced in getting the medications together. Because of the volume of patients, we did not end up leaving the village until 6PM…Which means that we got back to Rapaco at 8PM. By the time we got home, we quickly ate dinner and then went straight to bed.

The line waiting for us when we arrived. It stretched up the hill.