Wednesday March 25, 2009

This is an odd week so far. So slow. I feel useless at times because the patient load is just so low. Maybe in comparison to the week we had last week or just the fact that everyone had their medical problems taken care of, no one is having any problems this week…I don’t know!

Another team arrived Sunday. A team of construction guys who are working on building the roof of a church in a neighboring village and also doing some welding for the hospital. There is also a nurse and a PA, so I am working with them as well this week. Even though the day is not packed with patients, I think they are still enjoying their time so far. To make matters even more interesting though, is the fact that most of the team are Russians! Just throw one more culture and language into the mix here, and it’s pretty entertaining. The Russian, borsch, sausage, and tea are flowing to say the least. And man, these guys work hard. I heard they were pretty upset when they were forced to quite working at 5pm!

Onto other news: yesterday was officially Stop TB day worldwide. And to celebrate the day, our “TB nurse” at the clinic invited all the patients at the hospital for a party at a neighboring clinic. Apparently the department of health was putting on something that involved music and food. So, I gathered everyone from the hospital that could walk and we set out on a field trip. After a twenty minute walk, through a river, and up a few large hills and we arrived. At one point one of the girls was making another girl push her up the hill because she was so tired (as a joke); it was pretty funny. We arrived … and waited … and waited … and waited there … for 2 hours. Only the nurse from our clinic showed up. Welcome to Haiti…the deep care and compassion of the country’s leadership was felt by all. And so we walked back to our home, the hospital, empty-handed, but I didn’t hear anyone complaining. At least we got to go on a little field trip.

Side note: Yesterday I learned why Cenerge, a TB patient at the hospital, was collecting medical gloves all last week when the big team was here: he totally constructed a sling shot made out of a sturdy stick, woven rubber gloves, and the insides of bicycle tires. He is using it to knock birds out of trees…oh man…