Guimaras village day 2

Up at 7am to have breakfast of fried egg, chips and rice which was a bit strange. Papa Doy took us to hospital in his trike and we went to the emergency room. Here we saw a patient come in acutely unwell with alcohol intoxication. He looked very poorly. Saw their initial management and within a few mins he was sat up and smiling so they had done well. There was a lady in labour there too who was 7cm dilated so when she was ready to go to delivery room we went with her. Here there was also a procedure going on which Lisa had never seen so I lent her my spare scrubs so that she could go and watch. I was then allowed to do a vaginal examination on the lady in labour which was really exciting as I had never examined someone with a dilated cervix before. She was 9cm now and I could feel the membranes which was cool. Sat around and waited for a while after that, but in an air con room so I didn’t mind so much! We went back to the emergency room and sat for a bit, one of the nurses suggested we go into the trauma room where one of the doctors was doing some suturing. Before we could do anything else, there was a woman holding a child and screaming. Went to see the child and he was having a seizure. We found out after that he had fallen over and had a head injury and had vomited, non of which are a good sign as he likely has a brain bleed. The nearest CT scanner and neurosurgery is back at western Visayas in Iloilo and so he was going to have to be rushed over there but that could take 2 hours! I’m really not sure if he will make it but I have asked one of the girls from the house who is on paeds to have a look out for him tomorrow and keep us updated with his condition, poor thing.
Mama Lucy came to pick us up at 11.30am and so we got to leave a bit early. Came back to the house and had lunch. All the meals here are massive, feel like I’m going to put back on all the weight I’ve lost so far! Had another afternoon nap, the heat here really takes it out of you.
Up at 2.30pm to go to our next activity. Today we were doing more weaving but this time with vines instead of the rattan type thing. This one was probably even more difficult than yesterday’s one. Sat playing with the cat in between times which is super cute. All the cats here have really stubby tails and apparently that’s just how they’re born, not that they’ve lost them in accidents which is what I initially thought. Our last activity of the day was learning about herbal medicine. It is a big thing here and the elders teach all of the children while they’re growing up so that they all know about it. It was really interesting but I can’t help but think that giving them some teaching about western medicine would be really useful, even if it was just about basic first aid or something as some of it sounds like it would possibly just make things worse!
After this we took the trike half way home but then got out and walked the rest of the way with Sherilyn so that we could take in some of the countryside. It was all really beautiful and we got to see the sun setting as we walked along. We stopped off at a little shop and got some soft drinks. They recycle all of their bottles here and so if you want to take the drink away they pour it into a small plastic bag and give you a straw, felt like a proper local. Saw a few enormous spiders on the way which were pretty gross. Sherilyn also picked us some fresh Guava to try, but both me and Lisa had to spit it out as it was not very nice. Got back to the house and had dinner of fried chicken (KFC style), a weird sweet potato leaves omelette thing, spring rolls and macaroni soup, bit of a random mixture. After this I showered and got into bed.Read more