Day 27 6/18/13 (Never eat Chicaron, hospitals in Managua, randomness, falsely high BP, WiFi and a happy ending (without the sketchiness))

              Good news y’all! Today was probably the first day I didn’t wake up at 5 AM (and woke up at 6:40 AM! It’s good to know that I finally could sleep that extra little bit, although it didn’t seem to help me all that much when it came to speaking and understanding people today in class. Anyways, breakfast was interesting this morning with tamal (like a tasteless slice of corn food with the consistency of a boiled carrot). We also had rice and this object called chicaron (basically fried pig skin) I downed everything on my plate and didn’t hear it was pig skin until after -.- // my stomach (not actually though). It was a tad hard to get down as it was just fat and grease, I felt awful for most of the morning after (waiting or my heart attack). We made it just in time for classes this morning. Today was the big day that we were going to have an exam of about 7 pages of engineering and medical vocab in Spanish and English. I had studied a bit every day and it wasn’t too bad to learn them. Today in conversation we talked about the 5 major hospitals in Managua: Lenin Fonseca (that deals almost exclusively with trauma and ER cases), Bertha Calderon (that is a women’s hospital), La Mascota (the children’s hospital), Manolo Morales (that is for plastic surgery and facial reconstruction (maxilo facil) and Velez Paiz (that deals with newly born babies). All of these hospitals are free (sounds like a good system!). The problem comes in however with paying for medicine which not all the hospitals have; thus forcing the patients to go to private pharmacies and pay high amounts for the meds. Random note: sabor = flavor. We also talked a bit about the fishing championship held in San Carlos called the Sabalo Real (which takes place in September and sometimes fish upwards of 110 lbs. or 55 kilos have been caught O.o it’s like hoisting a 14 year old out of the water!). Apparently the fish also jump from the water and flop all around. Random note: quadracielo = ATV. There is also apparently a group called HKND that is looking into the impact of the canal here in Nicaragua. I apologize for the randomness of the past bit. After conversation (and discussing a few other minor wording changes), we had to wait about 40 minutes for the exam on the vocabulario (nosotros hablamos con Mariella de nuestros fines de semana). The exam was actually a bit hard in my opinion, because despite me knowing the vocab, I couldn’t really say what some of the words were in English (I didn’t know what the equipment did). I think that I did somewhat okay despite futzing up a few words (because I didn’t know the dual meanings of some of the words such as componer (to compose or to fix). Anyways, lunch was interesting as it was this broth with potatoes and this beef on two bones (that looked like ribs). It was pretty chewy and I couldn’t really eat all of it. Consequently I was so hungry later. After lunch we had a quiz, a long lecture on laboratory equipment (centrifuges, scales and balances (not the same thing) and on electric motors). The motors part was interesting as it was motors (I mean do I really need a reason to like motors with magnetic fields and stepper controls?). The lab was about seeing types of medical equipment and thinking on the testing of the device and the basic parts. My favorite part was the manual BP cuff that said my BP was around 160/120 (rest) when the automatic said it was 117/78 (O.o).

After that it was basically 5 PM and I headed to Euro Café to lurk on the internet for a bit before heading home. Today was quite tiring and hadn’t been all that great of a day until I arrived back home. First I was able to talk to my host mom quite well and that was cool, but she said that we had the device for WiFi! Aw yeah! Internet at home! It wasn’t hooked up yet though, so I had to wait a bit until close to dinner time. Also I heard that we were having repochete (those epic crunch-wrap supreme tortilla jawns minus the crunch and lettuce) for dinner. Salvador called Claro and the internet started working (so now I can haz WiFi at home!) and I had that epic double-tortilla no-waiting crispy piece of happiness topped with freshly cut tomatoes and cream. The day ended so nicely. Now time to blog!