So...considering that I only got to go to my volunteer placement twice last week thanks to the strike, there wasn´t much worth blogging about. But now there defintely is...

Monday- I spent the first part of my morning working with the doctor and offered to help him fill out paperwork for a bit. However, he did not have a pen so I had to go around the clinic and ask for one. Apparently no one had one that they would let me use, so I was instructed to go across the street and buy a pen to use in the clinic. I´m not going to lie...this is the first doctor´s office/hospital I´ve been in where there is a shortage of pens. In the midst of my search for a pen I get asked to help in the kids clinic (which sounds 1000x more fun that paperwork). So once I found, I mean bought a pen, I headed back there. My job involved weighing, measuring and immunizing kids. Random side note- in Peru they like to weigh their kids butt-naked...they even remove the pony tail holders from their hair! Go figure... So anyways this mom came in with her little boy and as she was undressing him, he decides its a good time to go pee. A massive urine puddle on the floor is the result...the nurse finishes up with this patient and I wrongly assume that it will get cleaned up after he leaves. Granted urine is sterile, but it is a waste product nonetheless. My type A personality went insane for the next 2 hours, as I watched people step in the pee, drop toys in the pee, and yes...play in the pee. I miss my sterile healthcare environment...haha!

Tuesday- Again I am helping the doctor upstairs, but this time my heart gets ripped out when two girls come in ALONE. Both parents were at work (entre comillas...in quotes). The "big" sister was 9...the younger one was 3. Both were underweight and had intestinal parasites. The doctor said that the "older" sister always comes in alone...and apparently this is a typical scenario in all of Peru. I sat there and tried to imagine Chass´s little sister going to the doctor by herself AND taking care of a 3 year old. The forced maturity and the physical state of this girl was so tragic...I sat in silence for a bit, holding back the tears. Sometimes the reality of poverty is hard to swallow...you hear about it on the radio, read about it on the internet, see it on tv, but when you see it in real life it is a totally different thing. The whole situation made me sad at first, but then angry. I can take it when I see adults in poverty, as tragic as it may be, but when you see kids in this situation, it really breaks your heart. They haven´t done a single thing wrong! They were born into this situation and even more sad is the fact that they probably will never escape this situation. The problem is that poverty is such a big issue in Peru that I don´t think anyone knows where to start... Fixing a problem this big is going to take more than my 5 weeks here, which really, really makes me sad.