The Story of How I Spent 5 Hours in a Peruvian Hospital, and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being an American Abroad

So I have truly been hesitant about posting any sort of thought beyond the very basic "what am I going to do today?" and "wow, I sure did enjoy my trip to those ruins!" for two reasons.

a) I look forward to actual one on one conversation with everyone at home, because truly it is difficult to put into words what it's like to be here. It's more than I can express with words on a screen.

b) I look at the blank page on blogger.com and completely blank as to what I have been doing with my life for the past week. What does everyone want to know? Do they even care about half the stuff I want to post on here?

Thus days go by, and words go unwritten. So I'm sorry about that if you're keeping tabs, I don't mean to keep anyone out of the loop. There have been a few personal thoughts about Americans that I would like to share on here, but first the humorous and truly pathetic tale of how I spent 5 hours in a Peruvian hospital with nothing but a pale expression of sheer panic across my face. Those poor nurses!

This tale begins on Sunday, when I woke up not with a hangover, but actual, real live crippling disease forcing me to remain pathetically glued to my bed for the entire day. And this continued for 5 day. And on the 5th day, God said "GO TO THE FUCKING CLINIC, YOU IDIOT." Not wanting to ignore God's wishes, I went to the fucking clinic.

I got a ride from Cristian's wonderful wife Fanny, who was just so sweet. Plus, it was wonderful not to have to ride in a taxi for once. Have I mentioned how scary the taxis are? No seatbelts, really fast driving all the time. You think New York is bad? I spend half the time with my hands over my eyes. But to quote the not dead yet guy from Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet!" So there.

I arrived at the hospital, and didn't have to wait long to be seen. I was really impressed by Macsalud, aside from it being a teeny bit dark and a teeny bit chilly. In general, communication is not very difficult for me, but in this situation, describing my symptoms properly was incredibly difficult, especially when I only knew three words to help me out in spanish: doloroso (painful), pastilla (throat), and enferma (sick). Eventually, I think they understood that my throat hurt, my nose was a faucet of nasty green sludge, and a variety of other truly disgusting things that showed up when I coughed and will remain nameless. All of the basic check up procedures were easy to follow. I know to breathe deeply when someone is holding a stethoscope up, and to pull up my sleeves when someone is going to test my blood pressure, etc. But I was completely unprepared to be dragged into the next room for a blood test. The second I was strapped down in that blood-taking chair, I seized up and got so pale, the poor nurse didn't know what to say, so I think she probably said every calming word she knew. I only caught "tranquilo," which means "stay calm." Obviously. Which doesn't help, because someone asking you to remain calm obviously implies reason to panic. Before closing my eyes, rolling up my sleeves and preparing for the worst, I made sure to watch where the needle was coming from, just because I am that paranoid. One less thing to worry about, everything came from a fresh package, thank god. I honestly didn't expect less considering how clean the hospital was, but still. What a relief. The little tube she connected to the needle was different than what's used for blood tests in America, but I didn't actually keep my eyes open for the process. I managed to get a sidelong glance in the mirror afterward, and WOW did I get pale quickly after that. As if I wasn't scared enough having to get blood drawn, the doctor asked me if I'd ever had a serious chest infection before and how long ago. He said my breathing sounded strained and he wanted to make sure my lungs were not showing any signs of fluid build up, so down I went to get x rays. This wasn't so much scary as it was confusing, because they have no place to take your clothes off. So, freezing cold and stripped down in public to my tank top (using my skills from theater quick changes to get my bra off awkwardly), I stood against the metal plate and got my first (and hopefully last) Peruvian x rays taken. I actually got to see them, which was so fucking cool, I have never seen my own x rays before. You can see your ribs, heart, lungs, everything!

But ok, back to being scared. Because I was at the time. I then had to wait for my test results to come in, which took about 3 hours. They escorted me up to a nice guest suite, but unfortunately I spent the entire three hours coughing and curled up in the fetal position balling my eyes out. The worst part is you had a perfect view of the airport from the window, and I seriously couldn't stop thinking about jumping on that plane and going home right that minute.

At about 2 in the afternoon the doctor comes in and tells me that THANK GOD I am well enough to make the trek to Machu Picchu this weekend, and I have an upper respiratory infection that, with some sleep and a shit ton of antibiotics, should be out of my system in 5 more days or less. I have four different kinds of meds to take, all for various nasty symptoms, and then they sent me on my way. And the only really good part about this, besides finding out I was in fact not going to die, was that on the way home Fanny brought her children in the car and they are SO cute, oh my god.

So my advice is, invest in some spanish medical terminology before you go to a spanish speaking country. For real.

Now on to something more serious than upper respiratory infections.

Americans.

Let me start off by saying that when you tell people you're studying abroad, you're going to get a lot of opinions on how not to act. Everyone is going to want to tell you what "Americans do abroad."

It's not as bad as people say. For the most part.

It's easy when you go to another culture to step into a role of an observer, soaking in everything you can about the other culture, and whether you like it or not, passing judgment. This is not something you can help, it's human nature. You're going to do it to them, and they in turn will do it to you. And it's very easy, because noticing differences is very easy to do. It's even easy to notice the similarities in comparison to how difficult it is to observe yourself and other Americans, "some of your own," in a foreign country. At first, you won't notice them, and you won't notice the difference between an American, the British, the French, or any other white, westernized woman walking down the street in a North Face jacket and sunglasses. Who comes from where is not important. When you're in a foreign country, one of the most important things you can do it take a step back, and look at yourself for a change, and your culture. Observe yourself as an anthropologist, and study your own culture from their perspective. No one really cares about time here, but you check your watch constantly. Here, that is rude. You may take pride in your timeliness, but you also have to understand why whoever you are meeting with looks so offended. Is he not worth your time? You don't call to check in on your family today, but to them, it looks like you don't care about your kin because family is THE most important thing, whereas we strive for independence, and are proud of that, but it's an ugly American trait here.

Don't be ashamed that you're different, and don't try to hide the fact that you're American. Don't walk around in a stars and stripes bathing suit, but when someone asks you about our country, don't say "well, that's not me." It probably IS you, but you have to explain why we do what we do. And then show you've noticed how they do things differently, show that you've learned something by being here. The two worst things you could do abroad is to either deny your own culture and try to hide, or to completely resist the other culture to the point of looking arrogant. Just take it in stride. Be proud of where you come from, and be proud of your new home.