It's a Wonderful Life

Today was extraordinary.

Basically it epitomized my past three months here in the duration of about six hours. It dealt with everything from transportation to knowing the city to lots of Spanish speaking to food to being independent.

I have been in contact with Dr. Marcos from the Instituto de Zoonosis "Luis Pasteur" de Buenos Aires since I have been here, which is thanks to a professor at Hope who studies the history of public health in Argentina. I went to the institute one time in what I believe was April, and Dr. Marcos showed me around and explained what the institute does. The institute is funded by the government and was created in 1927 in order to control zoonotic diseases, or diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans. For example, a large part of the institute deals with rabies, of which has been successfully controlled between humans and dogs in Buenos Aires (the last human case was in 1976 and the last canine case was in 1981). The institute also sees animals for regular veterinary visits, but its central mission statement is: "... to understand everything about the diagnosis, prevention and control of zoonoses in urban Buenos Aires, in order to preserve the good health of human and animal population of the City ..."

I asked Dr. Marcos if there was something that I could do at the institute to understand in more depth what effect it has on the city, and he informed me about their traveling clinics. What a perfect opportunity. I have plans to get my master's in public health in the future, and being able to observe a very specific type of public health in a big city like Buenos Aires is such an eye-opening experience. So now starts my story about today.

I woke up early this morning and found a new bus to take to get to Parque Centenario, where the institute is located. This is a pretty good feat, because it's difficult to know the exact route of the buses and where exactly you should get off. But everything went down perfectly and I made it to the institute on time. Which, in Argentina, being on time doesn't really matter, but Dr. Marcos told me the traveling clinics were leaving at 8 am, so I didn't want to miss out. I went upstairs and met about twenty people who were all drinking mate and chatting. We didn't end up leaving the institute until probably 8:45, and out of the twenty or so in the room only six of us left. We went right outside of a shantytown in Puerto Madero, and there was already a group of people with their dogs waiting for us.

When the institute has traveling clinics, there is someone who goes to the shantytown and organizes a group of people who need to have their dogs or cats castrated. They tell them when and where to go, and all the surgeries are funded by the government. I was talking to one of the vet techs, and she said that yesterday they went to the shantytown but no one showed up because of bad communication between organizers, but this isn't common.

The traveling clinic is pretty cool. Inside there are two operating tables, sinks, counters, cabinets, lights, even a remote control air conditioning system. They also keep mate materials in one of the cabinets, of which everyone partakes throughout all the surgeries (not the people doing the surgeries, of course). Everything was kept highly sterile, and it reminded me of any other animal clinic.

One by one the people brought their animals up into the clinic. There were two cats and four dogs castrated. The animals aren't supposed to eat for 12 hours before the surgery, or else the anesthesia won't work and they will suffer a lot of pain, become sick, vomit, and have a high probability of dying. We encountered this problem with one of the dogs that was supposed to be castrated. The anesthesia wasn't working, so they had to ask the owner the last time the dog ate. However, because the dogs live in a shantytown, it's difficult to control them and know for sure when the last time they ate was, because it's very possible that they could have dug into some trash. For this reason there was only four dogs castrated and not five. It was really cool to stand there and watch all the castrations and ask tons of questions. By the end I felt like I could have done the surgery myself!

Today I was at the highest Spanish-speaking ability that I have been at yet. I could understand everything that everyone was asking me. The veterinarians were making jokes with me and I could make jokes back. If someone had just met me, they would ask someone else, "Ella habla español?" and the people I was with would say, "Si! Ella habla español muy bien!" And I would think to myself SCORE! I loved having the opportunity to be around medical personnel who speak Spanish today, because it allowed me to realize that I now have a better capacity of understanding material specific to what I want to do in life.

After we arrived back at the institute, I walked to the subte (without a map) and took it to Abasto, which is giant shopping mall on the same street that I live but about ten blocks down. (Abasto also has the only kosher McDonald's outside of Israel.) I have been to Abasto at night to go to the cinema, but never during the day. So I decided to walk around, and it was really relaxing to be by myself in the mall (and without my debit card). I went to the food court, bought a chicken shwarma, sat and ate and just people watched, realizing that I was able to understand all the conversations around me. It was great. I no longer felt like an anxious, lost foreigner. People could understand me and I could understand them and I was sitting in a mall in Buenos Aires by myself with a chicken shwarma after a morning hanging out with veterinarians. Is this my life? Can this happen everyday? That moment was perfect.

I feel like I am 100x more knowledgeable about the world than when I first came here. Today made me realize the progress that I have made towards my goals in life and how much I have grown as a person since that first step off the plane. Not that I'm counting or anything, but there are 37 more days until my family arrives, and 37 more days to grow independently 5,000 miles away from home. Let's do this.