Week One

My first week went well. It was a bit slow, but I know things are going to pick up. I will have a caseload of about 30 patients. Most of the patients I will be seeing are elderly and can't get around town. Once every three months, they get invited to Hope. This is an afternoon at the Red Cross. They get there blood pressure checked, have a guest speaker, are served a healthy snack and then end the afternoon in a game with prizes for the winners. A handicap van (that was donated by a group that came down) picks them up for the event.

I worked at the Polyclinic on Thursday and saw a bunch of kids ranging in illness from a cut foot (children don't wear shoes here) to Malaria. Two children tested positive for Malaria and had fevers of 102+. Scary, because they are very young.

On Friday, I was asked to visit a lady who recently had a stroke. The family is very thankful to Hillside and the help that we are going to provide to her. She has total right sided paralysis and loss of speech. She is able to understand and can answer simple yes and no questions. When I met her, her husband was in the room. I asked her "Is this your husband"? She looked at me and shook her head no as if to say "I've never me this man". She then got a smile from ear to ear. This got a little joke started between her and her husband. Come to find out, they have been married for about 40 years and have four children. I could see the toll this was taking on the man. His eyes welled up and he said "she is my first girlfriend from high school".

I was invited to a women's meeting at the Baptist Church on Friday night. There is a group of short term missionaries and they put on a wonderful evening of dinner, music, fellowship and a guest speaker. The group had a children's program so the women wouldn't be distracted during the conference. There were still quite a few women with infants, so they stayed with their moms. There were probably 150 women in total. That is impressive since most of the women don't have the opportunity to get out. They are often in the home cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. For some, it was very difficult to convince their husbands to go.

I got to hold a little 4 month old boy. He was born prematurely, at six months, but was a strong little guy. I held him for almost the entire time. His mom was so grateful, because this gave her an opportunity to participate in the event.

Today, I went to the Baptist church for worship. The church is just a small cement building with two lights. The missionaries built pews this week for the parishioners. No drums, guitar or keyboard. All songs were acapello, but the voices were beautiful. The children sat quietly (for the most part) in the front row. They kept looking back at me during worship and at times I would see then singing some of the hymns. The children are so precious.

Sorry to hear of all the snow you are all getting on the east coast. Remember, you are welcome to come down for a visit. It has been in the high 80's everyday so far.