Top 10 Tips For Living/ Travelling in Lima, Peru March 7, 2008
10) Vivanda has free FAST wireless internet – most places top out at 10kb/s @ Vivanda you can download at up 150kb/s! (Benavides & Alcanfores)
9) La Maquina Cafe – By far the most down cafe in Lima w/ free wireless (Alcanfores cuadra 3 – close to the above Vivanda store)
Iskay Restaurant in Parque Barranco – The daily Menu is 7 Soles. you won’t ever see it publisized you have to ask for it. Definately the best menu in Lima, Peru!
7) Parque de la Reserva/ Circuito Mágico del Agua – The best spent 4 soles of my trip. Bring your swimming trunks. – http://amarengo.org/Circuito-Magico-del-Agua
6) La Noche on Monday Nights – Free Latin Jazz most of the nights… randomly mixed with other types of live music. – http://www.lanoche.com.pe/
5) Cafe K’antu in Parque Barranco – The only Fair Trade Coffee Shop & Artesania Shop In Lima, Peru – K’antu is just one project of CIAP, Central Interregional de Artisanos del Peru, an organization of Peruvian craftsmen dedicated to producing and exporting products of Peruvian artisans as well as improving working and living conditions for their families and communities. The CIAP is part of the Fair Trade movement in Peru. They also have a microloan office, export organization, travel agency and national distribution organization.(Av. Grau No. 323, Barranco, Lima, Peru Telephone: 7198231)
4) Punta Azul – Best Deal For Hella Good Ceviche (Larco & San Martin – Miraflores)
3) TO BE CONTINUED…
Download DJ Amplive Remixes of RadioHead’s New Album February 18, 2008
Simply amazing…Click on link to download the legally free album: http://www.onesevensevensix.com/amplive/index.html
What Does It Mean To Have A Strike At A Hospital? December 24, 2007
I was not sure to expect when I was told by one of the nurses that a strike had begun at Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo (HNDDM) in Lima, Peru. I had read about strikes or huelgas happening throughout Peru but often times its impact on the civilian population of the country is rarely the focus of attention. This time the affected ones were not only part of the civilian population but they were patients within a hospital. As I went about recruiting Health Care Workers (HCWs) into my TB project I tried to ask the nurses and doctors about how this strike affected both the health care worker and the patient. I was shocked by their replies. It seems that the end result is not only an overworking of the personnel, at one point the head nurse was covering the entire Pulmonary Department by herself, in addition the patients are the ultimate payers. One nurse told me that one horrible aspect of the huelga was due to the cooks going on strike. This resulted in the patients only getting a fraction of the food they were used to receiving. She made a gesture with her hand which showed me they were consuming about a third of a cup of soup for lunch. This is a nightmare for a patient suffering from Tuberculosis; a disease known to be affected by nutrition. I asked many HCWs when would the strike end and thier answers were confirmed when I came across the chalkboard with the with the words HUELGA INDIFINIDA; Indefinite Strike. It began on Monday, January 10th. It was unknown when it would end.
On the other hand I couldn’t help but empathize with the physicians, nurses, and other HCWs at this hospital. In addition to receiving a small pay check their annual bonus, which I am sure they had already spent on gifts for Christmas, was taken away. I could not help but think what would I do in their position. Would I just stand and watch that happen being content with only complaining to my peers. Or would I take action? Medicine is an interesting field because when a strike occurs it much more than a loss of profit for a company, it is also a loss of care for a patient. Although I will probably work in the US where a strike if often unnecessary, it is often times a real dilemma for HCWs working in developing nations and the topic demands attention.
In Peru most companies give their workers a Christmas bonus. Yesterday a taxi driver driving my sister and I from the airport told us that he received 6 kilos of turkey as his bonus. This was the first year that the government decided not to give the HCWs at HNDDM their annual Christmas bonus of 200 soles, equivalent to approximately $67. I couldn’t help but wonder is these cuts were a result of the decrease in social spending secondary to the government agreeing to demands made by the World Bank and IMF. This then lead to my next question: Now that H.R. 3688, the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act has passed, what do we expect the end results to be? I have read that there are provisions in the agreement that undermine the right to affordable medicines; this has yet to be investigated. What impact will the US-Peru FTA have on Health Care? Will we see more cuts in social spending and as a result more strikes nationwide? And more importantly what will its impact be on the civilian population of the country? If we want to make the link between socioeconomic factors and health care more than a discussion but rather evidence for systematic long-term sustainable change it is imperative that we answer these questions now.
I Beg To Differ; We Need More Than A Delay December 2, 2007
Was it the humidity from my own breath, brought to my attention by the ill-fitting mask that I have now work for four days straight, which caused my cloudy vision? Or was the inability of my eyes to focus on the patient due to something more intangible. The realization that the man before me was dieing slowly consumed me to the point where I no longer was looking at the world but instead allowing, or rather; demanding the storm within my mind to soon produce an answer. His eyes cried for a solution. They begged for the inevitable to be delayed. The diagnosis on the chart was terse. Three small letters placed along each other like a short row of dominoes where there was no doubt whether or not the last one would fall. TBC. In fact it was a rare form of TBC; Esophageal Tuberculosis.
Nomad Entertainers November 15, 2007
Yesterday I was taking the #10 bus home from my job in Hospital Dos de Mayo to my jato in Barranco while listening to a mix by DJ Jamad when something caught my eye. While reading up on my Spanish grammar my perceptive peripheral vision noticed a group of 3 boys sneak on the bus through the back door. Within a minute I could hear a smooth combination of strings, wind, and cajon in the background of my headphones. The music from my mp3 player had me bobbing my head but my curiosity got the best of me and I slowly slipped off the left side of the headphones so that I could get a better listen. I had seen many bus performers AKA Nomad Entertainers in the past 3 months but I had never seen an article, book, or TV show try to capture the story behind these often forgotten providers of Afro-Peruvian rhythm. By now my headphones had become my necklace and I could see they were pretty talented so I dropped the flute player a coin and asked if I could record the show with my camera. He seemed a little surprised but then he nudged his friend, turned around, and motioned for me to record… I got a few strange stares from those around me. Most bus musicians are ignored and even if a person decides to give them some change they often do not even get a look in the face. They seem to be looked down upon in society…placed somewhere in between a beggar and a newspaper boy. I tried to talk to them afterwards but they quickly jumped off the bus in search of a new stage… before they left they told me that they were all from downtown (centro) Lima and that they don’t always stick to the same bus routes. They take buses all over the city, regardless of their destination. And with those final words the back door magically opened and they were gone… leaving us with the non-harmonious sounds of car horns and screeching brakes… I kept my eyes on that back door for the rest of the bus ride hoping that we would soon be blessed with something beautiful to help us escape the chaos within these calles de Lima.
B-Boy Vertigo AKA DJTL November 12, 2007
Today my Swiss/Peruvian friend Cristian (B-Boy Suiso) asked me if I wanted to check out a breakdancing competition en La Casa de Juventud in Chorillos (east side of Lima, PERU). I said, “Vamos ya.” 3 hours, 2 combis, and small packet of all-natural chifles later we arrived at our destination and little did I know I was soon going to be asked to be one of the 3 judges. But before I was given the honor I had to let the people know that i wasn’t faking the funk; in other words tuve que bailar. Please see video below.
Glob-All Power To The People November 11, 2007
My Undergraduate Thesis
Click Here To Download Document
Glob-All Power To The People
An Analysis of Social Movements Redirecting Globalization
From A Corporate Model Towards A People’s Model
My Publication On Medicinal Herbs of Latin America November 9, 2007
Medicinal herbs of Latin America (click here to read or download)
This is my first publication. Chapter 4 of The Textbook of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Available on amazon.com for the low low price of $244.96!!!!
Complementary and alternative medicine [CAM] therapies are increasingly used in many branches of medicine as an effective and patient-friendly adjunct to conventional treatment. Based on a successful course at the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago, this comprehensive text provides all practitioners, physicians, and allied health workers with a wide-ranging understanding of what CAM can offer, and has detailed chapters on therapies such as herbal medicine, meditation, acupuncture, and osteopathy. Throughout, the content is contemporary, evidence-based, and highly referenced. Comprising two sections, commonly used therapies and therapies for common medical conditions, the book has been thoroughly revised and updated since the publication of the first edition, with over forty new and expanded chapters. A major section on common medical disorders, with details of which CAM therapies may be most appropriate in their treatment, makes this an outstanding reference for medical students through to physicians interested in CAM methods and in integrating CAM into their everyday practice.
