Blogs from Guyana, South America - page 9

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South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 9th 2007

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

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 8th 2007

Jenny picked Dad and I up at 8:30 and they dropped me off at the Public Hospital. I hurried up to the theater, which is the operating suite basically, expecting to find the doctors already in surgery. I got some scrubs on and my little hat and booties and went to the operating room. No doctors. I went back to the lobby area and someone told me the doctors had not arrived. They showed up after 10 minutes, they were visiting our patients, and we sat around until the first patient was ready for surgery. I didn’t help with this one but it was definitely the most interesting. She had a very large abdominal mass that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. I half expected it hatch and some “Independence Day”-looking alien to ... read more

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 7th 2007

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
Laura and Christine
Ready to Operate
Me on the Left!

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 6th 2007

One of the doctors I will be working with, Christine Wamhoff, was supposed to arrive late last night, but she missed her flight in Miami. She and Dr. Bill Irvin, the other doctor I will be working with, should arrive late tonight. Today was scheduled as a day for Christine to go to the Public Hospital and do exams on all our patients before the surgeries start tomorrow. There are also three CT scans scheduled for today that plans have not been finalized for. We waited around the hotel after breakfast for a call from Terrence to find out what we needed to do about arranging the scans. After awhile, Dad called Public Hospital and found arrangements had been made by Patrick Degroot. Jenny picked us up and we headed to Mercy Hospital so they could ... read more

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 5th 2007

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
Two-Toed Sloth
Don't Drink the Water
Turtle Mania

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 4th 2007

The team headed for the Pakaraimas left at 4 a.m. this morning. After another lazy morning, Stan, Terrance, Dad, and I took a taxi to the Public hospital to speak with Dr. Rangel about the upcoming surgeries. We returned to the hotel where we met up with Radeck, who is from Guyana originally, his wife Rebecca, and their nine year old adopted Guyanese daughter, Michaela. They live in Canada but are down here visiting and will be helping out since they know the area. He does something to do with teeth and she is an RN in women’s health. They left after lunch, as did Stan and Terrence who are flying to Lethem. Jenny, who I met very briefly a couple days ago, arrived to take us to Mercy Hospital where Dad has been working. ... read more
Dad
Jenny
Jenny's Office

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 3rd 2007

There wasn’t much on the schedule today for Nicole and I, so I decided to sleep. I think I got up around 8. I am losing track of time here since I don’t have a watch with me and most of the hotel clocks are terribly wrong. I got my shower and all that and then did some Sudoku puzzles until about eleven. I went downstairs and found Nicole on the computer. We watched the last half of some Indian (India Indian) movie called “Sanjay.” It was soooo funny. It wasn’t supposed to be, but there were several horribly done action sequences and random breaking out into song and dance. The good guys won. During the movie Paul Maresca showed up rather unexpectedly, introduced himself, and then went to look around town. That isn’t really ... read more
Muscle

South America » Guyana » Georgetown March 1st 2007

I woke up at the horrible hour of 3:45 a.m. I was barely ready when Dad picked me up at 4:45 to catch our 7 a.m. flight. Leslie drove us to the airport where we met up with Stan Brock, a very nice English jack-of-all-trades. He is the one responsible for starting RAM. He’s been a real South American cowboy, movie/TV star, pilot, and more I am sure. We flew from Knoxville to Orlando to Miami where we met up with three women: Dr. Becky, med student Nicole, and Judy (who is with Wings of Hope, not RAM). We all had some lunch and then boarded the plane somewhere around 3 p.m. We stopped at Trinidad/Tobago airport and dropped off/picked up some folks and then made our way to Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. Sheldon Seabra, ... read more
Stan
Dr. Becky
Nicole

South America » Guyana November 29th 2006

Essquibo week-end When we got back into town from the Rupununi we had a day in GT then headed off with Tors and some other GT possee to a beautiful house that we rented just near Bartica… This time there were enough of us to rent almost the whole speedboat for our group alone, meaning we were really riding in style. The house was a fantastic throwback to the days of empire, with bougainvillea along the balconies and a pool. The pictures kinda speak for themselves. We had a really relaxing week-end and shared Katherine’s Birthday. Time was spent in a very pleasant cycle of swimming in the pool followed by eating large meals. I have to say having only been out of the UK for 3 weeks we were still fairly impressed by the amount ... read more
Cashew Fruit and Nut
The House for the Weekend
The View for the Weekend

South America » Guyana November 24th 2006

Guyana - To The Interior After what seemed like ages of trying to find a way into the interior of Guyana, we finally gave up planning and just found an aeroplane going vaguely in our direction and jumped on it. Just before we left we emailed our potential host, at a place called Caiman House, who confirmed she had space for us, and so off we went. We hit the local (interior flights) airport, called Ogle. After being weighed (you know you’re going on a small plane when each kg counts) we were sent to immigration. Immigration was staffed by five people whose job description seemed to be “sit around, watch bad local soaps on TV, look menacing and get tourists to write their name in the book after scrutinising their passports”. After duly writing our ... read more
Jane makes friends using fish
Happy Otter
View from the Boat




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