INTERESTING EVENING

I don't know about you, but I find living in a foreign country most interesting. Sometimes I imagine myself in a movie which may seem silly, but don't you often picture yourself in the movie you are watching if it's portraying mystery especially in a country unfamiliar to you. The market place, the narrow streets, masses of people, different types of transportation, etc. all become very exciting in different scenes and when you experience it all first hand, you tend to feel that it's not really happening although you know it is. (I wish I had pictures to explain all this, hopefully, my words will paint a picture). I'm in a hurry, not going to check this for typo's or grammer………..

Did you ever wonder what people (missionaries particularly) do when they need some medical help in a country where there is very little. With all the discussions, arguments and protests over the medical care in the US, what would people do if it was like the medical care in Haiti. Well, let me give you a peek into what happens here. Our friend Barbara Macleod, has been suffering with intense itching and skin eruptions on her chest for over a week and a half. We all know that we tolerate such discomforts for a couple of days, but when it goes on and on, we reach a point where we say "I've had enough, I need help." Some of us find faith at that point and are healed, others of us find we must see a Dr. Here is a chronicle of the events the last two days.

On Wednesday night we took Barb some things we thought would bring her relief. It didn't. Last night, she called to ask if we knew of any Doctor (imagine having that problem in the States). I immediately thought of our American friend who has a family here who always becomes friends with the Cuban Dr's. (Cuban Doctors come here on a rotation basis so they aren't always the same ones and I knew there were new ones in town. This all occurred at about 7PM. John answered my call, said he'd get back with us in an hour and take us to the Cuban doctors' house. Barbara lives five miles away so I called her and asked if she'd mind getting a taxi (motor cycle) up to our place. It was already dark and riding a taxi at that time of day would not be fun, but she was desperate. After she got here, John called to say he'd pick us up and when he did, he wound his way around to the Cuban residence. Because they know he and his wife, they opened the gate. After introductions, we were invited inside.

The house is large and rented from a business man in town. I don't know how many on the medical team from Cuba but there were many different faces coming and going as we sat in front of the TV that had a Cuban station on. On the wall was a black iron replica of Castro, with beard and hat alongside the Cuban flag. Now I find that interesting because here we Americans sat in Haiti, in a communist home waiting to see the Dr. He came in, quite young (everyone is young to me these days) and quite friendly, speaking Creole with a Spanish accent. He looked at Barb, deduced that she had a very bad case of scabies which had been inflamed from scratching and using all the wrong medicines. He gave her a prescription of several meds and after some talking, we said goodnight. Now we had to find the meds.

We went to St Nicholas hospital first (which has been taken over by Dr Farmer ) and the pharmacy was still open. We walked up to the freestanding, small one room building, and shoved the prescription through the window. They had one of the meds on the list, but we needed our own bottle. Claudette, John's wife disappeared and came back shaking water out of a juice bottle. She bought the juice, let someone drink it and found water to rinse it out in. They promptly filled the bottle with the liquid medicine that is to kill scabies after the inflammation in the skin goes done. Barb and I stood there looking around. While we waited for them to fill the bottle, a friend of Claudette's came by and Claudette disappeared with her friend for a while. There was a group standing outside the emergency room (another freestanding building) and we found out later that a taxi had wrecked with a pregnant woman on it and she was being worked on in the emergency room, for all to see. The large glass doors allows you to see in quite easily and of course, the conversation of the onlookers was that of disdain for taxi drivers and their dangerous driving.

Once we had the medicine in our juice bottle, we worked our way through the crowd to get back to the truck. There was a complete blackout last night downtown, (the hospital had a generator)so the streets were pitch. When we got to what John thought was a pharmacy, dimly lit by a kerosene lamp, we went in and found two more medicines………tiny dimly lit store but voila! He had the right stuff and the price wasn't sky high. Now we were on our way home to our house, so Gary and I could transport Barb back to her house. My movie experience ended with a cold shower and a jump in bed. It was nearly 10PM, way past my bedtime! One added thought/question, why do people complain about sitting in an emergency room for over an hour in the United States?