Clinic, Confirmation, & Craziness

Another busy week with new adventures! Yesterday I accompanied 2 boys from Holy Cross to the San Pedro Polyclinic.

One of the boys had stepped on a nail the day before and needed a tetanus shot; the other boy had bad cold and flu symptoms with fever. The clinic opens for the afternoon at 1:00. We arrived shortly after 1:00 and were given numbers -- ours were 14 & 15. At 2:45 our numbers were called -- we got excited, thinking that meant we were going in to see the doctor. Oh no. That was only to get name, birthdate, and description of the problem. We then waited another hour and a half to see the one very overworked doctor. He checked out the kids; we got one his tetanus shot; both got the antibiotics they needed and we were on our way. It was a long afternoon in a pretty crazy place (not unlike the ER at a US hospital), but the boys were taken care of.

Dr. Zuniga

The Duke students are doing a great job. Today they met with the older kids talking about respect for others, the importance of staying school and answered their questions about relationships. Good information and good conversations. Yesterday they did a lot of vision screenings. There is a volunteer group of optometrists from Texas at the church in San Mateo. They are doing checks and giving glasses, and we were able to take several of the children we had identified with real vision problems to them. Now to get the kids to wear those glasses. They say others pick on them when they wear glasses. Today the Duke folks also did some more vision screenings and shoveled a lot of sand too. They are really hard workers.

This afternoon my first Confirmation class met. Only 4 girls came although they said they knew of others who had said they were coming. We'll send reminders next week and see if others come. If not, we'll go forward with those girls as our group. We need to get a definite date for the service from the bishop. I hope to hear from him soon.

Tomorrow the younger children will have a 1/2 day because there is a big teachers' meeting in Belize City. It's a 1/2 day all over the country. The Standard IV and V students will stay at school, and the Duke kids will be organizing games and activities for them. The Standard VI students are having class because they begin their big state test on Monday.

Stay tuned. There's bound to be more excitement tomorrow.....