Robbed!

Darn it!

I was soooooooo close to getting through this whole living abroad experience without getting robbed! I mean, I consider myself pretty careful, street smart, etc. Grrrrrr.

So first off before anyone gets too worried, I’m fine. No violence, just a stupid kid (maybe 17 or 18) on a stupid bike. Here’s what happened. I was leaving my latin dance class, which is like 2 blocks from my place, at 7:30. So it was dark but pretty early, with a ton of people on the street out and about. I had my bottle of water, my stinky towel (there is no fan or a/c in the room where the class is), and a little bag. Actually, it was the little zip up clutch that my hometown bff got me when I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. Pretty, nothing ostentatious. Contents: one cell phone (old and cheap, thank goodness), one key chain with my room key and my office key, and 60 cordoba (less than three bucks). Dude was probably really disappointed; serves him right!!!

Anyways, I was on what I considered a “safe” street, not carrying anything very valuable, and out at an early hour, so I wasn’t on high alert. Mistake. I was distracted (I think looking at a noisy motorcycle) when this skinny kid on a bike rips by and swipes the bag right out of my hand! Little bugger! So I ran after him screaming (In Spanish) “He robbed me! He robbed me!” It all happened sooooo fast. He was on the next street and I went back into the community center to find friends to commiserate with, when all of a sudden people tell me that the guy was apprehended. It turns out that after hearing my screaming, some people on the street on motorcycles and bicycles stopped him. Well, I THINK it was him. To be honest it was hard to say since I never got a great look at him in the first place. Well, here is the scene: I am crying, these guys are slapping this kid around, the kid is yelling about how it wasn’t him it was some other guy. Big mess!!! I had no idea what to do. Eventually, they searched him and didn’t find anything (he had probably tossed it or given it to an accomplice), then let him go. I was miserable the rest of the night and couldn’t sleep well, but otherwise OK.

I have to say that robbery is not uncommon here- everyone is constantly telling me to watch myself and not leave anything ANYWHERE. But violent crime isn’t common in good areas at decent hours. I have had things stolen before (not in Nicaragua but in other places), but it is one thing to have something taken when you aren’t looking and it is another thing entirely to have someone just blatently come up and take something from you. The sense of victimization is definitely more acute.

So I now have a new phone, new copies of my keys, and you know I’ll find a way to live without those three dollars, but I don’t feel as safe as before; maybe that’s a good thing.

Otherwise the week is going well. I am working up a very ambitious and interesting project on infant mortality in Nicaragua in different time periods and regions. Should be awesome, plus now I’ll have something to do in all that spare time I have during residency (haha)!

Going out tonight, hope you are all well!
Saludos- Dra MV

One last vacation entry

Hola amigos,

Will be heading back to work tomorrow; for this portion I will be working with the local epidemiology surveillence/ public health analysis body. I will be basically studying what they do, how they are organized, and how they collect data. Hopefully I will be able to contribute to their work as well- I will be looking at some recent data that has been collected and would love to help analyze it, hopefully culminating with a journal article. But we’ll see. I’m very excited to get started given my career goals in international public health- mega nerd fun!!!

At the time of my last post I had not yet been to the Masaya Volcano, what a cool place! I went on a night tour out of the city of Granada. The crater was really easy to see, as there was not too much smoke that day:

That is actually the largest and most active of a bunch of craters in this complex consisting of two volcanoes. The crater has been used for a variety of things over the years, from sacrifices of children and virgens to the volcano gods in indigenous culture to the disposal of (live) political prisoners by Samoza’s notorious Guardia Nacional. The Spanish priests thought it was the entrance to Hell, and I can see why. Although the pictures of this didn’t turn out, at night there is a red glow with smoke eminating from that inner crater.

We climbed to the top of the rim of another crater. As always, the strictest of safety standards were observed:

The sunset from the volcano (the cross is a replica of the one erected by the Spanish there to ward off the devil):

There are also lava tunnels that we were able to tour (don’t worry there is no hot lava in them anymore), created by cooling lava solidifying on the surface and producing insulation, allowing the hot lava to continue to flow beneath. These were once used for indigenous ceremonies, meetings to select sacrificial victims, and as hiding places for the Sandinistas during the Revolution. One of them is now home to a bunch of bats. In the creepiest (but also very cool) part of the night tour, you can sit by the entrance to the cave, turn off your flashlight, and wait until you hear the flutter and buzz of wings, then snap a picture. The following picture was taken without zoom believe it or not:

I am settling back into Leon but still officially have one more day of vacation, so I’m going to go enjoy it- hasta luego! – Dra MV

Video clip time!

Hey everyone! I thought I would put up some links to a couple of videos that haven’t yet made the blog and a couple of random photos.

Here’s the link to another video of the Griteria Chiquita for those of you who didn’t believe my description of fireworks being shot into the crowd- that is me laughing in the background due to a mix of disbelief at what I was seeing, as well as relief that no one had yet asked if there was a doctor around- to my amazement I didn’t see any burn injuries, then again I wasn’t on duty in the ED so who knows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhdVbORl_YU

Monkey video from Monkey Island, Isletas de Granada:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDZzNcOnaaU

This is a video of the San Ramon waterfall- hard to capture with photos alone.

Here is what happens when you get a pretty gnarly sunburn while climbing one volcano, and then you sweat while climbing volcano #2 later that week and all the sweat gets caught under the layer of dead skin. Yes, those are all water blisters- I seriously looked like I had some kind of weird disease, so embarrasing!

The transportation safety standards here are a little loose- I’ve seen up to 4 people on one bicycle riding through traffic- but this guys sets a new low. Yes, that truck was moving. Down the highway.

Seen on Isla de Ometepe: This was a fun response to the harvesting of sea turtle eggs for their purported fertility-enhancing properties. Translation: “my eggs aren’t the solution”

Those are my random posts for the day; hope you enjoyed them!

Abrazos- Dra MV

Vacation!

August 24, 2010              11pm

Greetings from the beach town of San Juan del Sur!

I have had the good fortune over the last two weeks to enjoy some well-deserved vacation! Nicaragua is a great place to travel- a lot of beautiful wonders of nature to enjoy, as well as the warm and welcoming people I have met.

I started my trip in Granada, which along with Leon is one of the prominant colonial cities. The architecture is lovely and it has some great restaurants! Things kicked off with a hike up a hill just out of town which offers a nice view of the city, then I toured some of the prominent churches and museums. Granada is on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and (like every other Nicaraguan city) lies in the shadow of a volcano, this one called Volcan Mombacho. Due to the spewing of eruptions long ago, Lake Managua has isletas, basically mini-islands from maybe a half acre to several acres in size each. They are rumored to be 365 in number and a boat tour of the area is one of the big tourist attractions in the area. Some are owned by (very rich) families, some are basically home to squatters and are undeveloped as of yet, and there is one in particular that is home to some very friendly monkeys that have really gotten used to the boat tours (and the snacks they provide). Below I have a couple of pics, one from the top of the belltower of La Merced church and one of a monkey visiting with tourists:

By the way, an interesting tidbit on Granada was that it was burned to the ground in 1856 by troops under the command of an American from Tennesee who had briefly declared himself president of Nicaragua. Oh yeah, US meddling in Latin America has a nice long history. Anyhow, if you want to know more about this piece of Nicaraguan history just follow this link for the Wikipedia article on William Walker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)

Next I headed to the Island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, a decent sized island formed by 2 large volcanoes. There are some very impressive natural wonders there, and it is a real haven for outdoor activities of every kind. Sadly, the infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. In such a natural environment the spotty cell phone coverage and limited access to internet really aren’t a big deal, but the roads! Oh my goodness, let’s just say if you don’t have a 4 wheel drive you ain’t going anywhere, and even in a 4×4 I don’t think I could drive it- this requires experience and skill! I did a couple of hikes (about halfway up Volcan Maderas to a lookout point and up to an awesome waterfall called San Ramon), as well as a morning of kayaking and an afternoon of horseback riding! Let’s just say that by the time I got off the island I was sore just about everywhere and had precious few items of clean clothing! Pics below are of me on Volcan Maderas (that’s Volcan Concepcion in the background) and of the San Ramon waterfall. The only bummer was that on all of these excursions I didn’t see any darned monkeys! I could hear them but they never showed themselves

After that I came here to San Juan del Sur, a very tourist-heavy beach town with lovely sunsets and a serious surfing culture, not to mention some great spas! I’ve been mostly chilling out and reading, but yesterday I took an hour long surfing lesson that ended up being 3 hours! I had a great time and managed not to get too sunburnt- I even rode a couple of decent sized waves all the way to the beach without falling down! Too bad I don’t have a pic of that, but I do have a nice sunset shot from this evening:

Tomorrow I am going to do a night tour of Volcan Masaya (yes, another volcano!), then Thursday I am heading back to Leon. Back to work Monday! I’ll post more pics soon!

Buenas noches- Dra MV

Climbing volcanoes and dodging fireworks

Hey there!

Last weekend was a blast in Leon! On Saturday, August 14, I climbed my second volcano! Momotombo is one of the more difficult local volcanoes to climb, standing at over 4250 ft above sea level. Sure was harder than Cerro Negro! The volcano is important in Leon history because its eruption in 1610 forced the town to relocate from the shores of Lake Managua (where you can still see the ruins of “Leon Viejo”) to its current location.

I got together with the group at 5am and we set off! The beginning of the hike was no problem, but once you get toward the top firm footing is hard to come by- it is basically trying to scramble up a pile of loose rocks! The top was pretty- AMAZING views of Lake Managua and a sense of accomplishment definitely made it worthwhile. I took a video that you can see on YouTube.

The fumes that you see coming from the top of the volcano have that terrible sulfur rotten egg smell- so that kept me from getting too close to the crater, which is probably a good thing come to think of it!

The way down was harder for me than climbing up! The rocks kept slipping out from under my feet and I have quite a few scrapes to show for it! Here is a picture of the view from the top, the inside of my boots after part of the descent and one of my hands (notice manicure still intact of course!):

I will spare you the picture of my worst scrapes- let’s just say that I ended up with a big hole ripped in the seat of my pants!!! Nothing to worry about though- “just a flesh wound” as Monty Python fans would say

It was a BIG day because after finally getting down the volcano in one piece I celebrated the Griteria Chiquita. Basically it is a celebration which originated on the same date in 1947, when the people paraded the image of the Virgen around the streets in an attempt to mollify the rumblings of the volcano Cerro Negro (see my earlier post on sandboarding on Cerro Negro). Sure enough, the volcano quieted down and ever since they have continued to praise the Virgen Maria on August 14th. It is called Chiquita because there is a similar nationwide holiday on December 7th.

Basically it all kicks off at 6pm, and the place to be is Parque Central in front of the Cathedral. The bells are ringing like mad, there is a band playing, tons of people and tons of noise! All over town people have bought fireworks and just wait for the churchbells to ring at 6pm and midnight so that everyone can set them off at once! The most surprising part was when the park was invaded by people with large, rectangular, hollow structures on their heads glowing with fireworks! They literally run around randomly and at the same time are ejecting more fireworks in the direction of the crowd! Adolescent boys have a total field day getting as close to these crazy people as possible without suffering any permanent damage! It is hard to describe, so check out this video for the highlights:

After that big event, a good friend showed me the “grito” (yell) part of griteria. Basically a bunch of houses around town have set up alters to the Virgen Mary and have their doors open. Everyone- adults and kids alike- can go around to each house and say (or yell) “Quien causa tanta alegria (who is causing so much happiness?) to which the people at the home answer “La Asuncion de Maria” (the assumption- which means rising the heaven- of Mary) and give you candy! Well, mostly candy, you can also get the occasional slotted spoon, yo yo, or even a pair of cotton underwear! So basically that part is like a religious Halloween where adults get to play too

I am now (yay!) on vacation- I look forward to posting some pics from the road!

Hasta pronto- Dra MV

PS below are pics of the fireworks people and a nice lady handing out candy next to her altar. Enjoy!

Paint, boogers, and onions

Hola de nuevo!

This has been another super busy week! This time in the “sala respiratoria”- the respiratory ward, which consists of two rooms, one with 14 kids and one with 9 kids, mostly with pneumonia, asthma, and bronchiolitis. Because of the number of kids admitted with these diagnoses, usually both rooms are completely full and there are a few patients in beds lining the hallway. The residents there really work their tails off all day, and I hope that I was able to be at least somewhat helpful to them, although the management of disease and administrative process were both really different from what we do in the states so I spent a lot of time asking “where is this?” “How do I do that?” and things of that nature.

The residents continue to be amazing and welcoming here. Monday was a day off for “Heath Care Workers Day” (we need to get one of those in the States!), and so I went with a couple of other residents to a beach about 20 minutes here; I hope to have those pics up soon. It was really fun and relaxing to get away from the hospital to hang out for a while!

So, the paint… the hospital is being painted, which is good because it needs it, but bad because there isn’t enough room to rope anything off. Also unfortunate is the bright teal color of the paint, especially given that no one seems to feel the need to post signs in the places that were just painted! I don’t think that there is a white coat on the Pediatrics ward that has escaped! I never realized how often I lean against walls until I started having to clean my skirts with paint thinner!!

Boogers- wow there are some serious boogers going around in that respiratory ward! I mean, imagine 14 kids crammed into one room with their moms, all of them crying and hacking up a storm. Then throw in the heat and it is one fun time! Interestingly, there is an AC unit in that room which works, but the mothers don’t like it when we turn it on because they think that kids with respiratory symptoms will get worse if they are in an air conditioned room. Needless to say, my white coats have needed frequent laundering!!

The moms in the hospital are really in large part the care coordinators for their own children. The medical team, of course, prescribes treatment and medications are administered mostly by nursing staff, but due to the extreme shortage of nurses (try ratios around 15-20 patients to each nurse) and the complete lack of respiratory therapists, the mothers have to remember the timing of the nebulizations that their child needs, squirt the indicated amount of solution into the machine, and fire it up. They also do chest PT, remind the extremely busy nurses when the IV isn’t dripping anymore or there is another problem, and even bring their child’s urine sample down 3 flights of stairs to the lab. If a mom isn’t on top of things, it can really affect her child’s care. Sometimes there are dads or grandparents, but mostly it is moms, as most of the kids are breastfed. They stay all night sitting in chairs next to their child’s crib in this crowded room. It must be so incredibly stressful for them! I have seen some real gestures of solidarity- on Wednesday some of the moms were walking around the other wards taking up a collection to buy pulmicort for a child because her family couldn’t afford it (costs a bit under 5 bucks, which is a chunk of change here). Pulmicort, an extremely common medication in the States, is one of the many medications that the hospital is unable to provide. Any care that is provided in the hospital is free, but if we need to give a medication that isn’t available, we give a prescription to the parent, who goes out of the hospital to buy it at a private pharmacy. Obviously, we try to avoid this situation so I have made and effort to learn what is available on site.

On a lighter note, onions. I was walking with a couple of the residents and we came across a couple of nurses holding very fragrant plastic bags- fragrant good or fragrant bad depending on how you feel about the smell of raw onions. The resident asked why everyone seemed to be carrying one of these around, and the nurse replied that the hospital worker’s union was handing out onions that day. No one seemed surprised except me. As they explained, a few weeks ago everyone got some bananas!

Well that’s it for now- tomorrow will be a big day- I am climbing Volcano Momotombo and then there is a huge town fesitval! I will write all about it soon!

Best- Dra MV

PS Here is a picture of the famous “mystery bucket” from the last post:

Mystery Bucket

Mystery solved.

So this story goes back to my first few days in El Sauce. It always seemed to be a mystery, completely unpredictable when one could turn on the faucet and expect, say, water, versus a few gurgling sounds and a burst of air. This, I thought, must be the rural life, so okay, I’ll just not really enter the bathroom with any preconceived notions of what, in fact, might be functional on that particular day. I knew that soon I would be moving back to Leon. However, alas, the inconsistency of running water availablility has followed me, being particularly poorly timed over the past week.

Case in point- worked from Tues morning until Wed afternoon, no shower of course, got home exhausted and slept until the next morning. Cut to Thursday morning, turning the faucet on the shower and…. nothing. Crap. OK, no problem, I can be adaptable. That is why God invented the ponytail, right? Good thing I’m growing my hair out. So off I went to work after some creative deodorant and perfume application.

Thursday night after dance class- wow, I am pretty stinky. Dance class isn’t as low impact as it may seem. And I’m going out to Latin dance night at a local club with some new friends so this is a problem- I can hardly WAIT to jump in the shower! So in I go and, again, nothing. Bad news. Luckily, there is a torrential downpour outside (happens about every other day), so being the adaptable person that I am, I just jump into my bathing suit and head out into the patio area- I mean, technically you could think of a rainy day as just a big shower, right? This plan works out satisfactorially and I manage to avoid offending anyone at the club.

So last night I went out with Meylan (Dra Gutierrez from El Sauce) and a group of her girlfriends. I am wondering – what the heck is going on with this? Where there public works this week? Do I just have terrible luck? So I tell them my rain shower story and they all just look at me and ask “didn’t you fill your bucket?” Ummmm, “huh?” They answer “every house in Leon has a bucket! Don’t you have a bucket?”

Flashback to when I first moved into my new place. In the corner of the shower is a big blue plastic bucket (like three times the size of a mop bucket) with a small blue plastic bowl inside. I figure that this must be left from when they were cleaning the bathroom- I mean who wants to haul buckets from room to room, right? So easier to just keep one in each unit. I should add that I didn’t confirm this with anyone and that any lack of logic in this line of thinking was completely missed.

So it turns out, as Meylan explained to me, that I should EXPECT for the water not to work. Apparently these buckets are household staples because if the water is working in the evening you are supposed to fill it up just in case there is no water in the morning. The little plastic bowl is for taking some out to pour over your head. Oooooohhhhh. Wow. OK. Let me just add that the fact that I have missed out on this strategy for a few weeks now was a source of great amusement for everyone at the table Still learning! I was cracking up too! Oh well, someday I’ll catch on to these things. Needless to say, I now have a giant plastic bucket full of water in the shower….

Best- Dra MV

First night on call

Hey folks-
Another busy, busy week. I got to have the experience of taking a night of call with the rest of the resident team on Tuesday. And I thought call was tiring in my first language! I was definitely completely exhausted on Wednesday (call is 7am Tues until 3pm Wed); I even slept through my alarm and missed tae kwon do . But overall I got to have a really unique experience and hopefully was helpful on their busy night. I have been learning how to do admissions under their system, and I even copied down a case for a future Morning Report (watch out Dukies!). I spent most of my time in the NICU. They were explaining to me that since they can’t do TPN (IV nutrition) they have trouble saving babies much under 30 weeks gestation. As a comparison for my non-doc readers, in the US we can save little ones that have been in the oven about a month and a half less than that, albeit with complications. The residents and attendings are great; it was just sad to work with these little munchkins knowing that something we take for granted in our system may be all they would need to have a better chance. I also got the chance to help with some procedures, like placing an OG tube as an umbilical venous catheter (8Fr) and doing endotracheal suction on the ventilated kids.

The residents here are super! Not only are they very bright and dedicated, but they have been really accepting of me and friendly. I went out with a couple of colleagues after work on Thursday, and will be going to the beach with a group this weekend. We share a lot about the differences in our systems and management strategies between the two countries. I really really wish that some of them could come to Duke so that they could have a similar experience.

Fun experiences during the week:
1- Admitting a patient whose address was “2 blocks north of the Texaco”- see my previous posts about the address system here, but it made me wonder what they will do when they build another Texaco??
2- Watching a lizard scurry up the wall during tae kwon do class (held in an outdoor courtyard in a colonial building here in downtown)
3- Going to a Friday night movie for $2.50 !!! (Robin Hood just came out here)
4- Watching little kids feeding the pigeons in the hospital hallways (Peds is on the 4th floor and windows have to stay open for ventilation)

Enjoying hearing from all of you! Please let me know if there is something you are wondering about or any questions- I am always looking for more ideas of interesting things to write!

Abrazos- Kristie

Recovering

Buenas tardes!

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post- I got sick! Not really bad sick, just like a fever/cold/laryngitis/lay in bed a couple days type of thing. So I missed Friday at the hospital. Going back tomorrow. This weekend has been a bit of a bust- just laying around in my room blowing my nose, not so awesome. However, I am really glad that I put up the extra 50 bucks a month for air conditioning!

The rest of the week at the hospital continued to be quite the experience. I was in the infectious disease room, and I will be moving to the intermediate care nursery tomorrow. Major perk of the intermediate care nursery- air conditioned! (Leon is known for being on of the hottest cities in Nicaragua).

They are letting me ease into this inpatient experience slowly, thankfully. I observed the signout on Wednesday afternoon when the resident on started his call. In the whole hospital overnight, there are 4 Peds people, two residents in the ED, and one resident and one attending upstairs. So the upstairs resident is in charge of: the respiratory room (20 patients), the diarrhea room (12 patients), the post-operative room (10 patients), the ID room (3 patients), the Pediatric ICU (9 patients), the Neonatal ICU (8 patients), the intermediate care nursery (13 patients), and any deliveries (5 women in labor). Plus any and all admissions. Whew. Such a mix of ages and acuities, and no intern to scut out !! All sign out is verbal only and very fast. Definitely a change from our system. Residents here change rotations every 2 months- but only from one room to another. That’s right- they are inpatient and on q4 call for 3 years straight. No outpatient rotations. Again, I will try to remember this whenever I am tempted to whine about my residency schedule….

So that’s enough of the nitty gritty. In other news, I am enjoying my tae kwon do as well as now my latin dancing classes (tues and thurs at the community center). I rallied enough energy to go to a movie last night (Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carroll)- movies cost $2.50!!! I met up with Dra Gutierrez (the doc I worked with in El Sauce) and some of her friends, and we went out for a bit afterwards (I pooped out pretty early, especially since bars and restaurants here are full of smokers).

Something funny about Nicaragua- people see each other on the street here and say “Adios!” instead of hello. I asked someone why, and they said that if they really aren’t going to stop and chat it isn’t appropriate to say hello, which in a way I guess makes sense… Of course, if your face screams “gringa”, as mine does, instead of “adios” you get random people saying “good bye” to you all the time. Or, if they had poor English instruction, something that sounds very much like “goose boy.” I try not to take that personally.

Well, now feeling better and looking forward to working with the tiniest munchkins next week!
Hasta pronto
- Dra MV

Hospital time!

Buenas noches!

I finished my second day working on the inpatient service at the hospital here in Leon! There is a pediatric residency program here so I have a lot of colleagues (who are very busy) but I am meeting people every day.

The ward, of course, is just a little different from Duke. All the respiratory patients are together in 2 rooms, the diarrhea patients are all in another room, and I am in the Infectious Disease room. Besides the units, those are the only inpatient rooms, plus some beds and cribs lining the hall. The first day was pretty interesting; I saw my first case of falciparum malaria and also a patient with hepatitis A. The teaching method here is quite socratic- the attending doctors basically tell you what to learn about, and then the next day they ask you to tell them what you learned and ask you questions- a lot of questions! I am trying to learn as much as I can, especially related to infectious disease. The pediatric infectious disease specialist, Dr Jarquin, has been really great to work with this week.

I am running into some of the same problems that I had in El Sauce, in terms of limited resources. For example, there is no IV erythromycin or other IV macrolide (nondoctors: important medicine), there is no testing for rickettsial disease or pertussis, the supply of pulse oximetry attachments is severely limited, and unfortunately this week they are out of culture media for the whole hospital- no blood or urine cultures!!! (nondoctors: VERY important test). The people are wonderful and seeing how they treat patients with what is available is impressive and also makes me grateful for all the great stuff we have in US healthcare, even if the system has its problems….

So I found myself in a kind of hilarious situation this week!!! OK, it doesn’t start off hilarious… I had to pay my rent so I went to the ATM and- gee- my card didn’t work. Hmmmm. So I went to the bank counter and they said their request for funds (using my debit card) was denied… hmmm. I mean, I am just a resident but I’m not THAT poor! Anyhow, I called the bank back home and apparently they had detected some suspicious activity on the card (no money is missing, thank goodness), so they had blocked it and sent me a new card. Problem: They sent it to my home. In Durham. So they are now express mailing me the card. You are thinking: this is not funny and actually kind of boring.

Here is the FUNNY part: I am on the phone with the people at the card replacement service and they ask for the address to send the card to, so I asked the lady in charge here. Here is the conversation we had, translated here for you reading pleasure (don’t worry I changed identifying details):

Me: What is the address here?
Paty (P): From the main park 3 and a half blocks west
Me: No, I mean what is the address?
P: From the main park 3 and a half blocks west.
Me: Yeah, but to send mail…. what is the name of the street?
P: The street doesn’t have a name
Me: What???
P: Ummm … this street- it has no name
Me: Seriously? So, like, where do people send mail?
P: They send it to (repeats address).

So the card is going to be addressed to (not the real address) “From the main park 3 and a half blocks west.” How weird is that? I mean, it’s not like I’m in the boondocks here, I live near the center of one of the largest cities in the country!!! Wild stuff. Plus, I had to spell it out in Spanish over the internet phone to a very confused customer service rep. I started the conversation like this “So, the concept of mailing address is a little loose here….”

I’ll send more strange and wonderful tales soon!

Buenas noches! Dra MV