No Problem!

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I am currently sitting in Norman Manley Airport waiting for a flight back to the USA. Per customary Jamaica my flight has been delayed two hours and I have about at 1.5% chance of making my two other connections back to Wichita, KS. Some of you may be wondering why I am on back to Kansas… my Grandpa Clouse died on Friday, December 16, 2005. I am going home for the funeral and will be returning to Jamaica on Christmas Eve (flights were much too expensive on other days).

I haven’t been able to sit down and write my blog in a couple weeks and quite a bit has happened. I will begin with the arrival of a volunteer dentist, Dr. Pedro Chimal, to St. Pius. Anyway, this is very good news for me because Dr. Pedro has allowed me to become his dental assistant in the afternoons. I am still teaching full time and tutoring. But now, I have some variety in my day. I am being taught the basics in dental care. But my main job is holding the suction tube (when it works) while Dr. Pedro cleans/works on teeth. Dr. Pedro wants to teach me how to clean teeth with the ultrasonic machine and has had me begin practicing on one patient. On Thursday, I pulled my first tooth. It was very easy (I probably could have pulled it out with my hand myself, but I used the tools). We have had some interesting patients so far. One man, who hadn’t been to the dentist in years, came in for some general work. He had lots of problems with his teeth. The biggest problem may have been the minerals that had formed on his teeth. There are lots of minerals in the water in Jamaica. You must clean your teeth to prevent the minerals to form all over them. Well, the suction wasn’t working on the day he came in so I held a tub for him to spit in every time saliva and water filled his mouth. White chunks came off of his teeth, and lots of blood and water filled the bucket. Sorry if you don’t have a strong stomach….I find it all intriguing.
Another patient, a 9 year old boy, came to the dentist for the first time. He had a dark spot on his tooth, and his enamel was coming off. This is caused by lack of calcium. The boy is lucky because his teeth were all his baby teeth.
So far, my only bad experience in the dental clinic has been with a patient that will rename nameless, but she lives and works with me, and her initials are M.A.. This patient came in to get a routine cleaning, and of course the suction wasn’t working again, so I was holding a bucket for the patient to spit in. Most patients follow instructions very well and we haven’t had any problems except for this day, when the nameless patient spit all over me instead of in the bucket. Some people would consider me lucky since I closely know the patient…but I’m not so sure : ).
Last Sunday I experienced something completely new… a Jamaican funeral. I did not know the lady that died, but I am familiar with all of her “survivors”. Sophia was murdered back on November 11ish, 2005. And yes, her funeral was just last Sunday. It is very common in Jamaica to have a funeral 3 weeks to a month after the death of a loved one. There are a couple of reasons why this happens. The main reason is that the family simply doesn’t have enough money for a funeral. Another reason is that often a number of family members live “foreign”, or not in Jamaica, and need time to arrive and get money for a ticket.
Well, the funeral was held in the “country” (anywhere in Jamaica besides the city) in Marywood, St. Elizabeth. It was approximately a four hour drive by a chartered bus to the location (this due to continuous poor road conditions, and numerous stops by the bus). The funeral was set to start at 1pm but didn’t begin until the busses of people arrived from Kingston, 2 hours later at 3:00pm. The funeral was held in a small church that couldn’t hold everyone. Even if it was large enough to hold everyone there still would have been a large crowd gathered outside (this is also common in Jamaica; at “bad men” funerals many other “bad men” stay outside, smoke ganja and drink Guinness to pay their respects). Sheldon (a friend from Pius), the father of two of Sophia’s children, sang at the funeral (which wasn’t any problem at all). He was listed in the program as “Sheldon (baby father)”. Many women refer to their children’s father as my “baby fadda”.
I was outside for most of the funeral and was able to see a lot of different things. For example, during the funeral street vendors were outside yelling “Oranges, 20 dollars”, knowing that a funeral was going on. Children that were attending the funeral were eating ice cream cones. Inside the church occasionally came very loud wailing, screaming, and crying. And young women would be carried out of the church paralyzed by grief.
After all of the charismatic praise, and mourning went on in the church it was time to lie to rest Sophia. The coffin was carried farther into the bush to be buried in a family plot. The family plot was on the side of a hill, down off the road, too rocky and unstable for me to travel in my dress shoes. I watched from above as they put the coffin in the grave half above ground, half below ground. They covered the coffin with tree limbs for support, and then sheets of zinc (metal pieces), and some iron bars. Next, they passed Sophia’s youngest child, probably an 18 month year old girl over the coffin while slapping her. This is some sort of Jamaican tradition/legend to help the baby (maybe to keep the duppies (spirits) away, but I’m not sure). Then they covered the coffin with cement they had been mixing with a shovel next to the coffin. Grave robbing is very common in Jamaica, so they coffins are usually well secured. Sophia finally has her rest in the Jamaican countryside.
Since it is getting close to Christmas I have been seeing lots of ads on TV encouraging safe driving and not to drink and drive. I chuckled earlier this week when Meaghan and I got in a route taxi to take us to Pius and the driver was drinking a Guinness. Driving with an open container is either not illegal or not enforced as this has happened to me more than once. From what I have observed Jamaicans do not drink to get drunk but have alcohol here and there, including in their Christmas cakes, some juices, and other drinks. I have not yet seen a drunken Jamaican (which may not say much since I live in a convent).
On Tuesday of this week I traveled to Duckenfield, in St. Thomas (another area that would be considered “country”). It was a beautiful drive along the coastline of blue water. Some friends are helping to paint a school there and decided to have a Christmas Treat for the 80 children at the school. Meaghan and I went along to help out. All was going well except that we were in two minor car accidents in the day. One on the way there, and one of the way back. On the way there Jessica, hit the man in front of her at a stop sign denting in her front left fender. The man that she hit had no damage to his car but told Jessica that his transmission might need to be looked at. Jessica took pictures of the scene of the accident, and the man hasn’t filled any accident report, or called to get his transmission fixed yet. Then on our way back, we got hit by a large truck coming around a hairpin curve. He “mashed up” the right front of Jessica’s car. It was a bad day for Jessica.

On with the story. It is now 7:52 AM on Sunday, December 18, 2005. I am sitting in Dallas/Fort Worth airport waiting to hopefully board my final flight. All of my flights were either delayed or missed because of delays, but I’m thankful for my warm bed for a couple of hours last night.
I’ve met many enjoyable people in the airport the past couple of hours. Many people are flying home from all over the world for Christmas. Airports really bring people together (everyone except for the complainers—they miss out on everything good).

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Photos

On the job
My job is the suckon (when it works), otherwise I hold a bucket that people spit in. I haven't had any problems with this except when we cleaned Meaghan's teeth. She spit all over my clothes.

My First Extraction
I pulled a tooth today! Meaghan thinks it is absolutly disgusting. This tooth came out very easy.

Comments

[MVP 2005 2006]

A Bad Patient?
I don't know what kind of person would actually spit on their dental attendant, but that's horrible, Nancy. Truly, truly, truly horrible. I hope you kicked said patient. What kind of a slob does that?