Am I actually helping?

I don't think that the work I do here is helpful. I don't speak spanish well, I have no medical training, and most of my time at my placement is me walking through poor neighborhoods with the doctors and nurses carrying papers.

I don't think that I'm very helpful here. I'm a 5'0" white girl who is part of a service-learning program. I don't know if I would choose to spend my time volunteering in the hospital if I wasn't mandated to do so. However, I think I can still help. I've spent the last three years in various health studies related classes. I come from an area populated with generous people. I am optimistic and creative. I am good at coordinating programs and writing, and my undergraduate brain enjoys thinking of ways that I can help. I don't know if I am helping by accompanying the doctors and nurses on their home rounds. However, I have the ability to help in a different way. I am going to write a paper and share it with IPSL, my school, and the internet. I plan to expose what is really going on at the hospital. I think that a lot of people will be shocked. If my host mom had not flown to Guyaquil and gone to the hospital there, she would have died from the pills that the doctors here gave her. I am going to be applying to medical schools and graduate schools for public health when I get home. I can be trained to actually help. I can develop programs and policy for public health systems in developing countries. I can work on my spanish, so if I decide to again participate in international service in South or Latin America, I can actually speak to people.

I am going to be telling the story of how "I found myself on the Galápagos Islands" to countless people when I get home. And this will definitely be a part of it.