Just got back from una conferencía por la salud de mujeres (a conference for the health of women), put on by one of the churches here in Tecate (Sinai), and the guest speaker being the doctor the BI uses—Dra. Yolanda. What a character! Tall, curly-haired, curvy, and hilarious! Unfortunately I only was able to follow 1/8 of her jokes; she was very blunt with everything she said so she had the women rolling. Of course she also poked a joke about me being the only “gringa”—or in this case, non-Latina—in the building (except for this one girl who was apparently half white—her Mexican mamá wasn’t too thrilled about Yolanda leaving her out—but Dra. Yolanda said the girl was still part Latina). This was even pertinent to the discussion because, according to Dra. Yolanda, out of all the races, Latinas have the highest risk of breast cancer for some unknown reason.
The church was very neatly decorated with pink, flowers, and breast cancer ribbons. They served coffee and pan dulce. Several ladies started the conference with personal stories of family, friends, or personal experiences with breast cancer. Another lady sang a BEAUTIFUL song about being used by God—amazing voice! Then Dra. Yolanda presented her powerpoint and commentary concerning Cancer de la Mama.
*The Spanish word for breast is mama (you’ll notice, without the accent, as the Spanish word for mother does)—I was a little confused at first…*
So I understood about 75% of the information that she gave. Didn’t fully understand her jokes and witty comments, but oh well. :\
**When Uncle Kenta had talked about her before I was expecting her to be old and farty (guess I just wasn’t paying too much attention to how they’d describe her—I just always associate doctor with old age and farty-ness). Anyway, she’s not. She’s young (mid-30s), attractive, witty, and confident—the kind of lady you’d want to sit and talked to for an hour over coffee (if you spoke the same language, of course). She’s the doctor who’s been “dignosing” and dealing with all our fake passer-outers this year. Haha! What a gal—she had chewed Daniela out for her incident (even made her cry)! Also, Dra. Yoldanda had miraculously gone to Africa this past summer—God really wanted her to go and made sure she knew it!**
After her presentation and answering of questions, they gave out prizes through a game of “What’s in your purse?”Anyway, good conference; advantageous with all the important information it had to offer!
It was also funny riding there and back—crammed in an 8 person van with 15+ girls—O, Mexico! How thee cracketh me up!
Oh, Tío y Tía are gone all weekend for their anniversary, so I’ll be with my roommates for all meals and everything—should be a growing experience. :)
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