la libertad

So, after a long busride over night (during which my ipod myteriously disappeared while I was listening to it!) I arrived in Puerto Lopez. At a first glance, it doesnt look like much- a run down town with falling down houses, "canals" filled with standing water and trash, dirt roads. Since we got here around 7:30 am and no one was up or walking around I was skeptical. However the "main strip" some restraunts, bars, fruit stands, and artisan shops is right on the beach and is very tourist friendly.
Since the doctor from La Libertad still hadn´t emailed me back on Monday morning, I decided to spend a day in Puerto Lopez before continuing on. While eating breakfast I met a really nice guy from England and ended up going on a boat ride with him to see humbolt whales. I didnt expect it to be much, but it was amazing! The whales migrate up from Antarctica for a few months every year to repopulate when the water there is too cold to survive. Puerto Lopez is one of the few places where you can see them.. they are huge. The females get up to 40 meters long.. about 4x as big as the 20 passenger boat I was on. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing beach volleyball and hanging out with some canadians and the dude that owns the hostel- a guy named Yadin. He was supernice and its awesome to go places and meet locals to really get a feel for what the town is like, the culture etc.
On Tuesday early afternoon I arrived in La Libertad, about 3 hours south of Puerto Lopez. I went to the clinic to meet the doctor, but it turns out she was returning from Quito later that day. So, I spent my first day there hanging out at the clinic, talking to the director about what kind of work I could do (mostly nutrition consultations- which in the US I am absolutely not qualified to do, but there I was one of the most qualified..) and waiting for the doctor. When I finally met her, she was so nice and really appologetic about having forgotten about me. I ended up staying in her house and spent a lot of time hanging out with her 13 year old son, Angel.
I spent 5 days in La libertad before deciding that although there is lots of work to be done there, it wasn´t the place for me to stay. Staying in the doctor´s house made me feel really clasutrophobic after being accustomed to absolute freedom and it was hard to meet anyone my own age. Plus, the work in the clinic is necessary, but it was frustrating to feel cooped up inside all day. However, this being said, the few days I was there were really interesting. La libertad is an "urban area" although not really a city because there is only a tiny center. However it has a population of about 90,000 and is mostly a conglomeration of dry dirt roads that all look the same and really rundown houses. One of the days I was there I went out with some students who are going house to house taking a census to measure the health discrepancies in the area the clinic serves. Some of the houses we went to weren´t even really houses- 1 room with dirt floors, at best they had cement siding and tin roofs, however alot shared their houses and small dirt yards with all sorts of animals from chickens (most popular) to pigs, ducks, etc. I also got to give a private consultation to an underweight child which was kind of cool- especially cool to see that my spanish is good enough to do something intelligent with.
Yesterday I left La Libertad, mostly because realizing that I could not devote a full time committment, I decided it was time to move on. It was a really hard decision to make because everyone there was really nice to me and there truly is a lot of work to do, but in the end, if I am not happy in the location there is no way for me to produce good outcomes in my work. Plus as I was there I really realized I want to be more involved working with the FDJE and diabetes outreach work and I would like to devote as much time as possible to that.
When I left La libertad I cam back to Puerto Lopez where I am now. It has been cloudy and not too warm, but something about this place is charming. I have made friends with a few of Yadin´s friends (locals) and today sat on the street with some of the artisaneas making bracelets to sell. It is an interesting look at a totally different lifestyle of people my age..
Tomorrow I plan to go to Canoa, another similar beach town for a day or two which is a good halfway point between here and Esmereldas, the beach town in the north where I will be working on the malaria project starting Wednesday. So things are not necessarily going as planned but are going well nonetheless!