August 5th - More Clinic Hours

Because of the chicken pox going around here, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update this blog. Generally in any given 24-hour period, I'm at the clinic at least 8 of those hours...but sometimes up to 20 of those hours due to the small number of volunteers here right now. Of course, wouldn't you know that just a week before I came, there were more than 20 girls here in the volunteer house - too bad the chicken pox wasn't that bad then. But I have heard from pastors, family & friends over and over throughout my life that God will not give us MORE than we can handle. (He sure does know how to "max us out" though!) :-)

A volunteer here at the girls dorm has graciously suggested that I use her laptop to update this blog, since my hours at the clinic prevent me from going to town to update at the internet cafe. However, the internet here at Emmanuel is very delicate and some days it works...some days it doesn't. So, I'll try to update as much as I can when I have a free 2-3 hours during the day - if the internet is up & running.

This morning I was at the clinic from 6:30am - 2:30pm. Guzman (who is a 20-year-old boy that had been in the clinic with fever but not chicken pox) finally got to go home, however with his absence they brought another boy in WITH chicken pox, so the total number of children remains at 7 in the clinic. When the new boy came in, they mentioned that there were 2 more boys likely to come into the clinic at some point (because they were pretty sure that they had chicken pox as well).

The girl who was supposed to do tonight's shift (6:30pm - 6:30am) backed out. She is fairly young and knows very little Spanish, so I can hardly say that I blame her. Owen (one of the long-term volunteers) has already done 3 nights in a row and had had a couple of rough nights with the kids. Since he also teaches in the school during the day, I didn't want him doing a 4th night in a row, so I insisted on taking this shift to relieve him. I rested a bit during the 4 hours I would have off of the clinic, and then headed back to stay the night.