January 13, 2008

Cindy had her second patient last night. One of the kids was running, didn’t see a clothesline, and ran into it face high. So we had a three hour trip to the emergency room. So far Cindy has had two patients. The first did come back for her follow up visit today and the second one ended up at the hospital. She’s not doing too well so far.

Now here’s the real story behind the hospital visit. We had just set down to eat supper about 7:00 pm and Cindy was saying what she really needed to do was be able to watch TV for awhile (we don’t have a TV here – this is NOT a plea for a TV but it is relevant to the story). The phone rings asking her to come see the young man who ran into the clothesline. Eventually we end up at the hospital. It took five American adults to get one kid seen at the Honduran hospital. They weren’t too pleased with crowd in the emergency so they asked all of us but one to leave. We wisely chose the best Spanish speaking adult to remain with the child and the rest of us headed to the waiting room. Guess what they have in the waiting room. A TV. At this point Cindy confesses to the rest of us that the reason we all had to make this journey to the hospital is so she can get her wish of watching a little TV. Sid Smith (one of our teammates) suggested we could have solved her problem with much less hassle.

For those of you like us that did not grow up in the country I have to dispel a common myth among us city folk. We live beside several roosters. A rooster’s crowing and the sun coming up have absolutely nothing in common. Roosters crow when they want to crow and they seem to especially like crowing throughout the night hours. Sorry to burst your bubble on that one.

We went to church today. We went to an English speaking church held at a hotel in San Pedro Sula. Several missionaries attend the church and our teammates tell us they can be a great resource when we have questions.

For all our motorcycle loving buddies, on the way home from church we passed the Harley Davidson shop in San Pedro Sula. We’re sure we weren’t as excited as some of you think we should have been. We apologize.

We stopped at a store and Brad went to use the ATM to try and get some money. (we found out it takes at least a week to get approved to cash checks at the bank after we get them our paperwork and we are done to about $70 or L1400 limpiras). Brad puts the debit card in the machine. It displays his name on the screen. Good so far, it’s at least reading our card. Ah Oh! Problem. He was hoping there would be the option to select English or Spanish. Not so. It goes immediately into asking questions in Spanish. Ok, not too bad. He can understand enough words to tell it he wants to withdraw money. But, then it comes to a screen with three options – there are now no words on the screen that he recognizes. (Why when it comes to money do we get so up tight?) He was getting up tight. Don’t want to mess this up and have our bank account emptied. Brad begins to yell to Cindy who is standing a short distance away to get her dictionary out of her bag because he needs help, and quick. While Brad is continuing to hit the “Si, necesito mas tiempo” button (yes, I need more time) Cindy is quickly paging through her dictionary trying to figure out what the screen is asking. Eventually we get if figured out. We get our money. And then the last question is “Do you want your receipt in English or Spanish.” Great! We could have figured out the receipt if it were in Spanish what we needed were the previous questions in English. Seems like we’re learning even when we think it should be a simple activity and we should be able to get through it with our limited Spanish it just doesn’t seem to work out the way we expected.

House odor update. After leaving the baking soda on the floor all night we spayed it early this afternoon with a mixture of peroxide and Palmolive soap. We let that set for a few hours and then swept up the baking soda. Then we put down a coat of wax. We will leave the wax overnight and then put another coat on tomorrow. If all goes well we should be able to move back in tomorrow night.