on daily life

I have a routine here. I like routines and patterns. And I like that it was all my own making; the guy in charge of the Red Cross left my schedule completely up to me and my program doesn’t care, as long as I get my work done.

The first few mornings I was at the office promptly at 8am, but that is long gone. I quickly realized that there was no point, as no one was even there to be impressed by my early start. So now, I get to sleep in (Heaven, after my 6am wakeup call in San Jose. Made me rethink all my moaning about 8ams in Grinnell.) until 8:07 to have an 8:30 breakfast with my host mom and sister. I leave the house to walk the three blocks to the Red Cross around 9am.

I greet the workers I know and smile awkwardly at those I don’t. I have not figured out how to gracefully introduce myself or exactly what Spanish words to string together in that situation. So my current approach is to wait for someone else to introduce us. For the next hour I approach random community members and ask them questions about their knowledge and usage of the Red Cross. Most people are quite nice and willing to give me a few minutes of their time.

The paramedic arrives at 10am and I’m always hoping that he feels like teaching me something new (so far it’s been intubating and EKGs) or showing me cool videos of medical stuff or on-the-job things. He thought the ginormous snake ones were hilarious, I did not. When he’s around, I’m truly in heaven.

I sometimes help around the office by sorting receipts or helping to sell people coffee or going to find someone who might actually have an answer to a more complicated question. At noon, I head back home for lunch. I eat with my mom and any other family members who happen to be home and then rest/sleep/talk to friends until about 1:10. I head back to the Red Cross (up the very, very steep hill I live on in the hottest part of the day: not my favorite) for an afternoon of much the same. A few interviews, reading the Spanish EMT book, learning how to read EKGs, playing foosball (I am terrible), talking to the employees, helping with English homework.

Around 3:30ish I have coffee and bread with all the medical staff that are around. This is usually my favorite part of the day. Sitting around a table, chatting, laughing, feeling like a part of something.

Between 5 and 5:30 I head home. Shower off the sweat of the day, enter the data from the day’s interviews. Work on job applications. Talk to friends who are still awake (Europe is far). Tell my host mom about my day. Dinner’s around 7. Afterward we watch some TV and then I head to bed.

It’s simple, and when I distill it down into a few paragraphs, sounds kind of boring. And honestly, some days it is. I’m waiting for approval to be on the ambulance and sitting in the office is not exactly my dream. Sometimes it’s interesting to interview people and sometimes I hide from everyone because people are scary. But it’s good.