Today the children had off of school. I decided this would be a good time to get the focus off of us and on someone else, which usually takes care of the greener grass syndrome. There is a private hospital with in walking distance so we (Kaylah, Christi & I) packed some snacks and books thinking it would be fun to visit some of the patients and read to some of the children. I also had some ulterior motives. I have always enjoyed the hands on care of a being a CNA and was hoping that maybe I could volunteer there sometimes till school is out for the summer. I am so excited!...they said they would be happy for my help and I will start out doing that one day a week. We decided on Wednesdays and she said if that day doesn't work some weeks, just call and say which day would. I will follow the doctor and she will tell me what needs to be done. Some days are really busy there and some days there are not many patients. After I got that arranged we headed up to the second floor to see who we could find to visit with. Amazingly, they had no in-patients at this time. The nurse said that is pretty unusual. There were quite a few outpatients but none that we could really visit with, so there went our grand plan...or plan B...we could bus into Grande Anse to the public hospital. I never bused by myself before but we decided, what the world, lets give it a try! We flagged down the next bus that came along and climbed aboard. Unfortunately, after a mile or so we figured out this bus is taking the long way into Grand Anse...we sailed past our house and Chris was outside working. We tried in vain to get his attention as we sailed passed because I knew it would be quite a bit later till we get home and I had no cell phone to call him and let him know. Even if I could have borrowed someone's phone, I didn't even know his new number. Thankfully another bus was coming down the mountain and our driver was nice enough to let us off his bus and jump on that one. So now we had the second chance to try to catch Chris's attention, but again, he was too engrossed in his work to notice the 3 white heads bobbing up and down in the bus amongst a sea of dark ones. We made it safely to Grande Anse and after a 10 minute walk found the hospital. Unfortunately, children under 12 couldn't visit patients there. Another dead end. Christi thought we really should stay in Grenada till she's 12 so she can visit in that hospital...and Kaylah continued to rub it in to her that in a few months SHE will be 12 and allowed to visit. Sigh. We headed back to the bus station and found a bus that looked almost full. (A tip from Ginger. That way you don't need to sit in a hot bus waiting for it to fill) I looked in one of them and backed away after seeing it was full. In a split second the driver's assistance was there telling us," Yes! yes! there is room!" I looked in again and saw the back seat was full but they could pull 2 side seats down so we decided to board. He motioned for one of us to sit in the back seat with the 3 men that were already sitting there. I assumed he meant Christi since there was only about a 6" space between them. I was trying to get Christi quickly past me in the bus because everyone's waiting to go. "No! No! You! You sit there!," the assistance said urgently. What? That's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole! I'll never fit! I thought. At this point I was trapped though because Kaylah and Christi had boarded and were behind me. Oh my! With no other options I ungracefully turned my body around in the teeny amount of room I had and began my slow descend onto the seat hoping God would part the men like He did the Red Sea or I would surely end up on one of their legs. By the way, these weren't the cleanest looking men either. They all had that dirty homeless look. My aim was pretty good and I managed to hit the center of the small space and with a little wiggling on everyone's part I managed to secure my tight seat. This "bus" is smaller than a van and we had 23 people crammed in if that tells you anything on how tight it was. We did survive though and managed to make it home in one piece:) If nothing else, we made some memories!
The private hospital where I will volunteer
An ambulance parked there
Some beautiful scenery we saw on our travels
An ambulance at the General Hospital
General Hospital
would do well to post this some places too!
One of our bus rides..excuse Christi's cheesy grin...she
thought she's smiling for the camera:)
Ok, so much happiness and hospitals...now for the hurriedness...
This is a picture of our post office. You might wonder how this has anything to do on being in a hurry...the story starts the previous day. I had made 3 trips to the post office...each time he was closed. He should have been open but, for whatever reason, he wasn't. The next day I was planning to tackle some mending and sewing. Since I was so wise I brought down my sewing machine as a carry on bag on the airplane. It weighed exactly 22 lbs., exactly what the weight limit is on a carry-on bag. Since I was so unwise, my foot pedal is at home yet, packed in a suitcase awaiting transportation down. So anyway, one of the teacher's said I can borrow hers till my foot pedal makes its way down. So after walking the children to school I went to her house to get it and lugged the heavy thing the almost a mile walk home. I sat down eager to get some sewing done since I promised her I'd have it back for her by 2:30. It didn't take me long to discover it was missing the bobbin. Since I needed that to sew I headed back to her house to retrieve the missing object. On the way, I pass the post office...and, guess what!!! He's open! Not wanting to pass up this golden opportunity I swung in to get the mail. He was with another customer at the moment so I waited about 5 minutes then had the brainy idea to run down and grab the bobbin and pick up the mail on my way back. So I told him I'll be back in a few minutes, I just need to run grab something. He smiled and snickered and said," Yea, you're from the States! Yea, I can tell! Yup! Always in a hurry! Yea, that's how they are from there!" He's a very nice guy and I could tell he felt very proud of himself for correctly analyzing how these Americans operate. I felt somewhat smitten as he quickly dug around to collect our mail so I could be on my merry way. I really wasn't trying to rush him, I was just trying to make good use of my time!
Anyway, things are different down here. The other day Chris made an appointment at the bank because they needed to add his name to an account. He first went to one bank where they told him he has to make an appointment at another bank and all 3 other men whose name is on the account need to be there too. The next day they all went to the bank where they waited an hour and a half before they were told that the other 3 men didn't need to be there and Chris heard her mutter under her breathe, " And they could have did this at the other bank!" Oh well, Chris didn't mind having the company while they waited:)
The children had fun helping to paint it.
They were pretty proud of their work:)
And, of course, they had to have a crazy picture too!:)
Washing out paintbrushes
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