I awoke this morning to the rooster
crowing right next to my window at 6:00 am. We were getting ready for the days
trip to Urumbamba, which is about two hours north of Cusco. With the only real
knowledge of what to expect being that most of us would performing a Papanicolao
(Pap smear) or giving a survey to the indigenous women of this rural town tucked
away in the Andes. Our group anxiously stood outside our clinic in the cool,
but not quit winter air, awaiting our bus that would ferry us to our
destination. I was pleased when the bus arrived well equipped with the modern
amenities of four tires, a roof, and a windshield. I don’t know what I was
expecting, maybe something similar to the bus we crowded into the previous
night, which consisted of forty people piled in a bus fit for twenty.
We made our way out of the Indy
500, also known as downtown Cusco, into the more rural sections of town and I
was amazed not only by the backdrop of 20,000 ft. peaks but the community of
people who live in this area. People who have been to developing countries
always try to explain the conditions that the people live in but truly, it is
hard to grasp until you see it for yourself. As we got closer to the clinic it
became more and more rural, dotted by the Quechua women with babies wrapped
around their backs and kids running across the dirt road getting good warning
of our presence by the horn blown by the bus driver.
The goal for the trip today, as
well as the research for the whole summer, is to assess the care that women
receive from our screenings in our one-day makeshift clinics and also at the
permanent CerviCusco clinic site. We assess this by surveys given that day. Now,
normally this wouldn’t be a problem. Hand a person a survey, let them fill it
out, get it back and done, instant data. This is no problem for the women who
speak Spanish because most can read and if not, someone is able to explain the
questions to them. The problem lies when we get to our true target population,
the Quechua women. What is so special about this culture? Quechua is ONLY a
spoken language. One can only imagine the problems that can occur when trying
to administer a survey to a person who speaks a language that is not written. Did
I mention that this language is NOT written? My head is hurting just thinking
about it. Long story short, the tool used to do this consists of a translator,
powerpoint presentation and some numbers and symbols that represent answers.
Really, I’m going to need a few more weeks to wrap my head around this convoluted
system of data collection but it seems the only way to get feedback from these
women about their medical history and experience at the clinic.
Needless to say there was a tough
learning curve today for Miles, Claire, Mariah and myself, but with any new
thing you never now what to expect. Like Whatley says, “you can train all you
want but until that first race of the season you don’t know where your fitness
it.” In our case, we came across something new and had to adapt and tomorrow
will hopefully run more smoothly. Also, I managed to butcher more Spanish words
today and continue to give the locals a laugh. Most of the time I just stand
there with a smile and hope they don’t think I’m a complete idiot. I was told
the indigenous women think I’ve got pretty eyes, so I’ve got one thing going
for me...
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