Letters from the Navajo Nation (#3)

I am now back home, but still need to write about the last week that I was in the Navajo Nation. Here is what I did:

• We went to a family's home from Church for dinner on Monday night. We had an amazing time, and the gentleman and his wife were so welcoming. They shared many great stories with us, one of them being about how this man came to lose his leg. He kept getting an infection in knee due to his medical conditions, and the doctors tried everything but nothing worked. He eventually ended up in the hospital again, and didn't know what to do. He called his Bishop at the time and said for "pray for me", and the Bishop said for him to pray as well. This man prayed that he would live long enough to see his niece, that his wife and he adopted due to family circumstances, be able to go to the temple. The doctors then came in and told him about the option of amputating his leg in order to get rid of the infection entirely, and he said immediately he knew that was the answer to his prayer. He got his leg amputated, and then this man proceeded to tell us how his amputation was the answer to his prayer to prolong his days so that way he can see his niece be able to go to the temple. He has not had any complications since. He then told us how God answers prayers sometimes in ways you don't expect, and that just sent chills down my spine. What great faith!
• We went to another person's home on Wednesday. This woman was a nurse at the high school, and she invited us to come and make our own Navajo tacos. Here are some pictures of us making the dough-

Here we are making the bread in the Hogan

Outside the Hogan making the fry bread-you can see what the scenery looks like there!

• On Thursday for clinical I got to go to the Urgent Care clinic. I have definitely decided that working at a clinic is something that I would be interested in as I get older. I really enjoyed it, and the nurses were awesome and let me dress wounds, irrigate an ear, do admittance assessments, and help out. It was great!
• On Friday our group worked on homework for most of the morning, but in the afternoon we did the White House hike in Canyon De Chelly, as it does not require a Native American tour guide. The White House hike takes you down to the floor of the canyon to ruins that are estimated to have housed about 60-70 people.

The ruins

• Saturday involved us completing our Public Health project. We taught at a Relief Society "Super Saturday" activity on Emergency Preparedness and Basic First Aid. We were able to teach many of the people that came, and taught topics such as burns, cuts & animal bites, fractures, basics of CPR, and how to assemble a first aid kit.  My partner Brittney and I taught about the importance of writing down medical information so you can have it all in one place and the importance of establishing a plan with your family of what you would do if an emergency occurred.

Brittney and I posing for a teaching-in-action shot

• The next Monday we were again invited to dinner from a member from Church. We went to her mother's property, which had a small canyon and walked hiked and scaled big rocks in order to see some Native American ruins up close! It was a great experience, but we weren't aware of the intensity of the hike beforehand, and the majority of us were wearing flip-flops (myself included)! It was a fun though and the ruins were really cool!

Victory after just climbing up a HUGE rock. I had ditched the flip-flops as you can see

Cool rock formations at the bottom of the canyon; these were caused by the river that had run in it a long time ago

Some pretty wild flowers I encountered during the less intense part of our hike :)

The ruins up close! So cool!

• I got to be out in the community for my last few clinical days, and it was great! I really got to experience the culture first-hand and visit people in their homes. We mostly visited the Grandmas to check up on how they were doing. A neat thing about the Navajo culture is that any elderly lady that you encounter you always call Grandma, even if they are not your grandmother.

We left this past Thursday, and while I was more than excited to get home to Alex (I had been counting down the days!) I felt sad to leave. I grew to love the people and learned a lot from the culture. I am really glad I choose the Navajo Nation for my global health experience, and I am so grateful for all the people that I had the opportunity to meet and work with. Also, feel free to check out ghhdnavajo2012.blogspot.com for more perspectives from the students I was with on our cultural experiences!

All of us with our amazing instructors (the two on the far right)