Warning: living and working in the Yucatan peninsula can be hazardous to your health as well as your comfort zone!
Here are some helpful tips to take into consideration before traveling to the area or working in a local clinic:
#1
Be sure to always wear shoes or sandals, even while indoors. Passive examination of the floor before stepping may not prevent the eliciting of a startling crunch from underneath your foot. Always inspect the walls, floor, ceiling and any surfaces for things such as ants, beetles, crickets, june bugs, fireflies, moths, bees, millipedes ranging from one inch to five inches in length, spiders of all sizes including tarantulas, baby toting spiders, and spiders bigger than your hand not to mention scorpions before entering the room or touching any surface. Keep a can of Raid within close range at all times! This bug poison is indispensable and useful for annihilating, asphyxiating, destroying, dispatching, executing, exterminating, and effectively sending any creepy crawly creature to its prospective genus and species afterlife.
#2
Become acclimated to sleeping in a hammock as soon as possible. It may be helpful to ask for instruction on sleeping positions and tying techniques for storage from the local natives as trial-and-error can be very time consuming. Sleeping in a hammock is much cooler than a flat bed. Though non-native sleepers find the first several nights uncomfortable becoming acclimated serves its purpose on especially hot nights when one would otherwise lie awake creating their own pool of sweat on a mattress. A rolled hand towel under the neck can help to alleviate morning stiffness.
#3
Be prepared for heat and humidity. The best preparation is mental preparation. Expect to be hot and sweaty at all times. Bring extra shower gel as it is common to bathe more than once a day. Bring lightweight pants, shoes, socks, and shirts with sleeves to avoid being eaten alive by mosquitoes and the threat of mosquito borne illnesses as they seem to prefer foreign blood over native blood.
#4
Do not expect the same materials, precautions, or treatments as in your hometown hospital. Clinics run on a very small budget so sacrifices in highly used materials must be made. Gloves are a precious commodity and are only used when absolutely necessary. They are then saved, cleaned, dried, dusted with talc, and sterilized for future use. Cotton balls are made by hand. Gauze is cut and folded by hand. Basic patient data taken by the nurses before each visit are hand written on tiny slips of recycled paper from the clinic printer. Everything is hand wrapped and sterilized in the clinic. Soiled linens are soaked and cleaned before going through the washing machine. They are then line dried and folded by hand. Learning certain key words and phrases in the local dialect proves to be very helpful for the nurse/patient relationship even though at least one family member accompanies the patient to serve as translator if needed.
#5
Expect to be pushed past your spiritual comfort zone. The window of opportunity for communication and verbal witnessing is extremely short for the vast majority of patients. Because this is a very family oriented culture, your words and actions are also heard and viewed by several of the patient’s family members. If you are asked to perform any kind of leadership role the common stereotypes of an American including a strong personality, ethnocentrism, and forward-thinking are accentuated. Care must be taken so as to not take advantage of such expectations for personal aggrandizement. Whenever a Christian works primarily in the field of ministry they set themselves up for myriads of spiritual attacks by the forces of darkness. Prayer and careful Bible study are a necessity to keep your thoughts, emotions, actions, and words within the will of God. Prepare and protect your mind from flaming arrows of doubt, fear, timidity, grandiosity, entitlement, pride, quarrelling, and any other unforeseen ungodly trait.
Prayer:
Continued prayer for Margarita. Her body refused to respond to the medication and expulse the fetus. She went home to continue waiting it out as the doctors do not want to do surgery until her body at least tries to release the baby.
For boldness in witnessing. Verbal witnessing has never been my forte and I feel that is a point of attack for the enemy.
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