the service industry

My dad had a sour face on for the first 20 minutes while
waiting for his beer. The place was filled with smoking
advertising and ashtrays, and the smell lingered.

Bolivia does a lot of things well, particularly considering their lower GDP and possible corruption throughout the government and such.  Everyone here can agree that service, however, is not one of them.  Particularly when it comes to restaurants.  I'll just leave one tale, from my sister and dad's last night in Bolivia (more on them soon!).

 We stopped in a Peruvian restaurant to look at the menu, which was mostly seafood.  They listed two chicken dishes on the extensive printed menu, both of which were not available.  My sister was already a bit queezy for seafood, so we decided to pass it up.  The lady followed us out of the restaurant, then explained that if we all wanted chicken, she would run to the store to get it!  Talk about bending over backwards for business!

We went to a place called "Fridays", that looked exactly like the American TGIF.  It even had a slogan "every day is Friday", and Jackie joked about the Bolivian version, EDIF.  

--> On the menu was a bunch of pasta dishes along with dishes like "Friday's Sandwich  and with no explanation.  When asked about it, the waiter was like "you know, it's bread, with meat.  And cheese...  It's really good."

--> Also on the menu was "Panini".  No description, nor could the waiter describe it.

--> I asked what the piña colada was like.  He described it as "you know, pineapple, and like... whiskey.  Yeah, it's blended"  (thankfully they used a drink book to make it without whiskey, but it was definitely not blended)

--> Our drink orders sat on slips of paper on the counter for literally 20 minutes, until I turned around and asked the bartender if he could at least open the beer for my dad.  He had no other customers.

The funniest thing about this bill is the it's listed in order that 

they were made. Beer, mixed drink, 4 main dishes, then the 

other 2 drinks.  Total of $40- can't complain I guess.

--> Misa's and Jackie's drink order was confused twice before they even started to make anything.

--> The food came out by some lady from the kitchen.  Then our silverware.  Then a few minutes later our bread.  Then a five minutes later some parmesan cheese.  Surprise!

-->  The sauce was great, but the lasagna and ravioli were notably microwaved.

--> The waiter gave me his phone number on a slip of paper under the bill.

At least we all left with a good laugh!

Tiburcia Gets a Pacemaker

Through some fantastic donations of a collaborating cardiologist and the group Kids for World Health (http://kfwhtrek.org/ - if kids can save lives with their spare change, so can you!), a previous researcher got a few pacemakers and cables to distribute to our neediest patients.  Note that all of our patients are the neediest- in the public hospital some barely have enough to cover the $8/day charge for the hospital bed and meals.

I met Tiburcia in one of the cardiology clinics at the hospital.  She had spend a year searching for a pacemaker, as she had Chagas related heart disease.  Not the common heart failure, but rather it affected her heart's conduction system (sick sinus syndrome exacerbated at night likely due to increased vagal tone, as shown on a 24 hour holter with numerous rhythm disturbances).

Tiburcia, me, daughter Alicia, and Dr. Vela
it's as if they smiled all morning until the camera came out

We set everything up with our collaborating surgeon, Dr. Vela, and I accompanied her on all the pre-op visits.  On February 22, I was gowned and watched patiently in the OR.  The generator, to make pulses for the hearts contraction, is placed just under the skin and the wires are threaded into the heart through veins. Her veins are incredibly thin (it took 6 sticks to draw our samples) so implanting the wires was difficult, possibly also due to their anatomy.   Instead of the normal 45 minutes, the surgery took 2.5 hours.  The whole time she was under only local anesthesia (general anesthesia not needed and could be fatal with her heart condition), and I cringed with every cringe she had.  Surgery is not for me.  The left side didn't work out, so they had to cut into the right side and start trying again. And much alternating between breath holding and daydreaming on my part, it was successfully placed and tested.  As basically the patient advocate, I was sent out to tell the family what post-op meds to purchase.  I walked out, fully masked and gowned, to all her children anxiously waiting.  And I told them she was fine and the surgery was successful, albeit with aforementioned complications which were resolved.  When I walked back into the OR, I was wearing a huge smile.  "I feel like a doctor".

Tiburcia is doing well post-operatively, and gave permission to share her details with others.  Thank you to all the collaborators and especially contributing kids out there- you have made 6 children quite like yourselves very happy : )

Campo!

Our friend Omar took us out to his campo, or basically farm.  It's about an hour outside the city, and it's maintained by a man and his family who live there for free.  Fantastic day to get away and relax.  Many thanks to Omar and his family!

singani is the local liquor of grapes

I'd have to say this is a first!  I'm wildly inefficient at this,
one guy filled a bucket faster than I would have filled the cup

starting off the morning right
ambrosia = singani, fresh milk, sugar
a little foamy, and what I could get
myself to drink was delicious

Guadalupe, Omar's Argentinian girlfriend, sports her Argentinian
hat in a field of soy.  Soy is actually one of the biggest crops here,
despite it not really being part of the diet. 

animal farm!  without the politics. could have played all day

I walked around this field for a while and stared down a horned bull.  Just tried not to make anyone mad.

we took a horse and buggy tour

favorite picture of the day