Blogs, blogs, blogs! What are we going to do with all of these Blogs?!

People are really starting to rave about my blogs. I'm even keeping my fingers crossed for some sponsors! Possibly from Fingers Crosserstm which is a global chain of restaurants where they serve finger foods and hang finger related things on the walls.

I'm in Bolivia. Bolivia is the least famous country in South America, but don't tell that to any Bolivians because they don't think of it as the most unfamous, but the most landlocked. In a story as old as time, Bolivians and Chileans have been fighting over who gets to keep the sea. The Bolivians say they get it. The Chileans say that they get it. The Americans say that they don't care who gets it, as long as they can influence/control the government so that they get it. This last paragraph is as beautiful as it is historical.

All of the female volunteers from the States have left, so we're feeling like a post office around here: a lot of men! We have four male medical volunteers: two residents and two fourth year students. One resident wants to go into pulmonary critical care, the other is looking into hepatology, one student wants to do general medicine, and the other wants to be an anesthesiologist. We are all very different people, which becomes clear as soon as you see us because we do not share the same body and name! Neehar is an Indian vegetarian, Greg is a tall drink of Mormon, Matt is short white guy, Joe can read and be courteous, and I can write blogs. Somehow we all manage to get along.

We are working on some surgeries right now too. One man is in the hospital having a tracheotomy performed. His wife and kid left him and he said that he was alone, so we bring his medicines to him because his family cannot. We are also trying to repair a broken heart by getting new parts for a woman's pacemaker with help from a group called Solidarity Bridge. Finally, there is a boy with a big hernia who we will be helping to have an operation hopefully this week. I think that I have been having sympathy pains for this boy because I had a hernia the other day I have yet to tell my parents about, but I just pushed it back in so I should be fine and never have to worry about anything again. Soon I expect to have a broken heart and tracheotomy (Cross your fingers!).

Yesterday I shot a rifle at a tree.

Mike