Blogs from Guyana, South America - page 7

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

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

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

Today began early with breakfast and taxi ride to the Public Hospital. We met Dr. Bill Irvin, Dr. Christine Wamhoff, and Laura LaBore, an American nurse/pilot who lives here in Georgetown. All three are the type of people you would expect to find volunteering for RAM: friendly, dedicated, and hard working. A nurse at the hospital hunted down some scrubs for me, and the first surgery began around 10 a.m. It lasted until noon. I made it through without getting sick or fainting and we grabbed a quick lunch at a little shop across the street. The second surgery was considerably more interesting. They were doing a radical hysterectomy on a woman with cancer. Laura showed me how to “scrub in” and for an hour or so I actually got to help by holding retractors. ... read more

Today is a Guyanese holiday called Phagwah, which is for celebrating the triumph of good over evil. Apparently they have quite a few holidays around here. They celebrate most every religious holiday, Canadian holidays, and British holidays. The only celebrating I’ve noticed due to Phagwah is that most people have this silver powder on them. Someone told us that they used to throw water on each other, but then everyone was walking around soaking wet so they started throwing powder instead. The powder is supposed to have some medicinal significance to ward off the colds of springtime. Most of the hospital staff had the day off work so Dad and I decided to check out the zoo. The tickets cost $200 each, but I guess it was worth it. It was nicer than I expected. ... read more