Ecuador, Si Se Puede!

The World Cup began on Friday, in case you missed that. For those of you in the US who don't know, the World Cup is an international soccer (futbol) tournament that is kind of a big deal in the rest of the world. For example, Ecuador played Poland on Friday and the president of Ecuador declared it a national holiday. The World Cup comes around every 4 years and I'm guessing that to the general public of the world (excluding the US) it is more important than the Olympics. It's hard to explain how big of a deal it is to Americans who aren't aware that soccer exists beyond the YMCA leagues. On my way through town Friday, the traffic was incredible, the streets were packed with vendors selling Ecuador jerseys, hats, and flags. Probably 75% of all the people in the city were wearing their blue, yellow, and red Ecuadorian futbol jerseys. Almost all shops, stores, and businesses closed for the afternoon when the game started. Life came to a standstill around the nearest TV. It was fun to see how everyone managed to be in sight of a television screen - whether it meant standing or sitting on the sidewalk outside of electronics stores watching the monitors in the windows, huddling around a TV the size of a toaster on a desk, carrying their own portable TV, etc. It was like a real life Coke commercial or something.

Unfortunately, I was scheduled to work in the ER during the game. But that didn't mean that I didn't know exactly what was happening and what the score was at all times. The shouts throughout the halls of the hospital kept me updated. There was a man in the waiting room with a handheld TV around which many of the nurses and doctors would huddle when the work was slow - and the work was slow all afternoon. Nobody was going to come to the ER during the game unless they absolutely had to. Whatever minor pain or illness they had could wait for 90 minutes. The entire radiology department of the hospital was crowded around a TV in the x-ray room. It was crazy. More crazy than Lincoln on a Saturday morning in the fall when the Huskers are in town. And I have a feeling that the World Cup creates this kind of excitement throughout most of the entire world besides the U.S. I feel like we are really out of step with the world on this one. Well, we are out of step with the world with regards to a lot of things, but as sports-crazed as our nation is, it is suprising that we haven't latched onto the World Cup madness. I suppose there is not enough profit potential for corporations to really market it in the U.S. Let's blame it on the big bad corporations.

Ecuador beat Poland 2-0, and the country rejoiced, all night long. The streets were packed all evening. Many major intersections were closed down and police were directing traffic. Here they have a car horn honk for everything, and the universal honk for victory is...beep...beep...beepbeepbeep. It filled the streets late into the night. There was loud music, yelling, dancing, honking, and much Pilsener being drank (the popular brew of choice) late into the night. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleeping done that night due to the street noise. "Ecuador, Si Se Puede!" is the cheer of choice for futbol here - I suppose you could compare it to "Go Big Red!".

Aside from the World Cup madness, the ER was pretty uneventful. First of all, it is difficult as a volunteer in a new place like a hospital ER. Everyone is pretty busy and somewhat stressed out, and there you are standing around, getting in peoples' ways, not knowing what you should be doing in the first place, unable to do anything of real medical value, and a relative stranger to the staff. Add on top of all that a significant language barrier, and you have a recipe for a frustrating and awkward first couple of hours. But after standing there looking like a lost and scared puppy dog for a few hours, the staff slowly figured out that I probably wasn't going to go away anytime soon. So one of the resident doctors felt sorry for me and decided to introduce herself. She took a look at my University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics nametag, recognized the logo and gave me a look of suprise and a smile. She then took out her PDA and pulled up a program called "Virtual Hospital" which is run by the U of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and pointed to the same logo on her screen. I shook my head and said, "That's a good program" (in my best broken Spanish). "Extremely good" she added. Yes!, instant credibility. Who would have thought that a program put out by the U of I would be in use in a hospital in Quito, Ecuador? I have to say that I felt a twinge of school pride at that point.

From then on, things were better. She introduced me to most of the staff, told them why I was there and what I was doing (only shadowing/observing). She asked if I would like to shadow the nurses or the doctors. This was the first time that I had been allowed to "hang out" at the doctors' desk, and I have to admit, it felt kind of nice to finally be in the circle. A couple of times, other doctors, nurses, or patients would come up to us and nod their head and say "Buenos tardes, doctor" to me. It was very funny to me, because I know that I am nowhere close to being a doctor, but I didn't dare try to correct them. I just nodded and smiled in return. I will say, I did look the part with my long white coat, nametag, and stethoscope around my neck. But the fact of the matter is, if I had been asked to do anything of medical significance there, I probably would have wet myself and then ran away and hid in a closet. But fortunately, I was never called upon to do anything, besides stay out of the way of the real doctors. That afternoon we didn't see anything too incredibly interesting, but just being around an environment where medical care was being delivered in Spanish was educational and satisfying enough for me.