Adventures of my life.

When I was an undergraduate student in medical school and I was doing my internship in a general hospital in the state of Guárico, more specifically in the city of Valle de la Pascua, I never imagined the adventures I would live.

First I had to live in the house that three of my classmates rented, it was an annex to the main house. They were three men and in the same house they only had two rooms so I stayed in the living room until the owner of the house vacated a room and I rented it.

We spent the whole day at the hospital so we didn't care where we slept because we hardly had time for that. The days were short because we had theory classes and then went to the respective services to collaborate with the doctors and apply our knowledge to the patients who consulted. And then, on Fridays at noon, most of us would drive home to return on Sunday afternoon and prepare for another week of hard work.

I must say that I had the best teachers in the world in each of the specialties. I could never forget the activities they taught me which, in some cases, it served me so well that even my own colleagues who had already graduated and were working in other hospitals did not know many of the practices they taught me.

It was an excellent hospital, people came from other states that bordered this one, just because of the fame that this hospital had in relation to the quality of service. Those were other times when, in spite of the shortage of doctors in those places, the few that there were met all expectations.

There was a lot of dust outside, I remember that the street where I lived raised a lot of dust. I got sick many times with tonsillitis, frequent flus, bronchitis and the solution to the problem was to move. There were only a few months left to go so I took a treatment from the ENT specialist who was also my teacher and that covered my respiratory infections for a few months. At least until I moved once I finished my medical internship.

I remember that one of my classmates worked at a nightclub in the city where we lived all our university studies. That night in our rented house he invited us to have some drinks and he prepared us something I had never tasted... until that moment. It was a drink with tequila, you add the amount of liquor to a small glass and then you fill it with a sparkling lemon soda. You hit the table with the glass, a firm blow, and then foam comes out under pressure and you have to quickly place it in in your mouth so that the sparkling drink penetrates the esophageal passageway as quickly as possible.

I remember that I never used to drink liquor and I had about 5 drinks. Then when I was saying goodbye because I felt dizzy and I couldn't stand up, my friends took me to the door of my room but not before making fun of my state, I couldn't even walk and just laughed! I got to my bed and lost consciousness until the next day. It was several days before the subject was forgotten and we moved on to another episode with someone else. I never had a drink like that again.

It's something good to remember. Sadly, we each live in different states and never get together. Or at least I never could.

Now memories come to mind of the months we spent in that city working, studying and the occasional celebration. But I never drank liquor again, at least not there and not tequila.

Now I found out that two of my three former colleagues are already living in Spain. They left Venezuela because of the economic and security problems that are experienced here on a daily basis.

…And many more of those who studied with me, not counting the many I met working here and who were my workmates, are no longer here. They have left for Chile, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and the United States, among others.

It’s very difficult for us to get together again as a group, all dispersed and now we have this terrible evil that came to change the lives and way of behaving for all of us.