Tuesday, July 8, 2008
A huge contrast from yesterday, today was a pretty slow day.
After the morning devotions, about once a week we have a meeting to discuss interesting cases and to educate the staff, and diphtheria was the obvious topic for today. It was a miracle that the boy made it to the hospital, and thanks to Dr. Stefan, they were able to speed things up. Gavin talked about different diseases that could present with similar symptoms, and others that we should be able to distinguish.
For the first couple hours at the clinic, Laura and I sat in with the HIV support group. First, the HIV counselor checked in with each patient to see how they were doing, and I tried to translate for Laura. It wasn't so difficult to understand when the conversation was mostly one-on-one between the counselor and a patient, but then I could hardly understand anything when everybody began to talk.
What I caught were something about eating well to stay healthy, coming to the clinic right way if you're sick, and using a condom every time even if both you and partner are HIV positive. At one point they were talking about food and beverages, so I wonder if they were talking about back when they used to get something to eat and drink at support group meetings. Since the government has been cutting the budget for the program we haven't been able to give them food during the meetings for a while now. But honestly, I don't really know exactly what they were talking about.
Near the end, one of the ladies stood up and sang a song about having hope in Jesus Christ. I wish I could understand more of what she was singing. In any case it was good to see the patients having a lively discussion about living with HIV. At the end the counselor asked us if we wanted to say anything, so we just thanked them for letting us sit and listen to the discussion.
About two weeks ago, my older brother Sundo emailed me saying that he and Rachel got engaged and that they are getting married on August 2. Exciting, yes. But the problem with that was that my flight back to the States was on August 9! My brother explained to me that it was the only date that could work for both of them and the families, and that he really wanted me to be there. I was bummed because I was really enjoying my time here in Haiti and also didn't want to miss my brother's wedding.
At first I thought that God wanted me to stay in Haiti, but what changed my mind was when my mother said we are to serve God for His glory all our lives, so coming back a few days early would be acceptable. Also, she wanted me to spend a little more time with the family before I went back to med school in the fall. So I agreed to come back early to be able to attend the wedding.
So today I spent some time on the phone (Skype) with American Airline to change my flight. I ended up paying $170, but I think it's worth going to my brother's wedding. My new flight is on July 31.
I had a Creole lesson with Wadner this afternoon. I hope I'm getting better at listening.
No comments:
Post a Comment