Hello friends, family, and groupies!
I am writing to wish you a marvelously magnificently merry 3rd ‘o may!
Dude, is it really May? Yikes! Where did April go?
Thursday, April 10, 2008. I went over to casita uno (little girls’ house) to hang out for a bit and was greeted by 4 sticky little girls. They were munching on suckers that one of the kids’ moms brought over. Sadie walked up offering her sucker to me by putting it mere centimeters from my face. Instinctively, I recoiled as to avoid being slimed with the sucker, instantly set the girls into a frenzy. They immediately jumped up, all “offering” their suckers to me with devious giggles. I surprised myself in how long I was able to keep them at bay, but eventually it was either be slimed or fall off the porch. So, I fell off the porch. Haha. If only. I spent the next hour picking strawberry flavored sucker out of my hair. To get back at them, I told them all they had to go inside and brush their teeth before I left. haha! The perks of being the finca nurse!
The drizzly Tuesday, April 19th. I was looking through the cabinets in search of inspiration to make lunch for the community. Instead of inspiration, I encountered two sets of whiskers attached to wiggling noses in one of the tupperware boxes where we keep our food. I sprang into hunting mode, slamming the box shut to trap the mice inside, but they were one step ahead of me! They chewed a hole in the box and rat #1 hopped out and ran up the wall (yes, the rats here, much like Spiderman can climb vertical walls). While I attempted to smash him with a rake, I completely missed and he ran to safety, so I focused on rat #2. Not wanting t get bit, nor wanting to let him get away I covered the hole with a potholder while screaming for help, but sadly no one came to my rescue. So much for the role of damsel in distress! I wrapped my hands and arms in potholders, towels and oven mitts and carried the box outside. Laura, a fellow vol, happened to be walking by the house, so I yelled at her to get the cat that lives in the house next to us. After a mini eternity, she came back not with out mouser, but with a machete. I ripped the box lid off, a got my toes out of the way as she slayed our feeble intruder. Laura and I shouted in triumph and danced a jig in the rain as our Honduran co-workers watched on, shaking their heads. “They are so strange,” one of the Franciscan sisters said. “They won’t even kill the chickens”
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008. I was sitting in the clinic while TWO patients were being seen by two different doctors, and trying to remember what, as a nurse, I should be doing. I had forgotten how much I love being a nurse! While I do miss being in on the consults (I like being detective) we discuss the interesting cases, and I am learning so much more with them than I when I was by myself. One of the doctors is a short term volunteer from the states and the other is Honduran who showed up at the door looking for a place to volunteer. Incredibly, God manages to answer my prayers that I thought too hopeless to pray.
I hope you all are doing well, and I look forward to emailing and talking to you sometime in the next month!
Lots-o-love to ALL!
Jenny
