Day 5, February 17 (Thursday)

Again, we got an early start and headed off to the Tololar Puesto, a village clinic. This clinic consists of a doctor, a nurse, a dentist, and a medical student and serves 4,500 people. We toured the clinic, which was about four rooms. The facility was obviously very basic and the pharmacy was the bare minimum. The staff was extremely welcoming to us.

A clinic room

We then split up into two groups and went on home visits.  Cristina, Amber, and I went with the nurse. We handed out Albendazole to everyone and the doctor gave quick preventative medicine advice. He instructed the villagers to wash their hands and cooking utensils well and to avoid mosquito bites as much as possible.


A home visit group

Juan, Naomi, and Marianne went with the doctor in the other direction. There, they made more traditional home visits checking on patients with chronic health problems as well as with a lady who was instrumental in beginning the health center at Tololar. We returned to Leon in the afternoon and promptly left to hop on a public bus to tour the medical school in Leon.

At the Tololar clinic

The medical school was surprisingly very similar to a medical school in the US with the exception of air conditioning :) We ended the day with a meeting with the director of the Department of Psychology where we learned about education as well as psychology in the community. We had an early dinner at a local restaurant that was one of our best meals in Nicaragua with a price tag of about $2. We ended our night at a local bar playing cards and watching the locals do karoake!