SALUD Peru Participant Story

By Shane Smith, Guest Blogger – Peru, Summer 05 – About six months ago I was, like all first year medical students inching their way towards June, faced with a decision. How should I spend the final few months of summer vacation that I would ever be granted? Looking into my future I saw 40, maybe 50 years ahead of me void of a similar opportunity to follow my nose where it would lead without distraction.
There are several things to consider when making this decision and each must weigh them according to their own priorities. Being of the ambitious mold our type heralds it is natural to consider an activity that is both productive and fattening for one's CV.
Research The Study Abroad Opportunities
Even the word elicits a bilious taste in my mouth, along with memories of leeches sliced open and stuck with electrodes from my more sadistic undergraduate days. Obviously, my own unpreference for research is not shared by everyone, which is something I am glad of because hey, someone's gotta do it.
You might also consider working in order to pare down some of that crushing debt (or maybe just those gas bills) you are most likely incurring. And that would be fiscally responsible of you. But honestly, unless you're pulling down some serious cash how big a dent do you think you can make?
Volunteering, shadowing, plotting your revenge on all pathologists. These are all worthy endeavors. But I wanted to do something I couldn't do during the school year. And having lived in Los Angeles for 19 of my 24 years, what is the one thing that I want to do more than any other, but can't when classes are taking place? That's right, leave.
So, I got on a plane and went to Peru. Now, I've been around the States and to Canada, Mexico, and even to England. But Canada and England hardly qualify as significantly unfamiliar cultures and my trips to Mexico mainly consisted of 45-minute drives south from San Diego to Rosarito. Needless to say, Peru was an unknown quantity for me and once I crossed that Rubicon of ignorance I would surely be changed.
I spent the next 5 weeks learning to speak Spanish, volunteering in the local hospital, absorbing Peru's culture, and visiting some amazing places. The program, called SALUD, was organized by AmeriSpan in conjunction with a local language school and hospital in Cuzco. I took 80 hours of Spanish lessons and spent 40 hours volunteering in the hospital (which surprisingly was prettier than LA County). By the end, my Spanish was about 1000 percent improved and I had seen patients with TB, pseudomembranous colitis, leishmaniasis, and AIDS.
I was lucky enough to stay with a local family that treated me like the adopted gringo. Gilbert (the dad) is a civil engineer for the local government and Cecilia (the mom) owns a pizzeria. Mariana, nine, and Marcello, five, sang me happy birthday and gave me cologne for my 24th. I guess they thought I was smelly. Also, Marianna came down with measles and I actually got to see Koplik spots up close and personal. Yeah medicine!
Cuzco is an Andean city about a million people strong and located at 11,000 feet. Yes, the altitude took some getting used to but in no time I was playing fútbol and thinking back to that hemoglobin lecture in core with pictures of red-faced Cusqueñans kicking la pelota. My fellow grupo SALUD members, from med schools all over the country, and I had a favorite nightspot called Ukukus where we could test our newfound lung capacities. They always had a local band playing, plenty of dancing, and good drinks (I got fooled once though by the Pisco Sours which have egg-whites mixed in). And at the end of the night they always played Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. Funny how a song that I've heard 17,000 times can now have a new meaning attached to it.
The culture is mainly a mix of indigenous native-American (deriving from the Incas and pre-Incas) and Spanish. Accordingly, many people speak both Spanish and Quechua (the language of the Incas). Though poverty is ubiquitous, it's a lively community and the saying is that everyday there is either a fiesta or a protesta.
The food is somewhat similar to Mexican with lots of carbs, but it isn't spicy and they definitely have some unique specialties. One delicacy is alpaca, a relation of the llama, and it tastes kind of like a chicken/steak combo. They also like to eat roasted guinea pig, or cuy (COO-EE) and think we are the freaks for keeping them as pets. I must have grown up on a farm because I managed to not get sick once in five weeks. This is really quite amazing considering that the first dish I had there was eggs sunny-side up with hardly-cooked onions and I pretty much ate everything thrown at me, except the cuy.
I traveled to a few of the more miraculous places of the world while I was there. Machu Picchu (which means Old Mountain in Quechua) is remarkable for its perched location and impressive architecture. I visited the Colca Canyon, which is twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, and saw some wild giant condors. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable body of water in the world at 12, 500 feet above sea level. Basically, it's huge and it's high. I was told by some Grecians that it looks just like the Mediterranean. The Uros Islands, on the lake, are floating manmade islands of grass reeds where indigenous people live out their lives. I also spent a night on the Island of Amantani (a natural earth island) with a family that only speaks Quechua and watched the sunrise over the Bolivian Andes from the island peak. Better than research.
So, to wrap up, how would I rate my decision for the last summer vacation in sight? Well, I enjoyed all the people I met there, including the other medical students from around the country. I enjoyed the sights and the food. The music was great. I learned a bit of Spanish, I learned a little about Peruvian culture and heritage, and I learned about some less common diseases. That said, I also learned traveling is just as the cliché goes, addictive..