Dr Romer's antics

Day 15- American pop-culture has a lot to answer for

Doctors in Bolivia are not paid very much at all. Specialists may receive as little as $1000 per month. Per year that is just less than $2000US a year! This is even less than students receive on Centrelink in Australia!!! Consequently many Bolivian doctors leave Bolivia to work elsewhere. Obviously the economy is poorer here and they have more money relative to other Bolivian's. However, in comparison to the world's economy it is dismal. A year's work couldn't even buy our return tickets to Sth America!

Dr Romer is one of these doctors. He is also the medical director at Hospitals of Hope and works nights at the largest hospital in Cochabamba, Viedma Hospital. He happily shared with us this information and was interested to hear about the differences in Australia. He nearly had a heart attack when he heard what a specialist with his qualifications earns in one year; approx $250 000AUS. I felt awful! How unfair it is! It is these circumstances that lead to the phenomenon "Brain Drain" (professionals leaving their country for financal reasons). While this is a terrible situation for third world countries what alternative do they have. What are 1st world countries doing about it?
So next time you hear someone complaining about seeing a foreign doctor consider this...consider what circumstances they have come from. Rant finished! Thankyou for listening...


Today Dr Romer wanted to take us and show us Viedma Hospital. He had hoped that we would be able to see a surgery there. So we piled into his car and began the frightening journey to Viedma. Dr Romer is a 'colourful' driver, this coupled with the dangerous Bolivian roads made for a 'edge-of-your-seat' type trip to the hospital.


Dr Romer is a real character. He is one of the most warm, welcoming people we have met and he is great fun! He has a terrific sense of humour and is an incredible doctor. He seems to enjoy our company and I always look forward to anything we get to do with him. He speaks spanish and 3 other indigenous languages! However, he cannot speak english very well but is eager to learn (his 5th language! I cant even get a second one down lol). The extent of his english skills are based on video games, movies and songs. This makes for some hilarious trips!


For example, he would say when he was ready to leave " OK, Lets go!...Fight!" Lol This he had picked up from WWF. Occasionally, when the car had gone quiet he would yell "Destroy!" or start singing a BonJovi song! He shared that 10 years ago he was a big fan of BonJovi and had his haircut. Jokingly Tiff asked "Did you have the earring too?" To our dismay he replied "Yes, but mine was clip on!" Hilarious!!!
Out of nowhere he asked Leticia "Como se dice (How do you say) I am your father!" in english. A fan of star wars?? He loved madagascar and would break out every few minutes into "I like to move it, move it! I like to move it, move it!" You have to imagine all of this said very awkwardly and slowly in a spanish accent. We all had tears in our eyes we had laughed so much.


Finally he started talking about politics and saying that he wanted to "Destroy" all these minority groups. We had noted that some Bolivians can be quite racist despite the government having strong laws against racist so we couldn't tell if he was joking or not. We couldnt believe this lovely man would be so racist. He started to say "Destroy, destroy" over and over and mimed having a machine gun!! Repeating what he obviously seen in a movie. Leticia sounding horrified said "Dr Romer! You shouldn't say things like that!" But he just kept going. We looked around at eachother and started to get the giggles coz it was so random and outrageously racist. Dr Romer burst out laughing..."Haha you believed me!! What a good joke. " I have never been so relieved that someone was joking in all my life! I was starting to think we were trapped in the car with a crazy!


After an hours trip into the city centre we finally got to the hospital. Dr Romer couldn't find anyone he knew so within 15mins we left again. This is typical bolivian antics. He could have called ahead and discovered that no one was there. I think tho that he secretly just wanted to show off his english to us gringas. 
On the way home we stopped for coke at a little shop. Here we discussed how things were different here. Leticia brought up how our blonde hair gets so much attention. Dr Romer expressed how rare it was. Leticia translated how my dad had wanted me to dye my hair. Dr Romer exclaimed "Oh don't do that blonde is beautiful!" in spanish, then launched into "Pretty woman walking down the street..." Lol! We would have been wierded out if it wasn't Dr Romer.
So we were off again laughing all the way at Dr Romer's limited pop-culture english. On the way home we passed a crash and Dr Romer said "oh bad." Then blurted out "Superman!" He is so random. He sung english love songs all the way home..."Where do you go, my lovely..." we tried very hard to suppress our giggling.


For dinner Leta made real american chilli and corn bread. I love that we get to experience all these foods! I loved the chilli but had always thought corn bread would be savoury and was shocked when I found it tasted like pumpkin scones. We are effectively having a Nth American/Sth American experience here in Bolivia.