blmoffit
Becky Joined: March 19th 2007
Logged in: August 12th 2011
Logged in: August 12th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Dr. Bill Riding 4 Runner
My trip to Guyana was an incredible experience that I will not soon forget. I experienced a way of life that before, I had only seen on the TV or in movies. It was like getting in a time machine on the 1st, setting it to the early 1900s, and then setting the return date as the 17th. I went back in time but everything in the present just kept on going. My physics professor described the feeling as surreal. That seems to sum it up pretty well. The first day back in class had me wanting to drop out and move to Guyana. The second day I was just considering dropping Differential Equations. Today I am just doing my best to catch up on the world that moved on without me. My schedule permitting, ... read more
How Things Look At 3:00 AM
Our taxi arrived at 2:30 a.m. and we made it to the airport by 3:20 after our driver made several stops. We made it through customs, paid our exit fees, and slowly made our way the gate. I uploaded everyone’s’ photos onto my laptop so Dad could make CDs and send them out to everyone. The plane left a little before 6 and I think we all took a nap. Our first stop was in Trinidad like last time, except they made us get off the plane. Getting back on the plane was a complete mess. They herded us around like sheep from one checkpoint to another and finally we made it to the terminal. I picked up a doll at the gift shop and we finally took off again after 9. They showed a ... read more
Internet Cafe
Mrs. Foo cooked us a good breakfast and we walked around town doing a little souvenir shopping. I bought some guava jam and a couple little handmade things. We went back to the guesthouse, packed up, said goodbye to Mrs. Foo, and walked to the airport. We checked in at the airport and had some time to kill before the flight. The Internet café was open so we checked some email and sent a few and then did some more souvenir shopping. We went to the airport to sit for a while and met two American guys who were in Guyana working on the windmills for Wings of Hope. They had actually changed tickets with Bill and Christine so that they could get back to Georgetown a day early for the surgeries. The plane finally ... read more
Annai Runway
Today is our last day in Annai so we ate and headed to the clinic early as possible. Patients kept showing up as we were trying to close down. Bill and Christine had to catch a flight back to Georgetown so that they could finish the surgeries that didn’t get done last week. We were getting worried that we would have to turn patients away but they finished just in the nick of time and headed to the “airport.” The airport in Annai is actually the bar a Rock View and a dirt runway. David, Dad, and I got everything packed up and loaded on the vehicle with the assistance of one of the other team’s drivers, Shorty. We went to the lodge, which just happens to be the “airport” as well, and met up ... read more
My Little Annai Friend
Every morning in Guyana seems to be basically the same. Get up early, eat breakfast, and head to the clinic. We saw around 30 patients today with nothing too exciting happening. There were busy times, when David brought in patients from distant villages, and slow times when he was out picking up more patients. During one of the breaks Dad and I roamed around town for a bit looking at a store and searching for a telephone. Along the way I made a friend and he followed us back to the hospital. I saw him roaming the halls so I had to send him back outside. I got back to work and Dad started the long walk to Rock View to pick up our lunches. While Dad and I were eating lunch the team who ... read more
David
Lethem To Annai Becky We are leaving for Annai today, but not until we see more patients in Lethem. After our French toast breakfast, we arrived at the hospital around 8:30 a.m. I got started checking in patients again and dropped off several stacks of results with Terrence. When all the patients had been seen we headed to Mrs. Foo’s to pack up our stuff and load it on the truck. We met our driver, David, and hit the road with some box lunches. There are no paved roads in the interior so for the entire 2 hour trip we were driving on a dirt road with questionable bridges over the streams. It was a little bumpy at times but for the most part it really wasn’t that bad. The scenery got better as we ... read more
List of Villages
Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. Mrs. Foo cooked breakfast and we headed to the hospital. Because it is a normal working day here I lost my desk by all the windows and got stuck in a little room with half a desk and few windows. It was a little stuffy, but bearable overall. I saw about 30 people. Some were just picking up the results from their last test and some were new patients, which is always good. One thing I had to do today that I didn’t do yesterday was fold and staple result sheets. It took a good chunk of my day to get those done even with some help from Dad, Bill, and Christine. They had to be separated into the different sub-regions of region 9, the region we ... read more
Mrs. Foo
Mrs. Foo cooked an excellent breakfast for us this morning: oatmeal, eggs, sausage (hot dogs), and toast with guava jam. I wasn’t so sure about the jam since I don’t eat many fruits but it was excellent! I am going to try to find a couple jars in town before I leave. The whole team headed to the hospital to start work. I spent a little less than 4 hours registering patients. I get all their information like medical background and current problems so that the doctors don’t have to take time doing that. RAM has a huge database of all the women they have seen so far and the results from their tests. It also has their birth date, patient ID number, and their home village. Many of the women we saw today were ... read more
TGA
Georgetown to Lethem Georgetown to Lethem Georgetown To Lethem Becky We took a taxi to Ogle Airport to leave for Lethem. We checked in at 9 a.m. and our flight left a little after 10. It was the smallest plane I have ever flown in. There were 4 rows of 3 seats and only 1 pilot whom we could see the entire time. From the air we saw only rainforest until we were eventually over the savannahs and landed in Lethem. Lethem is completely different from Georgetown. It is a lot cleaner, trash wise, but all the roads are sand and dirt. It has the feel of an old western town. John Wayne riding in on horseback to catch the outlaws or stop at the saloon… something like that. Terrence picked us up at the ... read more
KFC Georgetown
At 8:00 a.m. we met the doctors at Ward E of the Public Hospital where the patients are staying and discussed solutions to yesterday’s problems. One problem that I forgot to mention was how we are getting our stuff to Lethem. We are taking a TGA, Trans Guyana Airways, flight from Georgetown to Lethem and they only allow 25 pounds of luggage per person. Dad and I have around 250 pounds together. Someone was supposed to drive down all our bags, but he is working with Wings of Hope right now. We talked to Sheldon and he suggested putting it on the bus that will leave Friday night. Dad and I left the doctors to start their work and drove to Bounty Farms Supermarket to find Sheldon. One of the ladies told us that he ... read more
