Mira Ve

Monday, November 08, 2010
Deaths work a little differently here. Immediately after Tia Amelia died they brought her to the funeral home, still on the cot from the clinic. Then they cleaned her, put make up on her. After a few hours still they brought in the coffin and flowers. During this whole time family came in, wailing, crying. It was all very sad. Visitors came in and out all day as they heard the news, paid their respects, some stayed for hours. That night even some slept there in the funeral home upstairs (they have cots). It’s normal here. The next day, since the morning everyone was back there. Another day spent there. We waited until Sunday to have the procession to the cemetery to bury her. She had two daughters in Spain they were waiting for. The procession is as follows: the herse doesn’t exist. From the clinic to the funeral home: leyla’s truck. After the funeral home everyone walks on foot (including men carrying the casket) to the church where they have a mass, and then on foot again to the cemetery. There is a cemetery right in town but she was buried at the one way far away en the camino for the finca. It was about a half hour walk, at least. And it was super hot. From there there was more crying and wailing. At this point I didn’t really want to be around in any more. Grieving for 3 days is crazy and not really something I’m able to do. They said that it’s usually only 2 days but because they had to wait for the daughters from spain it was an extra day but still. In the states its like half a day (the funeral stuff), right?

Last night after dinner they were like okay were going to go to her house now and chat, lets go. Nononono. I had to prepare for my charla and waking up at 7:30 this morning which was super difficult following 3 long spent at a funeral home, around crying people, being mentally, emotionally and physically drained. So I stayed in alone last night which was kind of creepy to prepare for my charla this morning which I was super worried about. The charla that Tia Amelia heard the night before she died, which didn’t bother me too much just something else to think about. It was pretty hard waking up with morning so early but I was full of nerves and excitement. The first day I’m going to be working directly with my Club of diabetics and hypertensives. I was super nervous because I would be giving the presentation in front of the doctors and if I said something wrong they would def know. Also it didn’t help that the doctor kept saying that we had to kind of speed through the meeting because we had some communities to visit. My charla is usually around a half hour with interactions from the group and everything to make it interesting. I had already cut it down some because I knew but now he wanted me to cut it even more. Luckily I had prepared a little before hand so I was able to wing it, more or less. I was super nervous, shaking and stumbling over my words but besides that it went pretty well. Also because I didn’t have them interacting as I usually would I don’t know if they retained it or understood as much as I would have liked but I think/hope they did (considering they really need it, they’re supposed to come without eating breakfast to check their sugar levels but a lot of times they eat breakfast anyway which ruins the readings and then when we ask them what they ate its something horrible, today it was carne de res—red meat, and rice.) A few of the things I said the doctors would go “mmhmm” and afterwards one of them said “it was a good charla” :)

Sunday I also took a break from the funeral stuff to stop by the Seniors home with the doc but they weren’t there (no surprise). But I got a chance to talk to him about some of my ideas and he told me he was also interested in some of the same things (exercise groups, medical brigades) and really is pushing to doing an event for World Aids Day which is December first which would be great but less than a month isn’t rally enough time to plan something well but we’ll see. Tomorrow, another visit to people with disabilities in the campos. Thursday we have our next women’s group meeting where were going to talk about exercise and possibly starting an aerobics group with them. Friday is the other CLUBHD and then Quito!!