Our last Tuesday night in Bolivia Marc, Brooke, Kara, and Ashley traveled to Buena Vista (a town close to Palacios) to check out the local market. Our plan was to look for local produce and ingredients that we could use to make a healthy recipe of sopa de mani (a peanut soup) and then share it with the patients at the clinic. Brooke and Marc searched and bargained for the produce and Kara and myself looked for grains. We would call our own sopa de mani a success because all the patients ate it all during our presentations! We were so happy to offer this using local and cost-conscious ingredients.
After searching for ingredients we took a break and had dinner at a local resort. The views from the resort were quite breathtaking. In the distance we could see the mountains, the rainforest, and the sunset. While sitting outside taking in the views, we relaxed and reminisced about our trip until the moon came out. We tried to capture the beauty of the moon and stars, but I don't think our pictures really did the Bolivian night sky justice.
On Wednesday and Thursday we presented our diabetes education power point, which had information about healthy living, and how to prevent and manage diabetes.
Thursday night the three of us, along with Colin, found a sushi restaurant in Santa Cruz for our last dinner together. As we were enjoying our sushi a little "critter" stopped at our table for an unexpected visit. Our visitor was a very large praying mantis! We were all quite surprised, and there was even a small "scream", but being able to see the intricacy and beauty of the praying mantis right before our eyes was quite humbling. To know this wasn't something that would normally happen in a sushi restaurant in Chicago made it an even more special moment.
And so our trip came to an end way too quickly. It flew. We were just started to feel comfortable in our new work environment, and we hope to come back to pick up where future volunteers will have built on our projects.We hope that further endeavors at CMHP will involve and continue our work in diabetes education and that the clinic continues to be an educational site for Northwestern University Pre-health Professionals.
We are so grateful for the wonderful donations from Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Rush University Medical Center that we were able to bring over to the clinic. Thank you!
Everything will be or has already been utilized!
¡Hasta pronto, Bolivia!
Ashley, Brooke, & Marc
(All pictures with patients were obtained with patient permission)
Looking for monkeys
Sunset in Santa Cruz at the volunteer house
Morning greeting
NU pride!
Sunrise at the clinic
Many cooks in the kitchen preparing our healthier version of a local favorite dish
Patients in the clinic listening to our presentation
Explaining how to live a healthier life with diabetes (and how to prevent it!)
An ideal plate!
The team
Ashley helping a girl get some soap de mani
Kara, one of the clinic coordinators
Sunset!
Flying home!
Local coffee roasted right off the bush!
Our dinner, which ended up being a breakfast buffet, made by us for the volunteers
Stick bug
Holding a millipede after much cajoling by Marc
Colin, one of the researchers finishing his PhD. He was educating patients on Chagas and learning about traditional plant medicines used by locals
Breakfast!
Ashley with the cutest girl ever
