Buenas Días! I am writing this blog post on the bus to Monteverde which is this weekend’s excursion of choice, and I have a number of hours to while away. But more on that later.
We left off after the beach. Tired and sunburnt (most of us), we had a chill evening after arriving back to Selina to prepare for the next day’s trip to a local hospital.
We began Sunday morning with virtual classes with Professor Howard from the University of Colorado. We explored the importance of clinical observation and how to properly conduct observation in clinical settings as well as what type of questions to ask.
That afternoon, we headed to Clínica Bíblica where we would be doing some clinical observation in different areas of the hospital. We explored the pharmacy, the imaging centre and the laboratory. In the lab we got to see medications being prepared. I watched two patients have a CT scan in the imaging diagnosis area and also held a coin in the MRI machine to experience how strong the magnetic field was. This was so cool and surprising, as it was a very powerful field and the device wasn’t even on. Holding the coin in my fist made my hand draw circles that got faster as I got closer to the machine. The pharmacy was really interesting to learn about because we got given a very comprehensive tour by the pharmacist there, Dr Bruno Serrano. He was really friendly and had great English which helped us to understand each aspect there. After our time at Clínica Bíblica ended, we compiled our observations to create needs documents which became project sketches.
On Tuesday we started the program proper at ULACIT. We have a designated classroom to use as our makerspace while we’re here, where we design and prototype our devices. Leticia, Walsh and I form the group TENS out of 10. We’re working on a device to provide TENS therapy to nurses whilst they are on shift, to relieve chronic pain in the feet. Our device incorporates a TENS device into a compression sock as these are the two current methods for pain relief, however we hope to design ours to be portable, comfortable and easily used during the workday. My sewing skills have improved a lot whilst being here which was something I didn’t anticipate but it has been a nice change of pace from working with hand tools.
On Tuesday evening, I met up with two friends from Rice who are currently in Costa Rica. Daniela lives just west of San Jose and ALo is in Heredia with the ‘Rice in Country’ language program. We went to a café in Barrio Escalante called La Mosaico which was really cute and later got dinner at a nearby Thai Restaurant which was really good!
On Thursday I met up with new friends – from Costa Rica. Paula and Josie were also on the Medical Innovation program last week and suggested that we go out somewhere. They showed us some cool places nearby that we could go out. I really enjoyed it because people here dance a lot when they go out so it’s a lot of fun.
On Fridays we basically get a half day. Yay!! We left ULACIT at 12 to go into downtown San Jose to explore and practise making observations. Chaos surrounded us as soon as we stepped outside. It would seem the city is busier at midday than 4pm when we usually leave. Perhaps because it’s lunchtime. The streets only got busier as we approached Avenida Central. There were countless street vendors with colourful jewellery, wallets, souvenirs, and a surprising number of socks. Adding to the cacophony of sound was a group of musicians who were surprisingly very good. Their collective included a marimba, maracas and a xylophone played by two people. The music was very lively and attracted a small crowd.
Plenty of open front restaurants had enticing smells coming from them so we stopped for lunch. The tacos were pretty good but what surprised me most was the option to have pineapple as a topping. With the spicy salsa, it was an interesting but still very tasty combination.
From the central square, we headed to the Jade Museum where we explored four floors of pre-Columbian history of Costa Rica. The first floor included the Jade hall and a Salvador Dali art exhibition. A lot of Dali’s work was very eccentric and bizarre – inspired by his self-induced hypnotic sleep state, during which he experienced hallucinations and peculiar dreams.
The Jade hall, as one might expect, contained many items made of Jade including not only jewellery and talismans but also tools such as letter openers, knives and ceremonial objects.
It was really interesting to see the similarity to Egyptian burial customs. The pre-Columbian Costa Ricans believed in an afterlife called “the Great Beyond” so people were buried with precious objects and tools to use in the afterlife. They were often better quality than the ones they used for everyday use as they had to last an eternity, not just a lifetime.
I also found the information about shamanic rituals very interesting. They used Jade figurines for healing and purification. Often the figurines had two heads to represent good and evil and therefore represent the duality of man. Shame actually means “the person who knows” but has now morphed into a word with many different meanings. Shamans are the intermediaries between the social groups and the spirits and we’re often through to shapeshift. Jaguars and alligators were common as options to shift into as they were renowned and feared for their strength and ferocity.
After a history filled day and having lots to see, we went back to Selina and made dinner before playing pool and some card games.