lightning.

today was much better! it was a great start when i woke up and found out we were having madame amise's (the head cook) specialty......buttered homemade bisquits covered in chocolate gravy. yes unhealthy, but amazingly good.

i was assigned to the nurse practitioner and she was awesome. she has a lot of experience with travel medicine, and it shows. she works and lives in the inner city and has been all around the world working where they need help the most. she lived 2 years in russia practicing medicine and is used to using interpretors. she could very well have an ego but she doesn't. rather than speak to the translator, she actually speaks directly to the patient fully knowing that they don't understand a word she's saying....but i definitely think it makes a difference. she was very particular about what she was prescribing and double checked by looking things up. she absolutely maintained a high standard of quality care, regardless of the fact that she was in a desperate 5th world country. she taught me a lot about travel medicine and the avenues which i could take to do the types of things i want to do. there were a bunch of the regular cases today...malaria, typhoid, std's...one really interesting case of shingles bc the girl was only 14 which is really young.....but it was classic unquestionable shingles. dr. jenifer said that it probably means she has HIV.

one funny thing that happened today....i went to the lab tech to ask a couple questions about pregnancy tests, but it was hard bc he mainly speaks kreyol. somehow he thought that i was asking for a pregnancy test for myself bc later he told one of the doctors to send me back for my pregnancy test...kind of embarassing, but funny more than anything else!

the dental team here is awesome...they have a full room of supplies and 2 portable dental chairs. it is not surprising that so many patients have learned to live with mouth pain. poor dooney had to get a tooth pulled today and she was scared to death and stiff as a board.

i spent 2 hours with sadrak practicing my french...he is a great teacher and very patient and helpful....super intelligent, it is a shame he won't be able to continue his medical education bc of money.

we ate the chickens today....so good.

i don't even want to think about leaving here. i'm really bad at goodbyes.

i have to cut this short bc we got hit w/ lightning and who knows when power will be back...bonswa.... :)