I realized today that I did not tell my favorite or most horrible story yet. So for the people a little more info than the status update: Limpia con cuy. Literally translated as Cleansing with guinea pig. 
 

What happens is this, in the Andean medicine they discovered a large resemblance between the human anatomy and that of the guinea pig (they also have loads of them so there might be a connection there but this is just personal speculation). So they buy an about 2 month year old cuy (one which is still healthy) and they rub it, alive I must add, over the person´s body. This way the guinea pig absorbs the bad spirit of the human and show its diseases. It is basically an MRI scan. Pretty handy, and especially the older generation have high belief in the ritual. We have one every day. In the process, the cuy screams pees himself because it is feeling the end is near. Also the MRI is done with a beating heart aka skinning it alive. 
After this I started to feel pretty light-headed and decided to leave the room. The patient had friendly asked me : No te gusta? (You dont like it) Mwaaah. Their explanation: The bad spirits must have caused my faintness. 
Guess animal abuse has that effect on me :) . Their response: yes but in western medicine there is a lot of animal testing. 

From this joyful description I am changing subject to my favorite GP (who I found out also does limpia con cuy sadly). So, when taking a quick look on the street the mayority of the population is overweight. 
And me being the semi nurse out here I put a lot of them on the scale and take bloodpressure. I try to smoothly hint to the doctor when there is someone with obese or high blood pressure or something. And this is how it goes: Dear madame you are very obese. You weigh 90 kilos and for your height 50 is enough. Oh seriously? that is not healthy replies the patient (showing the lacking education). You also have a high blood pressure. Advice: Do not eat any more fats and less things like potatoes and rice. And this is where it stops. Leaving the patient quite confused seeing that fried potatoes are basically the healthiest thing out there in their vision. 
But secretly I have the feeling that my, also quite overweight, GP just doesn´t really know either. 
And I mean 50% of all the TV adds are run by Coca cola and Nestle saying how many important vitamins are in their chocolate powder.. 
Secretly I now before going into the room with them give some pointers here and there. But its time to bring this subject to schools.. 

Aaand last subject, then Ill stop I promise..
Last weekend I was visiting a friend in the capital and his cousin had his first bullfight. So of course (in good Ecuadorian culture) I was invited and they didnt have to ask me twice. ¨As long as they dont kill the bull.¨ But they didnt luckily :)
It starts at 7. So at 830 in the freezing cold the first person starts. Great experience (not) because the first bull was quite aggressive and ran itself into the wall and passed out, I thought it had died.. I was also the only one who cldnt controll the *oooh nooooo how saaad*, in reality I probably was the only with this emotion to begin with.
So besides this, it is a pretty cool event. Very machisto en ugh there were some egocentric people out there. Sadly enough there were no women competing in the set because app that is also really cool (and to my pleasant surprise they are allowed to)
So its basically like a dance trying to trick the bull, and I screamed my first actual ¨Olé¨ . Definitely worth it. 
This environment tho was veryvery posh. I felt a little bit like I ended up in Gossip Girl honestly. These were all the cousins and sons of former presidents and the kids were getting drunk whilst  the parents were wel.. also getting drunk and showing off their new Prada bag. The people I was with were extremely nice I must add so dont wanna give a negative spin on it. Just did not really fit in with my hiking shoes. (when do I ever?)

Oeh last thing before I forget. Found out today that our Yachac (most spiritual traditional healer) Grinds paracetamol through his special drinks.. I wonder if this is a traditional thing, but I guess it works...

Two more weeks out here and then Ill give a more well critic view on the clinic as well. 

 

Cheers!