By kneander
Hello All!
I'm writing to you today from Santa Cruz de la Sierra two weeks into a month of independant research. Its been two weeks packed with meetings, overnight ambulance shifts and medical conferences. Working, researching and living independently in a new city has been a challenging and exciting experience. Santa Cruz, Bolivia's largest city and the economic hub of the country is located on the edge of the Amazon basin in a climate much more tropical than that of Cochabamba.
Over the past two weeks I've met with various different emergency response organizations including aeronautical firefighters, the national police firefighting and ambulance unit as well as various different private and volunteer ambulance and fire fighting organizations. Generally these organizations have been really receptive to my inquiries for interviews or to tag along for shifts, though these various experiences I have begun to get a sense of the emergency response system with in the Santa Cruz metropolitan area. Over this next week I will wrap up my interviews and ride alongs and begin composing my paper, summarizing my findings about the system as a whole through stories about the various different organizations with whom I have interacted.
Its crazy to think that there are only 16 days left of this program and that between now and December 7th, when i am scheduled to return to Cochabamba, I need to complete my research, my paper and provide the published the document to the organizations that i have met and worked with over the past few weeks. I am anxious and excited to see what the next two weeks of research hold for me and look forward to sharing the stories with you in my next post.
Until next time!