The roads here are terrible, especially in the villages. The main street in my village is paved but the rest of them are mostly gravel or dirt and since it's been warming up a little bit here now the roads are just covered in mud and ice.
This weekend, as I was walking home, I slipped on the ice right down the street from my house. At first my main concern was that I had gotten mud all over my pants, but when I looked down at my finger, I realized that it looked a little funny.
It turns out it was broken. Although I didn't find this out until the next afternoon because my village is seven hours from the capital and it's dangerous to travel at night here so I couldn't leave until morning. Fortunately it didn't hurt that much, and I had plenty of ibuprofen.
Aside from the delay though Peace Corps medical care is pretty much the best I've ever had. Even expensive concierge medical services in America have a much larger patient to doctor ratio than we do. We have under 80 volunteers in the country right now and two doctors and a medical assistant to take care of us. I was able to call my doctor on a Saturday evening and he arranged for me to come in and went with me to the orthopedic for x-rays.
As with many things here, going to the hospital seems like stepping in a time machine. The staff all seemed very competent, but the equipment looked like it was from Soviet times. They are still using film for the x-rays, they haven't gone digital yet. The nurse made my cast by hand with gauze and plaster dust. I now have a huge cast that seems a little excessive for a broken finger. I'm hoping to get it off soon.
My host family was very sweet. They were all very concerned when I walked in with my crooked finger and they kept insisting that they take me to the hospital I had to explain to them several times that I had to go to the hospital in Bishkek the next morning. When I arrived back home on Monday morning, my host mother wouldn't let me come in the house until she had waved a teacup over my head. They do this when someone has been in some dangerous situation. Traditionally I think you are supposed to spit in the cup three times, but I think it was just water.
On a sidenote, I wrote this all with my iPhone's voice to text feature, since typing with one hand is annoying, and it worked incredibly well!
