Day 6 - en los médicos clases de español.

              We have arrived at week two of our medical Spanish experience. We were met this morning by the weather gods of torrential downpour. I did not have an umbrella but one of the girls let me share. We tried to hideout under a tree but that was not helping anything. We were all soaked. The weather here is so unpredictable.

 Wow, last week went by so fast. I am beginning to really catch on an understand more of what is being taught, but then there is always new things that come up and I feel like I just took a step backwards. Today in cultura clase we learned about the Mexican fiesta of food. Our teacher said that in Mexican culture eating is a social gathering of the family. The largest meal of the day is shared in the afternoon between 2:30 and 3:30pm. The meal later in the evening/night is more of a snack than a full meal. I personally like this cultural difference because you get to eat your heaviest meal earlier in the day. I wasn’t as convinced with the idea that in the Mexican culture some believe that they get their entire nutritional needs meet from what they eat, with no other extra supplements needed.

This past weekend we ventured out. On Saturday we went to the Mercado San Juan de Dios. It was quite different than any other indoor market that I have ever experienced. It was very packed with vendors and I started feeling very claustrophobic. It was interesting to see what the vendors were selling, but it started to feel a little repetitive. There was a part of the market that focused on the belief of alternative healing. There is a group of people within the Mexican culture that believe in natural herb remedies. It doesn’t seem that unusual to me that people believe this way, but in Mexican culture, it is kept rather quite. When we tried to ask some of the vendors for recommendations of what they believed would be helpful for a symptom, they would tell us the answer and then walk away and hide, not answer us at all or tell us to ask the next vendor. It was quit uncomfortable for us because we didn’t realize that they would act this way. The other interesting perspective I saw while walking through the Mercado was the openness of women breast feeding without any coverage. In the US it is still thought of as a stigma even though it is the most natural way to nourish a baby. My experience at San Juan de Dios was definitely an eye opening one.       

One thing that I always have to remember with nursing is - PATIENCE

Favorite Spanish sentence of the day – Me duele la cabeza de todos los espanoles que estoy aprendiendo tan rapido. This sentence is a common occurs daily because we are learning so much information in such a little time. It means – My head hurts from all the Spanish that I am learning so quickly.