UMaine Nursing International: Clinica gratis!

Our day started with breakfast and coffee and an excited group, ready to start our journey in Guarari. We did house visits and a community clinic all day and saw a variety of patients. Going into the day, we were all energized and eager to see what the day would bring! We met our translators, one of the doctors (whom we didn't get to meet yesterday), our pharmacist and many people in the Guarari community. For most of us, it was an eye opening experience to walk through the community and see living conditions that we are not accustomed to. Community members found much pride in small things and were incredibly grateful that we were there to serve them.

At the end of the day we were all exhausted, but left with full hearts nonetheless. We are learning invaluable things about nursing, our world and ourselves. We have talked a lot in the past day about humanity, and how we are really a lot alike the people we are serving. We share the same desires, hopes, dreams, needs and worries and that is something that automatically relates us to each other. As the day closed and we traveled back to our hotel, we were able to reflect on the events of our day and think about the things we take for granted everyday. We came back to our hotel and had a pharmacology presentation done by Dr. Andrea, so that we are prepared to assist in diagnosis and treatment tomorrow.

For dinner, we went to an authentic Costa Rican restaurant. We had delicious meals and everyone was extremely satisfied. Nilda got her tamales, too :-) The restaurant served us rice pudding for dessert, free of charge, which was incredibly generous of them. We took pictures with our team leaders and the people serving us at the restaurant, and it was definitely a fun way to end the day.

-Allison Scully