Marco and Polo Reflect on Mexico

¡Hola! Marco and Polo here,

The last few days have been a little crazy.  Please forgive the delay in this final post on our Mexico adventure.  Our last day of vacation has come and gone, we spent the last morning in Phoenix at the airport gate.  Polo found the next book in one of her favorite series...  If you're a reader like us you get how hard it is to resist but she managed it just barely.  Marco found another souvenir mug for her collection.  A few hours on a spacious plane (compared to the tour buses and the creeper van) later we were back in Michigan and headed to Marco's home (complete with Welcome Home Balloons, Thanks Marco's Mom!) to celebrate the Easter holiday with her family.

Easter was great, spending it relaxing with friends and family (Tex, Marco's brother, parents, and boyfriend were there).  Happy belated Easter (or Passover, or whatever you celebrate), hope your day was a sweet as ours.

To finish off our 'Mexico Chronicles' we will be leaving you with a few tidbits from Mexico, some Q&A with Doc, and some memories.  So here goes:

Fun Facts:
   -You can't flush the toilet paper in Mexico, you have to put it in the trash can. Yeah it's a little gross at first, but you get over it pretty quickly.
   -Mexican Coca-Cola is MUCH better than American Coca-Cola. Must be all the real chugar they use.
   -There is lime in EVERYTHING.  Polo was most displeased with this fact.
   -Cats and Dogs roam the streets at will; they aren't pets in Mexico (usually).
   -The hotels (or at least the one we were at) have a slot for your room key to go into in order for the lights to turn on.  (Talk about energy conscious)
  
Doc's 5 Question Post-Trip Survey:
   1.) What was your favorite meal you ate on the trip? 

• Marco: Carnitas at the Empalme Rotary Club; they were incredible! For anyone who doesn't know, carnitas roughly translates to 'little meats' and it's basically the most delicious shredded pork you'll ever eat in your life. The carnitas at the Rotary Club were exceptional and my only regret is eating three (overstuffed) carne asada tacos before discovering the carnitas. 
• Polo: Chicken Fajitas from Tequilas, they are the best I've ever had.  Although the tortillas just about anywhere were incredible.

   2.) What was your favorite place we went to eat?

• Marco:Tequilas. Hands down, no doubt about it. We ate there at least three times while on the trip and each time I fell more in love with it.  They were a real down to earth restaurant right next to the hotel that wasn't a tourist trap. Everything on the menu was simple and delicious food, especially the Chicken Fajitas and Pico de Gallo.
• Polo: Definitely Tequilas.  It did not feel like a touristy place and was never too jam packed.  Not only did they have some of the best food we had the entire trip they had the best atmosphere.

   3.) What was your most memorable moment?

• Marco: Part of me wants to say Stiletto getting shit on by a pigeon just because that moment was hysterical.  On a more serious note however, I'm going to say sitting at the bow of the boat with Polo post-dolphin watching.  We got to watch the sunset over the water and the cliffs that make up the coast of San Carlos. It was truly remarkable.
• Polo: When we were dolphin watching on the Sunset Margarita Cruise.  Not just this but at one point I was able to sit in the bow of the boat where the anchor wench sat.  It was amazing.  I love the water and the feeling of almost flying over the sea is indescribable.  Seeing the dolphins swimming and playing up close was incredible.

   4.) Who was your memorable patient?

• Marco:  I'm torn between two patients here. The first was one of the first scripts I filled, it was a woman in her 40's and it was a pretty normal script.  The glasses I found her worked great and she said she liked them. I said goodbye to her and turned around to put her patient sheet away. When I turned around, the woman was standing right behind me and then she just hugged me and said 'Thank you! Just Thank you!'.  I was so taken aback, all I could do was stumble through saying 'you're welcome' before the woman was gone again. The second was a 10 year old boy I helped on the 3rd day of clinic.  I took his sheet and went to go look for glasses and the little boy just followed me, I tried to tell him that he could stay sitting but he would just sit down and the next minute he would be right next to me again. Eventually, I gave up and let him watch me look through glasses. Finally, I found a pair of glasses close to his script and we went back to his seat.  He put the glasses on and looked around.  The look on his face is hard to describe, it was pretty obvious that he was seeing clearly for the first time in a while. He just looked so amazed by what was around him; I couldn't believe it. That look of wonder I saw on his face is not one I will soon forget.
• Polo: I had this one older man, who on top of speaking no English, had an accent of Spanish I had never heard before. I found him his glasses, they were the closest I could find and they were pretty far in left field.  I had him try them on praying that they would work for him, cause it was all I had for both distance and near, and trying not to think about how far from his script they actually were.  So he tries them on and I knew enough Spanish to figure out that he could see the reading card  (near vision).  Next came the hard part, the distance.  I had him look at the Snellen chart (the letter chart with the big E on it) to see if he could read.  He looks for a minute and then starts talking a mile a minute.  I called a translator over, thinking the guy had a serious issue with the distance, the part of the script that was the furthest off.  She listens for a moment then tells me that the the man was trying to express how grateful he was.  I was shocked, here was a man who was wearing a pair of glasses that by all rationale should not have helped him see really clearly in the distance and he was thanking me.  He was SO happy for the improvement in his vision, it was one of the best feelings knowing that I had helped make him that happy.  It also made me realize that there are so many things in life that I take for granted, and I am so lucky that I learned that lesson.

    5.) What did you improve on most throughout clinic?

• Marco: I've gotta go with my Spanish abilities here. Although I did learn a great deal about optics and lens prescriptions, I think my Spanish made the greatest leaps and bounds. As you probably have already read, the first day was rough going trying to speak and understand spanish but by the last day of clinic, I feel I had a pretty decent grasp on it. I could ask the questions I needed to and for the most part, I could understand what they said back to me. Unless of course they started speaking really fast, in which case, all bets were off on my understanding them. 
• Polo:  I think that my Spanish skills improved the most, as you know I went from a handful of choice words and a lot of charades and needing a translator for every other patient, to full sentences, and understanding 63% of their replies without a translator.  It's true people, exposure makes you learn fast!
• Doc thinks that both of our greatest improvements were in optics.  I suppose he is right, there was a seriously steep learning curve in clinic and we had to learn enough to be able to play with the scripts the student docs gave us.

We hope you have enjoyed reading about our Mexico Chronicles!  If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and we will try our best to answer them, maybe if there are enough the Mexico Chronicles will make a temporary comeback.

So for one last time...

¡Quédate un empollón!

Marco y Polo