Day 10 - Costa Rica

Another great day of house visits and clinic, this time in Costa Rica. We only saw about 12 patients today, which is a big difference from Nicaragua. There are so many people who need help in Nicaragua, I think we were more focused on treating patients efficiently. Here in Costa Rica, we are conducting complete examinations as opposed to tailoring them to just their current issues. It's really interesting to see the differences between the two sets of doctors and their diagnostic practices. Due to the terrain, the houses here are on multilevels and sort of disheveled in nature. The houses also use flush toilets as opposed to latrines like we saw in Nicaragua, and there is much less wood burning for food preparation in Costa Rica. We conducted our house visits in the community of Caro Quintero, which is named after a very popular Mexican drug lord. The story goes, Caro Quintero fell in love with an underage girl and they both ran way to Costa Rica from Mexico to avoid the FBI and her parents. So they moved into this big mansion, which is no directly behind the airport. After they were caught, the people divided the mansion up to fit 10 different families and it is still split up to this day, serving as homes to many many families. 

These houses below are a part of the collection of his houses that are connected by what used to be a circular drive

More houses deeper within the community 

(Featuring Summer's head ⬆️)

Almost every house uses these metal panels as a form of roof both here and in Nicaragua 

Lunch break

Clinic 

We are also accompanied by 3 translators and 2 doctors, who are all very helpful, and our new team leader Pouchi! She had a surprise for us when we got back to the hotel...another dance class! This one was a lot easier than the first one because it was slowed way down to a beginners level. And I will say, Rachel and I are fantastic salsa dancers! For dinner we went to this place call TacoBar where you can create your own meal with an unlimited salad bar. It truly takes on the open concept idea architecturally and is open to the elements, so they offer blankets if it gets too cold. We went to eat with the other ISL group that is staying at the hotel with us. They are a smaller group of 5 and come from all over the US at different universities. It was nice to meet some new people interested in the same things!

Tomorrow brings another full day of clinic.