Day 10- And so it continues...

We woke today to find that we were still in one piece. The bench stood solidly guarding our door. The hospital appeared all together boringly normal...not a thing had changed. However, we continued on preparing for the worst. Packing, clearing and disappearing. Although having prepared a page of questions for the director they went unanswered...he was unreachable all day...going from meeting to meeting.

That day at the hospital the Gastroenterologist preached to the crowd in the waiting room. This particular specialist was a christian and was as passionate about sharing the word of god to unsuspecting patients in the waiting room as he was about medicine. Although in spanish it was very comforting to have the word of God fill the hospital foyer. Words of peace, of comfort, of hope. It was calming to see the hospital go about business as if nothing was happening. Few staff knew of the threats and this ensured that patients continued to be seen and served.

We took the opportunity to sit in on a tute with Dr Romer (the medical director) and his medical students. Many of the medical students in Bolivia are from other countries. It is much cheaper to study in Bolivia and many flock to the schools here. Cochabamba is largely a university city and students from a number of the universities frequent HOH. The medical students we have met so far have been from either Brazil or Peru. They are required to wear all white and white coats. They look ridiculous! Many wear tight white bejeweled jeans and the brazilians guys wear white nike shox sneakers (see below). My style opinion is that they look gay, but the brazilians wear them with pride lol! Yes in the middle of a crisis I am analyzing brazilian male fashions...


That night to distract ourselves from the developing chaos of Anocaraire and the image of the Brazilians in their gay sneakers we watched a movie. The four of us huddled together on a 2 seater around a laptop screen in our poor excuse for a home theatre watching poorly pirated movies (camcorder in cinema type poor...yeh you know what i mean) bought in the local market. We were warmed by a local hot beverage known as "api" (see below). It is made of purple corn (yeh apparent corn can be purple too!) and tastes a bit like cinnamon. It is very thick and soupy and has the occasional chunk of corn. I wasnt a huge fan but am doing my best to attempt and appreciate all the local cuisine. And it was purple in colour afterall! Strangely when you add lemon it changes colour and becomes pink! That night the bench was again pushed in front of the door. We slept soundly...