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“Suficiente.” I replied. My response locked me into speaking Spanish for the next six weeks.
Freddy and I took a taxi to the home of my host family. During the ride, I got the first glimpse of my new
world. The city was immense. There were no skyscrapers and no buildings taller than 10 stories. However,
Cochabamba seemed like it could engulf any city I had lived in before. Its vastness seemed limitless, incom-
prehensible to a stranger like me. Mountains towered high above us, surrounding the city on all sides. They
appeared to be draped in green velvet that reflected the buttery sky. As we drove, only Spanish was spoken. I
was so proud. I am actually having a conversation with a Bolivian man….in Bolivia. It took time for my head
to adjust to that idea. If I could have only seen then how regularly I would use Spanish to get through the day,
to survive, it might not have seemed like such a big deal. Yet, never had I felt so accomplished.
We arrived at an apartment complex that towered high above the surrounding buildings. This appeared to
be a residential area of the city. Parks, trees, families. We took the elevator to the third floor and knocked on a
wooden door. It swung open and a middle-aged man wearing a dark blue T-shirt and blue jeans jumped out.
He grabbed my right hand and pulled my face close to his. I could feel his rough chin and moist sweat seep
against my cheek as his thick lips buried a kiss into the side of my face. Even the simplest human interaction, a
greeting, was something that made me feel every painstaking mile the separated me from my familiar world.
I learned his name was Carlos. His round belly protruded far past his belt line. I noticed drops of sweat slid-
ing down his temple and into his jet black hair. Both his physical appearance and hospitality made him seem
no more threatening than a teddy bear. He welcomed me inside and showed me my new home. My bedroom,
the bathroom, the kitchen, and living room. He told me he lived with his wife, Rocio, and four year old son,
Matias. Both were out of town for Rocio’s job as the chief of police. A strange feeling of anticipation clung to
me as I waited to meet the rest of my “family,” the people I would share my life with for the next 38 days.
As the first few days passed, the excitement of my idealistic adventure faded away. I was left to face reality;
and it hit me. Hard. I was in the middle of a foreign country. Alone. Without a single familiar face. Having to
rely on a language that I was not fluent in. I had not yet made any friends, any connections; there was sim-
ply no opportunity to. It was not an option to work in the hospital or visit the ProjectsAbroad office due to
Christmas holidays, where I could meet someone, anyone. Time dripped by. My days were spent taking a trip
to the supermercado, alone. Watching TV, alone. Reading, alone. I was plagued with constant sickness, my food
never wanting to stay settled. Multiple times I questioned my purpose of venturing to Bolivia and why I had so
deeply felt the need to go. This was everything I had worked so hard for: to travel to a new country and experi-
ence the health care system. Yet, my work was failing me. This was not what I had asked for. I wanted friend-
ships in the place of loneliness, work in the place of boredom, and a sense of purpose in the place of doubt.
In my moment of greatest discouragement, things slowly began to fall into place. The ProjectsAbroad of-
fice reopened and youth volunteers flocked in. It became the gathering place for friendships to build from all
across the world. Together, we were inspired to travel through-out Bolivia and see every corner of its beauty.
After a weekend of travel, I looked forward to the start of a new week. Mondays meant that I could work in
the hospital. Every day, I was eager to see my new-found friends, all from a class of 30 medical interns going
through residency rotations. They became my role models and teachers, using their knowledge to build mine.
As the weeks went on, I began to feel as if I were one of them. We shared meals together, laughed together, and
even slept together during my three overnight rotations. Over just a few weeks, I had built connections and
gained experiences that would never leave me.
In the hospital, I saw everything from emergency sutures to maxillofacial reconstructive surgery and ban-
dage changes to pediatric examinations. The most memorable experience was watching the delivery of a baby
boy. Along with my intern friend Alan, I assisted in this baby’s transition into his new world. I had never held
something so small, so new. Perhaps this experience was impactful because I could so easily sympathize with
him. We were both pulled from our comfortable familiarity and dropped into a cold, uninviting world. We
were forced to take a deep breath and adapt. We were forced to be human. In the times where I wanted to give
up the most, I realized humanity is not easy, it is not comfortable, but it is definitely worth living.
Sometimes, in the most unexpected and simple way, the most important lessons can be learned. During my
third and final overnight shift, this truth became indefinitely clear.
The bold red numbers were glowing against the deep black background of the military-count clock hanging
above the patient board in the hospital. They read “00:03.” Internally, I celebrated that we had made it past
“the hump” of midnight. Heavy bags hung under our eyes from the lack of sleep and excess of attention we
needed to give proper care throughout the day. The graphite stethoscope that hung over my shoulders stood
in stark contrast against my sky-blue scrubs and white hospital lab coat. Clearly American. The interns were
dressed in scrubs of the deepest red, ironically, or more appropriately, the color of blood. On this night, we
were assigned to work in the salas (rooms) to guard those who were recovering from surgery. The four of us
wandered in and out of the 14 rooms that lined the long hallway. We monitored every patient like their life
depended on it, because it did.
We entered sala number 6 to find a corpse-like woman fighting for each breath she took. Her gray braided