Our first week in Puerto Rico has been crazy!
Last weekend was the San Sebastian Festival which is what some Puerto Ricans call, "the best weekend on the island". Juan-Carlos, our Puerto Rican residential assistant (and personal tour guide), told us that this festival started by a group of priests but turned into a large party in the streets for four days in a row. He says that Puerto Ricans will find any excuse for a party. :)
We went to Old San Juan Friday night to participate in the festival and were trapped between the crowds of people and the beautiful buildings of the city. After seeing what Old San Juan looked like at night, we couldn't wait to see it during the day.
Saturday afternoon, we took the train and a short bus ride to get to the heart of Old San Juan to see this:
It looked like a little slice of Europe that was planted in the Caribbean. Every building has a unique history (and color).
The San Sebastian Festival continued throughout the day and on til Monday.
 |
| San Sebastian Festival |
 |
One of the big questions people have asked me is how the food is...and shamefully, I haven't been able to try a lot of it. We had a refrigerator packed full of food when we got here so we have not had the chance to eat out a lot. Although, we were able to stop once at a restaurant in Old San Juan that served traditional Puerto Rican food, which we all learned pretty quickly, is FRIED.
Plantain tamale, baked pork, a fried plantain, fried rice
As my parents have been saying..."Aren't you there for school or is it all vacation?!"
Thus far it has seemed like a vacation, as we are just getting back into school mode. Tuesday was our first day at the hospital, exploring the floor and touring the building.
Our psych rotation is really interesting! The patients are all very friendly and excited to have new faces on the floor. A sweet man told me we was the ruler of the Ming Dynasty in China and later in life was an Apache Native American. They tell us a lot of things we have to take with a grain of salt...sometimes a very large grain of salt. ;)
The second day of clinical, I was able to spend the day in the Day Clinic - a program for former inpatient psychiatric patients that do not need hospitalization but need continuing treatment which is mostly group therapy.
As I walked in the clinic, all of the patients seemed anxious and on edge. I couldn’t tell if this was just the vibe in the clinic or if there was something different that had happened. After hearing “investigación” and “asesinato” a couple times, I figured out the reason for the extra anxiety in the air. The nurse further explained to me that the conversation was about a former participant of the day clinic that had killed his wife and himself the night before. The participants at the meeting were nervous about the risk that one day, they could just snap. It made me realize the thought process of an individual with a psychiatric illness. For example, I know I do not have the mental capability to harm another person, but people with mental illnesses can be nervous that because of the flexibility of mental cognition, they don’t know where their mind can take them.
Humbling to say the least.
