So based on my Instragram/Facebook/blog posts I’ve had a few people ask me if I’m actually doing research in Guatemala (lol). While this trip does feel like a vacation a lot of the time, I promise you, I am in fact actually helping out with a research study here.
Our project is part of an ongoing study focused on cardiovascular health education, and we are working with people in the small lakeside village of Santiago Atitlán (I’ll do another post on this beautiful town later, I promise). I’m working with one other student from my medical school (hey Laura), and a community health worker (hola Diego), and we are supervised by some physicians here in Guatemala and back in Virginia. Last week was our first week on the project, and we began at CAIMI (Centro de Atención Integral Materno Infantile). We had a pretty successful week there and got way more study participants than we were expecting. Go us.
This week we were planning to work at a small hospital, but that didn’t quite work out as planned. So instead, we are doing home visits, and educating participants in their homes. I’m really enjoying these home visits so far because we get to explore Santiago some more and get a glimpse into what life is like for its residents.
It’s been quite the experience working on a research project in foreign country. It can be especially hard at times because a lot of communication occurs in Tz’utujil (one of Guatemala’s 21 Mayan languages) and all I can understand are the words for “yes” and “no.” Laura and I are pretty good at communicating with our partners here in Guatemala in Spanish but even that can get tricky at times. However, it is pretty rewarding to be working in the community, learning more about Mayan culture, and being involved in teaching people about heart health.
And living in place so beautiful that I can take enough pictures to make you all think I’m not even working is a pretty big plus.
-S
Work hard, and flourish 