Hey ya’ll! Greetings from Weslaco, TX! People have been asking me “What is it like?!?” Well first of all it is HOT! It is almost as bad as Jamaica which is why I take nice COLD showers. I have kind of stopped wearing make up since it will sweat off as soon as I step outside. I have my own room and the color is lime green (I was so excited about that!) Right now we have one volunteer mid-wife (who is leaving in like a month) and 2 other volunteer nurses who will be here for a year with me. Tomorrow we are getting a mid-wife who will be here for up to 6 months and in September we will get both a nurse and mid-wife who will both be here for a year! We have clinic Mondays, Tuesday s, and Thursday s. This is where women get prenatal care and have check-ups (side note: I will have to start drawing blood from pregnant women which scares me!). Wednesdays are meetings and catch up days. We have to be ready for a birth at any time though especially since I am still going through orientation as a new nurse. Once I get more experience I will have specific “off” days. It is interesting living and working with the same people but so far no fireworks. I do have access to a car and yes they do pay for the gas. We do have chickens where we live and they lay eggs for us. We feed them twice a day and there is a rooster who is meaner than anything. We share food as a community and we have been cooking food together if things are not really crazy. There is no Chick fil a near which makes me sad but I cannot really afford to eat there as much as I use to.
So I have been in at Holy Family Birthing Center a little over one week and finally have time to post something about what’s going on. God has already started to change me in such a short period of time. Even though I am still in the US, it is very different down here especially being so close to the border. The town I am in Weslaco has about 20,000 people living here and they are mostly Hispanic. The poverty is worse than I expected. I got to go along on a postpartum home care visit and the house the family lived in was extremely small. It was probably smaller than the size of our kitchen here at the center. Another thing that shocks me is the level of education of our patients. Most of them dropped out of high school in like high school and so they sometimes do not understand the basic medical terminology. I am going to be completely honest about one thing that has started stirring in my heart that I know God will work on stretching throughout my time here. I was a little worried about coming here in the first place because I got frustrated at times with the Hispanic population. I would think, “Why do they just come over here to America to have their baby and just use up our resources? That is just not fair!” Also I wondered why they would just stop having sex so they would not keep getting pregnant. But probably the 3rd night I was here I was walking back to my room and it suddenly hit me: It really is part of the expectations that the culture puts on the girls. They are to grow up and have babies and work some job but not to pursue a higher education. And once realizing that I became heartbroken for them. I was so blessed with amazing parents who told me I was capable of doing whatever I wanted and wanted me to go to school and get a job that I could support myself with. But that is not the case with the Hispanic population and that is so sad to me. They seem to have little self confidence to me and I just think it’s sad they do not try to peruse something other than having babies. And I am not saying having babies and being a mom is not a noble thing. It is a very noble thing but if you think that is all you are capable of doing then that is when I think it is sad. And after thinking some more they come to America to have their babies because they know their children are in better hands over here than over in Mexico and I hope all parents only want the very best for their child’s health. I mean would we, America, be the greatest country in the world if we let women go without prenatal care and safe birthing facilities which could lead to both the mom’s and baby’s death? I still struggle with the issue of illegal immigrants but I hope God will continue to shed some light on this issue on my heart.
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