Friday Afternoon March 13,2009

I am happy to report that so far today the Friday the 13th bug has not arrived in Cyvadier. We had a good day and about 20 of the expected 30 patients showed up. I am not sure about the 20 but it was somewhere in that area. We also had one from yesterday and one from tomorrow show up at the gate.
Today was teaching day. I realized that we had not given Dr Nelson the current medical guidelines so when he when outside of them I could only holler at him a little but that was fun to do in front of his nurse, his best friend Boyer, and Papa Dick. Actually he is doing great, as I suspected he would. Roger is also doing a great job and my pill packers are getting us ready for next week. Life is good. I am sitting here with Prestige in hand and reprinting the medical guidelines as I gave my copy to Dr Nelson with instructions that there would be a quiz hen he shows up at 10 AM tomorrow. Many of the patients come into the clinic around 8 AM expecting to be seen.
Tomorrow is bug killer day. Roger, my main man in the pharmacy is also the FOTCOH exterminator so I asked him to spray the nest of mosquitoes that are in the pill packing room. That is all that I have encountered so far. My dead lizard got swept up by the girls before I could trap it into a baggie for later use. Darn the luck!
Last evening, I cleaned up Dick’s laptop computer and tonight it is the desktops’ turn. I did get to sleep around 9PM and slept till 6 AM. I must have been tired!
The welder came today to change the lock on the entrance to the pharmacy waiting area. There is no such thing as a locksmith so he had to take off the old lock and replace it with one that Boyer purchased in town.
The girls, Neva and Andreta, are saving the prunes for the team. That is enough said about that.
Fortunately, I have no last minute requests today. We did worry about the new print cartridges that Barb brought down but they fit the printer as advertised.
Brother Nego Louis, a youth minister friend from Jacmel, came to the clinic and I was able to spend 1 hour visiting with him. He may bring his bride to be back on Sunday so that I can meet her. We walked around the grounds, out on the rocks and back to the crowd control area and had a great time catching up with each other since we last saw each other in Florida in November. He tells me that the word is out that we are already open to see patients. I advised him that was not true. We did have two people show up at the gate today hoping to be seen by Dr Nelson.
I am getting anxious for the team’s arrival. I told them that they should NOT wear their FOTCOH t-shirts when they land in PAP. We suspect that the T shirts are a red flag to the customs people that we are carrying drugs so it may be better to blend in a little more. We have been unable to get the letter from the Haitian Department of Health to allow us to bring in drugs as the person who was to write the letter is recovering from a gunshot wound. We did get a letter however, from the Jacmel Health Department and hopefully that will do on Monday at the PAP airport.
We had a visit last evening from a dentist from Jacmel who wants to treat our patients. I asked him for more information so I can pass it along to our FOTCOH dentists. We told him that we could only pay him VERY little.
On the local front, Belony showed up today to work even though he was not invited. Big surprise there. Diana, one of my pill packers is too busy with her new baby to work and Binotte is reported to be very sick but I have no idea what the diagnosis is. So I have anew person, Dessalines to help Suzette and occasionally Jacky. Dessaline is about 20 years old and still attending school. She is the sponsored child of someone but I did not look up who that might be yet.
I did discover that I can get on to FOTCOH’s accounting from here and I am able to track what is going on back home so a word to the wise that I am watching you! Ha!
It is time to end this, transmit it out, grab another Prestige or glass of wine and watch the sunset over Jacmel bay.
Please know that you are never far from my thoughts and prayers.