Back to Work

Watching the World Cup final was a blast! We went to another little bar that our group leaders knew of. There were a lot of us there even though the game didn't start until 2 am. After it was over, Kelsey and Colleen made the smart decision of going to bed, but the guys decided to stay up and talk until 9 am. Unsurprisingly, we were all pretty tired the next day, so we decided to take a rest day and nap/read/play cards.

We had the day off on Monday, so we took advantage of our time to go to the exercise park and do another exhausting workout. Monday was the New Zealand girls' birthday, so we all went out to dinner and had cake while playing cards to celebrate. 

(Elouise and Jola from New Zealand)

Yesterday was our first day back in the clinic. All of the girls went to a daycare nearby to screen for Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease because they had a child who was diagnosed recently. We had a lot of fun playing with the kids for a bit afterward. Then we came back and did the usual until lunch: diagnosis and wound care. Lunch was our favorite fried rice place, so we were pretty excited about that!

Since the clinic was slow and we had quite a few people working, they decided to have us garden in the afternoon. This was another exhausting workout, and after digging up many weeds, digging trenches, and planting lemongrass and silk, we were covered in sweat and dirt. But the garden definitely looked a lot better than when we started!

Last night we visited two new places that we didn't know about previously: the office (with wifi and a phone for local calls) and the laundromat. The girls went to the office and were able to change our flight from Bangkok to Phuket so that we have an extra day at the beach, and the guys went to do some laundry. We then went to a dinner place that had a swimming pool with a few other volunteers and had another workout playing games in the pool. Our meal here was somewhat new; still noodles, but a different kind! Unfortunately, our night ended with Garrett slicing his foot open on a jet in the pool so we had to do some after-hours work to give him wound care.

Today we had an earlier clinic for hypertension screening. Garrett was our first patient for wound care, so his foot is all clean and wrapped up! We did general screenings with height/weight/BP/pulse/waist circumference, glucose testing and hematocrit testing. There were many people who came in with visible complications, yet they all smiled at us and were very appreciative. It is so good to know that the people are grateful to have us here.

Things slowed down for us in the afternoon (after another delicious fried rice lunch), so we entertained ourselves by testing each other's hematocrit and learning how to suture on chicken legs. This was slightly more difficult than learning at home with the language barrier, but we think we figured it out.

Nicky took us to the train station after a short laundry and dinner break (Pad Thai!) to buy tickets to go to the National Park this weekend. He dropped us off at another market, where we walked around ogling all of the odd food and items to buy. We indulged in some delicious waffles which were roughly 33 cents, some bubble tea, chicken and other bits and pieces.

(a massive container of crickets, presumably to be fried as a snack)