Day 29 6/20/13 (describing medical equipment in Spanish, we had a presentation?, actual lunch, autoclaves (in Spanish: autoclaves), breakin’ circuits for science, epic pastries and MORMONS!)

           Breakfast heading off to class: normal. Conversation and talking about how medical equipment functions in Spanish: not normal. Seriously this was actually a bit of a challenge as we had to pick a piece of equipment and describe how it works and some modifications we can do to fix the equipment if it’s broken. We had to do this twice too. I chose to describe a defib (and how it can function as an external pacemaker, restart the heart and act automatically (AED) to help a person (it can also help to fix ventricular fibrillation where the heart rhythm is out of whack) and how the defib charges up a huge current and then sends it through the chest with two electrodes close to the heart (upwards of 360 Joules for some units (probably enough to vaporize and LED))). I then talked about the different types of pumps and how there are pumps that work with a wheel and four small rollers on the wheels to push the fluid through the tubing under the wheel. I also talked about how some pumps have “fingers” that hit the tube in succession to push the fluid up or down in the tube. Additionally I mentioned the syringe pumps with stepper motors that turn just a bit with each pulse out of phase on the individual coils around the motor allowing for precise control of the motor. Anyways after that grammar was pretty normal and we covered the uses of the subjunctive a bit. We also heard about the presentation we had today about what we would do when we get back to the US. We had a bit to write what we wanted to say and then we corrected it with Mariella as we read it aloud. My plans involved biking quite a bit, wanting to take overnight trips with my bike and the VW bus camper we have. The plans also involve much skating and building of projects (including a robot I can sit in that I want to weld together). I also want to get back into whitewater kayaking with my mom (who’s much better than I) and some old peeps from Tumalo Creek Kayak and Canoe (where I worked for two summers back in high school). We actually had lunch today and it was chicken with breading and B&R and plantains. Good food.

Lecture was a quiz and then we got to learn about microscope and autoclaves (sterilizers). Pretty chill day. It started raining so hard at one point that we had to take a break from class as the rain was too loud on the steel roof. After that we had a cool lab on troubleshooting circuits (basically we would give our circuits (power supplies) and anything we built to another group and have them introduce problems into the circuit by removing components or cutting connections or adding wires. This was also an exercise in trying to not be a total jerk to other people as cutting some things on the supply could be quite irritating to get back together (such as cutting the capacitor leads in the variable power supply short against the cap). Luckily no one was a total jerk and we had no real problems. Dan and I cut one wire connection for the bridge rectifier for a group’s variable power supply and we also soldered the unconnected pot pin to the variable part. They found both problems after a bit of time (especially the power connection as I hid it against the board). The two problems on our board were that the wires on the voltage regulator were swapped and the one connection from the regulator was cut. Not too bad, although trying to swap the wires back was kind of a pain. We also reversed the batteries on their flashlight and they completely unsoldered our LED and swapped the polarity (not too hard to spot as one can look at the LED parts inside the head and see the polarity usually). Anyways another group took our baby alarm and soldered two of the output pins on the perfboard area of the PIC board together. Not too hard to fix after using a bit of solder braid so that was solid. That was about it after a quick mini-lecture on this oxygen concentrator tester (designed by two chicks at Tulane that went to Tanzania after seeing several fires from the candle test (putting a candle below the concentrated gas to see if there is more O₂)) that we will be trying out in the hospitals. I headed home after getting the money Mark owed me from Ometepe (good to have some cash again!). I stopped at the bakery to buy some good bread and ended up buying this delicious breaded loaf:

It basically is pastry/bread on the outside with this epic tasty apple cinnamon (cheese too?), sugary filling in the center baked to perfection so the sugar crystalizes and is a tad crunchy. So good. I had to go back later and buy two more (and met two Mormon chicks in Nicaragua for a mission trip (“mission for the church of Latter Day Saints” (immediately thought of Book of Mormon (look it up!)))). Anyways been writing pretty much all of tonight trying to catch up and helped Salvador test circuits with a DMM a bit. Grabbed a workout and had a dinner of more breaded chicken, some steak, lettuce like coleslaw, plantains and white rice and fried cheese (I’ve missed you oh so badly fried cheesy goodness (o how though art like a squeaky chewy piece of happiness)). It has been a good day and night. With that I’m calling this epic day to completion at 10:32 PM. Tomorrow is visiting Managua’s Lenin Fonseca hospital (devoted to taking care of trauma victims and ER cases (All free too)), so I have to be at school at 6:20 AM for another round of rush hour with EWH students and the mini-bus that we’ll most likely have. Peace!