Window Rock

Well, it has been another week here in Arizona. I was pretty much the Med-surge queen this week-- I went there 3/4 days for clinical. It was the best place in the hospital that I have been and I was with this really great and funny nurse there for 2 of those days. On Thursday, I went out with a Community Health Representative which is a CNA that goes and visits all the elders and makes sure they are okay and checks their blood pressure. There were some pretty nasty hoghans and trailers that we went to. I think Navajos don't place very much emphasis on material things to the point that they don't really take care of their homes either. We were going to chop wood if any of them needed it, which would have been hilarious me trying to do that, but they were all okay on wood. Most of the time I would just sit and listen because they only spoke Navajo and then I would take their blood pressure.
Anyway, yesterday we went up to Window Rock which is the capital of the Navajo Nation. We went up there to go to a Flea Market and do health screenings. We did blood sugars, BMI, and blood pressures. Here's a picture. I promise we did more than just make glove puppets.
There were some scary rodeo guys that would come and tell us about their bulls and how they were getting a tattoo and would not leave our table, so we left after about 3 hours as they became more frequent. I told Curt about them and he said to just tell them that they weren't impressive and that I had a sharpshooter husband and they would leave us alone. Good idea for next time. Anyway, the highest blood pressure of the day was 220/108 which is pretty scary. A surprising number of the people we screened had hypertension and/or uncontrolled diabetes it seemed like and were convinced that traditional medicine would cure them because their western meds made them edgy. I think they are crazy but I couldn't tell them that of course. I'm not really sure how effective our screening was considering.
After the flea market, we went to Window Rock named because it does look like a window:

There was a memorial to the Codetalkers there too. And some really cute puppies. There are dogs all over here, so next time you want a pet, you could seriously just come here and pick one up. They would probably pay you to do it. Next, we went to Gallup, New Mexico, which was 20 minutes away, and went to a ton of trading posts/pawn shops looking at jewelery. They had some turquoise beaded necklaces going for 15,000 which is ridiculous and must have been very old from a famous person of something. Navajos are very much into turquoise and you could buy whole slabs of it for a belt buckle and it would be cool. Anne would probably like to come here since she likes the color so much. Anyway, we did dinner at Sonic and then went to McDonalds for flurries which ended pretty fast when one of the rodeo guys from the flea market came up to us and was very drunk. So, went to our hotel room in Window Rock and watched a movie. Our instructor paid for 2 hotel rooms to stay in Window Rock because it is a 2 hour drive from Chinle and then she decided she would sleep in the car because she snores so bad. Crazy, huh?
Today, we went to another town near Window Rock and taught girls camp first aid stuff for a few hours. Then, another trading post and we are back in Chinle now. Here's another picture for good measure: