I realize that title may sound a bit alarming but rest
assured I am in decent health. Today we went to Quito for a visit to the Ecuador
Peace Corps office. We had two meetings in the morning over safety and security
and general health. In the afternoon we were slated to go with our small
language and culture groups to various parts of the city to interact with the
real people of Quito.
I, on the other hand, spent my morning in the hospital. In
order to explain why I need to explain what happened the day before. I hate to
reinforce a Peace Corps stereotype, but my injury occurred while playing
Ultimate Frisbee…
In hot pursuit of the Frisbee near the end zone, I collided
with two fellow PCTs. My shoulder rolled far back behind me and I heard a nasty
tearing sound. I sat out of the game for a few minutes assessing my injuries.
Assuring myself and others that I was fine I hopped back in the game being careful
not to extend my left arm. We went on to win the game which made me forget
about the pain. Last night I had a difficult time sleeping and decided it was
best to call in medical help this morning. Let me say that the Peace Corps
Medical staff and care are the absolute best. Even a Frisbee related injury is
covered. They inspected my shoulder and sent me in for x-rays. I had not ventured
out alone very much and especially not in a city of 1.7 million people. I had
to navigate to the hospital alone and explain to the hospital that not only did
I need x-rays, but I wasn’t going to pay for them.
Long story short, I got my x-rays taken and then off to the “old
town” of Quito with my language and culture group. I would later find out that
I had not broken anything, simply sprained my shoulder. My small group went to
Old Town to speak with the people. This turned into the three of us getting a
sit down interview with the Secretary of the Municipality. Long title meaning
he worked for the mayor of Quito and thus, the people of Quito. We learned a
lot from him but the best part of the day was spent in a church built in the
1500s. Many of the buildings in the Old Town are from this same time period. A
few are the oldest churches in Latin America, the Compania in particular. We
didn’t get to spend as much time there as I would have hoped but there will be
many more trips in the future.
For lunch we decided on a small traditional Ecuadorian restaurant.
A full cooked pig was in front of the restaurant and as you walked in a small
waitress would hand you a piece of meat freshly picked from the pig on display.
I thought I might have a hard time eating something that I had just seen torn
from the body of it’s owner but the meat was delicious. When we ordered our
food the waitress stacked out plates with fresh pig meat. To top it off she
torn a small piece of pork rind from the pigs hide and placed it on top. So
long as I didn’t look at Porky the Pig in front of the place I could eat the succulent
meal with delight.
New experiences every day keep my life interesting. My hope
for my service here and even my life is to learn something, eat something or do
something that I have never done before. New experiences lead to knowledge,
knowledge leads to understanding and understanding is the only method to eradicate
ignorance within myself.
Moral of the this post, we won the game of Ultimate.
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