This week has gone by in a blur!
Early on Monday morning our close friends Will and Antoinette arrived from the airport. Although I felt torn between wanting to do a good job at work this week and wanting to catch up with my friends, I opted not to go to the hospital on Monday and instead volunteer as a Lima tour guide :) We decided to visit the buffet restaurant Jeff and I had really liked back in September to introduce our newcomers to some of the greatest hits of Peruvian cuisine. Jeff and I have sometimes chuckled at most Peruvians' over-zealous insistence that their food is the best in the world (we don't agree), but really it is quite good and I was excited to tell my friends about some of the dishes we've come to appreciate. To work up our appetite, first we walked around the historic center which is an area I almost never visit because it's busy and far from Surco. We admired the colonial architecture and did a tour of a beautiful 16th century church/monastery that included some delightfully creepy catacombs. Then we went to our favorite neighborhood Barranco for coffee and watching the sun set from the rocky shore. I was glad to introduce our visitors to the wonderful sound of the waves crashing and pulling the smooth rocks towards the ocean, which is one of my favorite things about Lima. We went back to Barranco on Wednesday night for a bar crawl (we only ended up going to 2 places before concluding we needed burritos) and had some tasty craft beers and cocktails.
Jeff and I went to our respective hospitals the rest of the week, but took advantage of the afternoons to show our friends the great "menu" restaurant down the street from us and to walk around our lovely neighborhood parks, with a brief introduction to slacklining :) On Tuesday night we invited Hansel and a couple people rotating in the infectious disease unit at Dos de Mayo to join us for a dinner party. Even though we didn't give ourselves much time to prepare the food, I was pleased with our group effort as everybody chipped in to chop veggies, squeeze limes, and cook crepes. We talked, laughed, and played Dixit, which reminded me of the routine brunches and dinner parties we would often host at our old house in Rochester.
After our friends left for Cuzco on Thursday, Jeff and I renewed our focus on completing the manuscript draft for the short report about bringing new anti-TB drugs to Peru, which we will send to our supervisor today for review. I felt accomplished when I recruited a new patient to the HIV study at Dos de Mayo on Thursday, even though I ended up having a long workday on Friday as I attempted to coordinate the collection of a cerebro-spinal fluid sample. It surprises me how much work goes in to collecting even just one little sample! Perhaps my biggest professional lesson from this year is that research in a limited-resource setting can be unexpectedly tricky and is often a learn-as-you-go process. Even though I've certainly appreciated the opportunity to have this experience in Peru, it makes me look forward to returning to the relative simplicity and more-immediate impact of taking care of patients.
Early on Monday morning our close friends Will and Antoinette arrived from the airport. Although I felt torn between wanting to do a good job at work this week and wanting to catch up with my friends, I opted not to go to the hospital on Monday and instead volunteer as a Lima tour guide :) We decided to visit the buffet restaurant Jeff and I had really liked back in September to introduce our newcomers to some of the greatest hits of Peruvian cuisine. Jeff and I have sometimes chuckled at most Peruvians' over-zealous insistence that their food is the best in the world (we don't agree), but really it is quite good and I was excited to tell my friends about some of the dishes we've come to appreciate. To work up our appetite, first we walked around the historic center which is an area I almost never visit because it's busy and far from Surco. We admired the colonial architecture and did a tour of a beautiful 16th century church/monastery that included some delightfully creepy catacombs. Then we went to our favorite neighborhood Barranco for coffee and watching the sun set from the rocky shore. I was glad to introduce our visitors to the wonderful sound of the waves crashing and pulling the smooth rocks towards the ocean, which is one of my favorite things about Lima. We went back to Barranco on Wednesday night for a bar crawl (we only ended up going to 2 places before concluding we needed burritos) and had some tasty craft beers and cocktails.
Jeff and I went to our respective hospitals the rest of the week, but took advantage of the afternoons to show our friends the great "menu" restaurant down the street from us and to walk around our lovely neighborhood parks, with a brief introduction to slacklining :) On Tuesday night we invited Hansel and a couple people rotating in the infectious disease unit at Dos de Mayo to join us for a dinner party. Even though we didn't give ourselves much time to prepare the food, I was pleased with our group effort as everybody chipped in to chop veggies, squeeze limes, and cook crepes. We talked, laughed, and played Dixit, which reminded me of the routine brunches and dinner parties we would often host at our old house in Rochester.
After our friends left for Cuzco on Thursday, Jeff and I renewed our focus on completing the manuscript draft for the short report about bringing new anti-TB drugs to Peru, which we will send to our supervisor today for review. I felt accomplished when I recruited a new patient to the HIV study at Dos de Mayo on Thursday, even though I ended up having a long workday on Friday as I attempted to coordinate the collection of a cerebro-spinal fluid sample. It surprises me how much work goes in to collecting even just one little sample! Perhaps my biggest professional lesson from this year is that research in a limited-resource setting can be unexpectedly tricky and is often a learn-as-you-go process. Even though I've certainly appreciated the opportunity to have this experience in Peru, it makes me look forward to returning to the relative simplicity and more-immediate impact of taking care of patients.
Sounds like fun. Be careful on that slacklining :)
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