Chinle First Impressions

*There are 2 backlogged posts that are forthcoming, but for now I wanted to say a few quick things about my new home in Chinle, AZ, on the Navajo Nation, where I'll be spending the next month doing a general surgery rotation.

I arrived in Chinle late Sunday night, so I didn’t see much until Monday morning when I left home to go to work. Here in the big town of Chinle (by big I mean there is 1 real stoplight--only stop signs in Zuni, 3 fast food restaurants, a semi-sizeable grocery store, schools, and even a youth corrections facility—right by my house!) I actually live about a 10 minute drive from the hospital, although things are pretty spread out so that’s somewhat of an overestimate of the town’s size. The hospital itself however is about 5 times bigger than Zuni's.

This morning I opened my front door to go to work and got a big surprise: there was an unsaddled horse about 2 feet from me! It was just hanging out in my front yard with its buddy, trying to eat my mud (yah I don't really have any grass). It seemed a little ornery about my sudden disruption. On 2 subsequent drives through town in daylight I now realize that horses are just wandering around grazing all over the place.

Surprise # 2: there was ice frozen to my windshield from freezing rain overnight. I couldn’t find my ice scraper—I’m pretty sure I remember seeing it in the car while I was packing for this trip and saying “ice scraper, bah, I don’t need that for the desert in April!” and throwing it out into my parents’ garage. (Since I’ve been here it has now snowed on me 4 times.)

Just a brief description of my work environment, i.e. my supervisor: a general surgeon who started the day by telling me how he just returned from a weekend rally of some ultra-conservative group with pro-life and anti-immigration speeches by Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, who makes crude and feminist jokes all day long, who is an ex(within the last 5 years)-priest, and who is currently active in the Army and about to be deployed. I don’t know about medicine-wise, but the month promises to be entertaining.