Family Visits, Homestays, and our Last Day

Blog 7. Chone, Ecuador.

Our host family's grandkids + our playmates.

Wow. Today was the last day of our rotations in the Chone hospital, and we went on domicilio visits again today, this time with the psychologist.

Truly, truly these visits are 100% comprehensive - you really get to see what kind of living situation the patients are in. For example, in one home, the doctor was almost forced to interact with his environment — the parrot in the family’s backyard was nibbling on his shoulder, demanding his attention, so he picked it up. This really gives you a feel for how rural the household is. The psychologist did his magic again on these house visits (see this post for more info about psychological house visits).

Patient one: an old man with a catheter. We watched the catheter get changed today, and the discomfort the old man was experiencing was slightly traumatizing to watch. Ouch. I’ve heard so much about the catheter saving patients’ lives, but it’s not a pretty sight. The catheter apparently needs to be changed every 15 days.

Patient two: the old woman we saw yesterday who lived in a very, very rural part of Chone. She has dementia.

Patient three: a 24 year old young man who had gotten into a car accident almost two years before. He had suffered damage on the right side of his brain, but interestingly, which also confounded the doctor, the patient was also paralyzed on the right side of his body.

Break: the medical team made a pit stop on the side of the street to eat pulled pork in hot dog buns, garnished with cabbage and hot sauce. We were offered some and accepted; paired with Mas manzana juice, it was absolutely delicious.

Patient four: patient has Asperger’s and doesn’t like to interact much/have too many people around him. Thus, we waited outside during this house visit instead, as courtesy to the patient. Another example of domicilo visits being very accommodating to the patients.

The physician and the nurses were so incredibly kind to us, and they were a very comfortable crew around each other.

Afterwards, because today is our last day in Chone (we face an 8 hour bus ride to Quito tomorrow - joy) we came back to eat lunch at our host mom’s Mariana’s home. She cooked an amazing viche soup. We then played a couple of card games with their grandson and then fast and furious games of tag with their grandson and granddaughter, who joined us later. We then were invited to eat out with the family and taken to dinner and not one, but two amazing ice cream parlors. I have spent the rest of the evening making thank-you cards to the family and the children.

And really, I just want to take a moment to reflect on my host family. I think the most difficult thing about homestays is navigating how you fit in in somebody else’s home, when you know that your role is truly just “temporary guest.” Though homestays can offer you a room, it’s rare to feel “at home” in somebody else’s home, but our homestay in Chone was just fantastic. They truly show us what a strong extended family looks like, and with all the people and children going in and out of the house, I truly felt comfortable here. Little things, like checking up on us during dinners to ask whether the food was good, or giving us our own table during dinner so that we could talk among ourselves in English about the day (the only time we really felt comfortable doing so), to big things, like giving advice on how to get places and what buses and transportation to use and organizing the hospital rotations for us — they all add up. Like when I fell really ill a couple of mornings ago and had extreme pains in my stomach, and our host mom just let me rest, and then when I was good enough to walk outside, I found that she had taken out all of her son’s medicine (her son is the director of the hospital we’re rotating at) to see which medication I would be able to take. Like when the children come and wait for us to come home so that we can play and talk with them. Like when the animals start to treat us as part of the family too. It’s an amazing, invaluable experience, and if you make an effort to be included — I think our host family really appreciated us taking care of the children and complimenting their food and asking whether they needed help — it will definitely be reciprocated, in many different amazing ways.

Thanks for everything, Chone. Cuidase.