This was my first work trip for Meditek and I spent the week in Limon, CR which is a city on the Caribbean coast with beautiful beaches. The field engineers I traveled with were Ailyn, Marie, and Laura.
On Monday we left around 9:30am to drive there. We went through the beautiful mountains which made the drive fun. We stopped for lunch in Siquirres and then arrived at our hotel at 2pm. I didn’t know that we were going to be going to the beach so we went to the store to buy me a suit. After checking in, we went to hang out at the beach! Although it’s much hotter in Limon, the beach was so nice. The water was very warm and also pretty clear.
Tuesday through Thursday we got up early to go to the Dr. Tony Facio Castro Hospital. It’s very old and in rough shape, but they are working on building a new hospital. Something I’ve noticed already is that it’s very difficult to get work started as a field engineer from going through several security points to getting reports checked and trying to find the equipment. The first day we sat outside for an hour to get an empty room.
The first incubator we received had a broken canopy that needed to be repaired. On each incubator, there are two canopies that contain the wires and chains that help move the incubator up and down. The other incubators needed new relay boards and motors, and one of them needed a new hood. We also had to do some troubleshooting so I read through the service manual to solve the problem. It was a lot of work but it was very fun to take them apart and learn how they operate!
After work each day we went to the beach which was a nice reward!
Things I have learned:
- If you park your car in the street, people might put cardboard on your windows
- Subway has breakfast options
- In Limon the language is Jamaican Patois which is a combination of English creole with other languages
- The internal components of an incubator include a motor, relay board, control board, and transformer
This weekend my roommate Jade was in La Fortuna so I took the opportunity to be lazy and sleep in on Saturday. After going to the gym our group got together to play some games at night! On Sunday, a few of us we went to Hacienda La Chimba to do their La Mantra hike. The views were amazing and I loved the hike! Excited to be back in San Jose for work this week.
