Return to Casa Maria

Today I returned to Casa Maria. It was interesting to see how things were going as the medication had been packaged last week and I wanted to know if the patients had received their medication. I was also interested in seeing the gentleman with what I had thought was dermatobia.

When I arrived, we set up the make-shift clinic and started seeing the patients that we had already seen as well as those who the nurses felt were unwell.

The first encouraging thing to see was that the medication that we had put into packets had been used! All patients had been given (assumedly the correct) medication and from the reports they had been given them at the right time.

The first patient we saw was the patient who I thought had dermatobia – unfortunately they had taken off the dressing and so we were unable to find out if the dermatobia was really present. For those who are interested to know what dermatobia is....

Many of the patients seemed to have recovered quite well – much to the pleasure of Jorge (field manager) but I’m not entirely sure if the medication was responsible or if they were going to get better themselves anyway.

At about 11am, a small group of people had come to bring muffins for the residents of the elderly care home. They graciously offered us some as well. As they left, one of the residents (unaware that we had already been given one) came up to us and offered us their muffin – as a thank you for the work we were doing. Such kind gestures really touch you when you consider their situation.

By 12:00 it was time to go and I made my way back home for lunch before meeting my tandem for Spanish. She was having English exams and so we focussed on that for the day – interestingly she was halfway through one paper and so she asked me about some of the things she had read through from the rest of the paper.