I see dead people...

Ok, ok before you freak out about what in the world Mexico has done to me, even amongst all of the things I have learned so far, I have not developed a sixth sense. This just happened to be the first, and possibly insensitive, title I came up with. Because it's true! Well, it was last weekend. Let us start at the beginning...

Friday and Saturday of last week we were to take part in a conference about death in Mexico put on for us by our friendly folks at UPAEP. The conference was to all Friday and Saturday and therefore, we would be missing classes. Needless to say, there were some hitches and complaints because, of course, Notre Dame students never want to miss classes. Ok, they legitimately some people couldn't, but I DID!!! Anyways, the objective of this conference was to learn about death in Mexico; the sociology, the traditions, and the perspectives of a doctor. First we went to a museum that used to be the first hospital in Puebla. It was pretty crazy just imagining the pretty much open area filled with beds and sick Spanish and indigenous (of course confined to a separate room) back in the 1500's. Next we listed to a lecture about el Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) which is celebrated on November 2nd. Yes, it is celebrated. One of the phrases is "La vida del muerte"-death is active, with music and dancing and of course, eating.

At the left here is  a traditional bread made for this day. The center represents the head and the pieces coming off of it, the rest of the body. Since the bread represents the body of the deceased loved one being remembered, it is a privilege to be invited to eat it with the family. They also make ofrendas or altares devoted to their dead and which consist of offerings of anything formerly enjoyed by the person, including food. It is said that when the smell of the fruit offered is gone, that means the dead has come and taken the offering. I could go on, but it's still a month away and I don't want to ruin the surprise of that blog entry.
So anyways, we had a brief coffee break and then went to make traditional plaster skulls. We each only did a step of the process, so right now I have an unpainted paper mache-ish skull sitting on my desk. I forgot how much I liked soothing and repetitive crafts. And skulls.
We went to lunch, had another lecture about the psychology of pain and called it a day. The last lecture
was given by this captivating woman, who was trying so hard to keep us awake, but our full stomachs and end of the week fatigue led her to have to make us stand up and do exercises in the middle of her presentation.

That night, I actually ended up sleeping at UPAEP with Regan, another ND girl. We are both in the Theology class with Padre de Simone and he told us about "Adoración Nocturna" that happens monthly, and this week was for the women! So we showed up at the chapel with sleeping bags and backpacks around 10pm for what was to be a beautiful night. There were about 20 women and a nun there (who was a woman too...but I thought I should specify). Basically, we started with an hour all together with the Blessed Sacrament and then took turns the rest of the night to keep watch for an hour, until a closing Mass at 6am. Okay, so when I said I slept at UPAEP, I sort of lied; it was really only about 3 to 4 total hours of sleeping bag on a classroom floor. It was harder than I thought it was going to be to stay awake. I was already going on 4ish hours of sleep from the night before and was participating in a conference all day. I kept thinking of the Agony in the Garden and how when Jesus returned to his apostles he asked Peter "Could you not stay awake with me for one hour?" All in all though, it was so wonderful to have the opportunity to do be in Adoration for the first time since coming here, and it was great meeting some pretty awesome women.

Fueled by an omelet and extra-large coffee, we awaited the rest of our crew to show up for the second day of the conference. This started with a lecture on the sociology of death:

And finally, the main event and purpose of this blog title. The Morgue. We first got set up with some gear. I felt pretty legit, except that every time I breathed my glasses would fog up. I knew there must have been some veteran trick for avoiding this, but I, a novice, was in the dark.

Malia, Libby, and I ready to rock and roll.

They eased us into the whole thing. First we looked at some of the models they had lying around the room, then passed around some human femurs. I tried to sword-fight someone with them, but it was deemed a bad idea. The first shock of the day came when our med-school student helper brought over a glass jar with a floating baby in it. It was less than 20 weeks and was so small. I didn't really like that part all that much, but it was cool to see how developed a baby is, even at such a young gestational age.  Next we learned how to do sutures! It ended up being pretty fun. We learned two methods of tying, one with the clamp and another with our fingers. I think the hemp bracelet making over the years helped me to catch on quickly and I was soon picturing myself as a surgeon. Though, don't get me wrong, it's a lot harder than the pro's make it look and I was pretty much just as fumbly with the needle as a crab with mittens would be. We cut open and explored some pig hearts and probed our fingers through the valves to follow the path of circulation. And practiced sewing parts up! Grandpa Joe, I was thinking of your own pig valve! I'm glad I wasn't the one who sewed you up though.
And Then, the Body. They had taken two bodies out at the beginning of the session to let them dry off so the whole time they were just chilling in the corner of the room. I tried not to make eye contact. But then there I was, standing by the head of this previously cut open woman who's face was turned toward me. I felt accused. We cut open some of the stitches, probed around a bit, took out one of the lungs, put it back in, followed the connections of some of the organs and pretty much just played Eye Spy until we used our newfound skills to sew her back up. Layer by layer. The med school girl that was helping us was obviously very smart and very accomplished. I think it was mentioned that she had one some awards or something. Anyways, when I asked her how old she was, she said she was 19. That blew my mind. She was probably only a couple of years away from graduating from medical school. It got me thinking, that if our system was the same and we just went directly to med school, I might have just stuck out the whole doctor thing. We would have immediately jumped into learning about medicine and the human body and other such things infinitely more interesting than the crystal structures of transition metals. And it would be almost over by now and I would be doing rotations in a hospital. Four years really does make a big difference. Really though, I'm grateful for where I am right now, having had the opportunity to discover some of my passions, and being in utter uncertainty of where my life is headed (live the question, right?). It was just a thought...

Back to the point, all in all, it was pretty cool, but between the smell and, well, the fact that this woman dead, I was ready to be done. No one fainted, no one barfed, so overall win.

We proceeded directly to the casino we watch ND football games at and I fell asleep by the time we were...by the time the game started getting a little less exciting. I won't comment too much on football in this blog. In truth, I don't have too much to say. Except, it was a rejuvenating nap and good end to the day.

Between the learning about death, the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and the morgue, this post really could be titled something like, In the Flesh, o algo asi. It was quite the experience of the human body and overall a great weekend.


Mexpandible Waistlines-
Well this edition just fits mighty fine with the overall theme of the post.
First, I don't think I've described cemitas yet. They are a poblano (the adjective of things/people associated with Puebla) sandwich with bread that looks like a burger bun, but sooo much better. They usually have meat, avocado, chilis, maybe beans, maybe cheese, and maybe lots of other things, it just depends. They are wonderful.
Well, except this one. I mean, it wasn't terrible, and I'm never one to waste food so I did eat it all. But I maybe only enjoyed it when I wasn't directly thinking about what it was.

In the theme of the weekend, I had a cemita de lengua. Tongue. To be honest, I don't even know what kind of tongue it was. Probably a cow. Maybe a sheep. Quien sabe...Libby and I were in Puebla walking around on Sunday and we decided to track down a cemita to stave off the hunger-grumps. "Ohhh let's go somewhere with lengua!" she raved. She had tried it with her host family and said it was just like really lean meat. I can see where she would be right, but we went to a hole-in-the-wall cemita counter and ended up getting a sort of soggy cemita with tongue on it for 17 pesos. This maybe wasn't the best thing to do after spending a day playing with animal organs and human bodies but yea...I think you get the idea.  You know, I'm kind of getting nauseous writing about this, there's not really much more to say about this one, so I'm going to call it a blog.