good days, bad days

Another week has gone by, a week with challenges, but with rewards and joys as well.

On Monday I went to the school in Bastion to talk to the director (or principal) about what my role will be there. As a result I will be starting there on the 28th of April, and will start by seeing each child in the school individually to do a kind of once over, a "well child check". Just to see if we can catch any health issues that need to be dealt with. I'll be doing that 2 days a week.

In the meantime, there are a few medical issues that are needing my input. There is a lady, mother of one of the kids in the school, who has a fairly serious heart problem. She has been to see a cardiologist at the hospital in the city, not one of the better hospitals, and he is recommending surgery, but before she agrees to that, we want to make sure it really is necessary. It will be very expensive, and this is a family without much, so we are looking for a diagnosis and recommendations we can trust before we go ahead. So we'll try to find another cardiologist this week and I'll go along with her and see what we can find out.

Then there is a young girl from a family I know well, who suddenly had 2 seizures in one day a few weeks ago. Never had a seizure before. So she is needing an EEG and CT scan to see what's going on. I'll go along for those.

And there are other issues out there, probably an endless list.

I went to visit a lady from the church one day this week, she had had a C section 9 days previous, and still had her sutures! She asked if I could take them out - great - that's one of my favourite jobs! So I hurried off home and got my supplies and took them out. She hadn't had a very good suturing job done, one end of the wound has needed care, so I've been going in each day to look after that, and give advice on breastfeeding and baby care. Felt good to be doing some real nurse stuff. I stayed on one day to have a visit with her and get to know her a little better. It was great, she understands the need for some of us Canadians to have people speak to us a little more slowly than the folks in Guayaquil usually do! So we were able to have a good chat, because I wasn't constantly having to have her repeat things.

The big news of the week was that I finally was able to locate some tetanus vaccine for Daniel. And I still can't believe where I found it. After a week and a half of scouring this city: pharmacies, clinics, hospitals, my taxi driver who took me on one of my fruitless seaches told me about a little hole in the wall pharmacy right here in my own community of Caracol. It's run by a nurse who works at a hospital. It took 4 trips to find her there, but indeed - she had it!! So Daniel at long last got his shot. He didn't seem all that pleased when I showed up with it, but I was kind enough to not give it where the nurse had told me I should, and I used a much smaller needle than what she sold me! He lived though it and I'm happy he's had it.

But... the bad days. There were a couple of days this week when life got on top of me a bit. It started with the rat. Yes, RAT. A big one. In my house! I looked up in time to see it leaving last Sunday, so went out and bought rat poison on Monday, put it out, and on Tuesday morning it had all gone. Great, I thought, that will be the end of that. But when we got home on Tuesday evening, it was clear he had been (or maybe still was?) in the house. Julia (my current young roommate) squealed and got up onto a chair so it was left to me to take a flashlight in one hand and a broom in the other, and press my face to the floor to peer under the fridge and into other corners where he might be lurking. I decided it wasn't in the house, but it had chewed away half of the rubber strip along the bottom of the kitchen door, leaving a huge gap. I put out more poison and jammed a piece of cardboard into the gap, and went to bed, hoping for the best.

Then the next morning, with visions of rats still troubling me, I had computer problems, and there's nothing like computer grief to put me over the edge! So it was in a rather poor frame of mind that I headed off to Bastion. All the way there I had complaining little thoughts grumbling though my head - I'm sick of being hot, I'm sick of being all sweaty all the time, I'm sick of the noise, and dirt and of having to always look out for drivers who seem happy to run me down given half a chance (pedestrians have NO rights here). And now I have a rat problem AND computer problems too. I know I had no right to complain, after all I was on my way to see people with much bigger problems than my miserable little grievances, but I'm trying to adjust to a very different way of life and this wasn't helping!!

Then I went to church in Block 10 that night, and it was a very happy time, and afterwards those who are leaders in that little church had a meeting, and while I waited for Janna, I sat with my eyes closed and absorbed the atmosphere. I could feel a blessed cool evening breeze - such a relief. I could hear the sounds of evening life in block 10, I could hear discussion in Spanish in one corner, I could hear William playing the guitar very quietly and singing softly nearby. And I came away with such a feeling of gratitude and joy. In spite of the challenges, and the minor hardships and trials, and missing my family, I am happy here, and I have the deep contentment that comes with knowing that I am in exactly the right place, the place God has for me right now.

And the end (?) of the rat story is that it probably did me a favour by showing its face when it did, because when I got Jose over to try and sort me out, we found that it had been living in and making free with the space where the water drains out of my house from sinks and showers, and it had been doing a lot of earth moving so that the outgoing drain was almost blocked. Could have been nasty! So that all got fixed up, cement applied, more poison put out, and the happy news of today is that a large dead rat was found in my backyard. I had the privilege of getting it into a bag and into the garbage and my, but it was ugly close up! But that's one down. Are there more? We'll see. I am in the market for a cat - a biggish one would be good!