It is Tuesday here in Sukadana and Jim is out with the mobile clinic. Every morning there is a joint meeting of the staff and he was asked to go. Another Indonesian MD will be along and I can't wait to hear what it was like. They were loading supplies into the van as we arrived at the clinic. And you should see the parking "lot". It is a mass of motorbikes, the prime means of transportation here. People take a number off the peg on the door and then file into the waiting area and sit in rows of chairs. Sometimes health and/or conservation education is conducted while they wait to be registered and called in.
Today I spent the morning basically observing and talking (some) with some of the nurses. They are very experienced in what they do and basically I feel that they are teaching me! But they appear to like practicing their English. One in particular does a lot of their lab work so I was able to observe that as well. Pat, you would find this fascinating. He preparing to do a malaria smear and has done many many, but says that he has only definitely seen one positive. Many times patients are treated based on symptoms and evidently she had them. Speaking of malaria, we haven't really seen many mosquitoes but hear that will change when we are in the forests. The cicadas (perfect opportunity to ask forgiveness for all my misspellings - the spell check doesn't seem to want to work here and I need it!) last night were in full tilt and they made a noise that sounded really angry in addition to the general buzzing as they appeared to want to dive bomb us as we sat outside on the clinic steps hoping to connect to the internet. BUT to not avail. It is turned off at night to prevent others "stealing " on to it and lightening hit recently and knocked it out for about 10 days. This will cramp our style....so I'm taking clinic time to write. (Jim is rather irritated....)
Lunch is cooked and served in our house and between 12 and 1 the staff walks over and the women who have arrived between 7 and 8 AM have lunch prepared. It is always rice with some kind of topping. And all have been good. Yesterday Lana brought in a huge fish - at lest 2 feet long. It was chopped up, bones and all, and friend and then served with some kind of vegetable sauce mixture. We have had many meals of tofu and an interesting kind of chip. When I first heard that everyone would be coming to "our" house and there is one table, I wondered where everyone would sit. The answer is the floor. We ALL sit on the floor.
Tomorrow I have an opportunity to visit one of the conservation sites which I think will be fascinating and I have been told that I will also be able to visit one of the goats for widows program sites. They are currently in the process of purchasing 150 more goats for this program.
As for the beach...the latest information is that Kinari Webb one of the founders of the clnic was stung by a box jelly fish about a year ago at this beach. She is still affected by that sting and so basically everyone has decided not to swim there. Her husband does, however, as he believes that the chance of it repeating is not good. So...we shall see. At least there is most often a cool breeze there.l
Final quick story....We can truthfully call ourselves multi millionaires now. As I think we drew most of the money out of the ATM at the airport in Pontianak. We arrived there and needed to have most of the money we will spend while here in hand. There are two banks in Sukadana and one only accepts Mastercard and I don't know about the other but it won't work for us. The exchange rate is roughly 10,000 rupiah to a dollar. Makes us feel like really big spenders when a meal is 50,000 Rupiah and that is $5. More on the finances later.
Love to all
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