2/14/11

Field Trip #2: Tropical Diseases in Santo Domingo (February 7-11)

For field trip number two of the quarter, my class went to Santo Domingo de los Tsa'chilas, the 4th largest city in Ecuador. We drove from Quito in about 3 1/2 hours and arrived on Monday to check into Hotel Zaracay and eat lunch there. Almost immediately we noticed a few things about the place: first we were going to be living in a literal compound because apparently the area (and according to some, the entire city) is dangerous. Also, the hotel was probably built in the 1960s and our room smelled like it hadn't been cleaned since then, it was so moldy!
But we were on a class trip so there was no time to complain, we came to learn! After lunch we met our three "tour guides" for the week: Dr. Cristian Carrión who works at a clinic in S.D., Sarah Dobra, an Oregonian with a Masters in Public Health who coordinates health programs in the area, and Ronald Ikechi, a Peacecorps Volunteer who is working at the same clinic as Cristian and Sarah. They gave us an introduction to the problems and challenges in the area and what we'd be doing during the week. Later on we explored the area outside of the hotel compound and found an incredible bakery!

Vanessa and Maya in front of a huge valley in Los Bancos, on the way to Santo Domingo

On Tuesday we ate breakfast at the hotel and then jumped in the van with Cristian and Ronald to tour farms and tropical rainforest areas and to look for mosquito vectors carrying dengue, malaria and chagas. We mucked around in the woods for a while and got very dirty and sweaty because it was so humid! Marisol and I each took a spill, she landed in a scummy stream and I bruised my tailbone coming down a muddy slope. But we did get to eat some delicious jungle fruits, including mandarina, lime, maracuya, the gooey white stuff around the outside of cacao and more! We headed back to the hotel for a swim in the pool there and some lunch and then we got back in the van to drive to a neighborhood of Santo Domingo called Luz del Día. The clinic in this neighborhood was started by a doctor from the University of Kentucky and Dr. Carrión is the main doctor there now. Many times each year, medical brigades from UK come for a few weeks at a time to volunteer. Luz del Día is technically considered to be a squatter settlement by the government, so there is no running water, sewage system or trash services. We walked around the neighborhood with Dr. Carrión and a nurse to visit families in 4 different houses, talking to them about where they get their water, if they use bed nets, where they've dug their outhouse holes, etc. It was a total reality check because these houses were sparse shacks and the people there were at high risk for the tropical diseases that we were studying. After the walk we returned to the clinic and looked at the bugs we'd found earlier that day under the microscope and learned more about Ronald's Peacecorps projects there.
An abandoned house in which we found evidence of bugs that can carry the chagas vector.

Cacao-we ate the sweet white meat that surrounds the beans.

A very difficult river to cross, as Marisol found out!


Maracuya on the vine!

On Wednesday we visited a government office and lab that studies tropical diseases in the morning. Then we drove to the Pearl Protected Forest outside of Santo Domingo, where we walked in the jungle with our guide, "Señor Serpiente," and got to see some impressive trees and a giant boa constrictor hanging out on top of a bunch of bananas. We returned to the hotel to swim again and Sarah gave us a background lecture on the Tsa'chila Indigenous group that we'd be visiting the next day.

Señor Serpiente with some jungle fruit!

 Kate and me inside a tree!

It´s hard to see, but there is a boa constrictor snake on top of this bunch of bananas!

The whole group of Public Health students in the tropical forest (Mike was absent because he was sick).

On Thursday we got a little lost in the van, but finally ended up finding the Cultural Center of the Tsa'chila community. We met the shaman of the community and he told us about their history and medicinal plants. We even got to go into his little medicine hut and try some mysterious "black water" that I nearly spit right back out! For lunch each of us got a whole tilapia cooked in a banana leaf with plantain and rice and then we danced with members of the tribe for a while, played with the kids and bought some handmade souvenirs. We drove back to the hotel again and discussed all that we'd experienced during the week with our three guides. After dinner we walked down the street to a cultural gathering with traditional Andean music, even though we were on the coastal side of Ecuador!

Cutural Center of the Tsa´chila Community with plants on the roof! 

The traditional Tsa´chila hair painting process with the achiote plant

Giant tilapia cooked in a banana leaf for lunch!

Don Josè, the shaman in the community that we visited, demonstrating an arrow throwing game.

Traditional dance and music performance

The weaving of colorful fabric worn by the whole community

Geoff, Maya, the Peacecorps volunteer Ronald and some of the kids of the community!

Friday morning we ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, had one last lecture/conference with our fabulous teachers for the week. After lunch we hopped back in the van and our wonderful chauffeur Homero took us back to Quito!
 The whole group with our new friend Ronald right before heading home!

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