El beso del insecto

Sunday was a fun day, we went to a church in Cochabamba where they spoke Spanish and only Spanish.  Our house father who takes us where we need to go and helps us around sat next to me and translated a bit so I could at least understand what the sermon was about.  I'm catching on to Spanish a little bit, it's easier for me to read and assoicate words with english even though they may not always be right.  After that we just hung out at the house and played mafia with each other having fun and bonding. 

This morning Anna and I were assigned to Internal Medicine where we saw a total of 4 patients.  One had a urinary tract infection that was easily taken care of with antibiotics.  The others all had a sickness called chagas which is a parasite infection.  It comes from a fly common around here called the "kissing fly", it bites it's victim and deficates at the same time.  When the person itches the bite they rub the feces which containes the parasite into the bite and into thier body.  It effects many parts of the body including the heart, stomach and lungs.  They have no cure here, so the people just live with it until it consumes them.  Very sad, and it is quite common around here because the fly lives in the bricks they commonly make houses out of. 

After that we went to an orphanage where there were 12 5-9 year olds who just wanted someone to play with.  I did my best through broken Spanish and some English words to communicate.  I ended up playing with legos with a little girl and picking up different color blocks because I know some colors in spanish and she had fun with that.  There were also two dogs who seemed to be tortured by the children, they ran to me for refuge whe the kids were chasing them and I enjoyed petting them. 

This evening I helped our house mother Claudia make supper, manicotti, and we had a nice meal together.  Anna has been feeling sick all day, probably from something we ate yesterday so she didn't eat.  She got sick just a while ago and was feeling a little better, but I think it's getting worse again.  Pray for her that she feels better and will at least be able to keep water down so she doesn't get dehydrated.  I will continue to keep you updated, thank you for your support and your prayers.  Thanks for reading!  God Bless!

Sarah