Oh sweetie, I wake at 5:30 or 6 in the morning and do my work, you know? And then once I am done with that I sit and embroider. Oh I embroider for hours at a time. Sometimes from 9 to 12 or 1 or something like that, you know sweetie?! Oh and these glasses, I have to use them to embroider; it's fine needlework. It takes good eye sight to see it, so I wear these glasses honey. I don't wear them at other times, just when I am embroidering. It takes a good eye. Oh I have people all from all over that want things embroidered. In fact I have 3 customers in the states that sends me things to embroider with designs that they want embroidered. I sell these things then. Not to those people, those tourists, those vacationers, that come of that cruise ship. Oh they are too cheap honey. And then they just go and buy those things that have Roatan written on them. Well they aren't genuine. They aren't genuine at all; they are made elsewhere and then get shipped here. No sweetie, I sell mine by the aiport. I'm trying to get a little shop there. My sister and I, we sell them. Oh, and I always like to sit there and work on them while I'm selling them so people know that I make them. With the rest of my time during the day, I rest. I embroider and rest, sweetie, that's all I do. I need something to keep me going, you know? In the afternoon I like to take some time to take a nap or just sit. Then sometimes in the evening I will embroider a little more. But not late at night; I never embroider at night. My day is usually done about 9 or 10; no later. That's it sweetie; I embroider and rest. It's very nice.There you have it folks. The gerafuno. Gerafunos are those people that originally came to the island to live and are therefore, true islanders. They were here before any other people lived on and starting taking over this island. Their lives are very simple. They don't do much but the basics. They have a hobby that keeps them going, but otherwise they are content just being. Imagine what life would be like it all of us we able to do this. Simply be. Not have things here and there that we feel need to get done; always running around and filling our time with this or that. I must admit; I think I would get very bored if that were my life day after day. But these people have come to enjoy the simplicity that can be a part of life. Wow! (Might I mention that I love talking to these women, as they seem to say, "yes sweetie" "all right sweetie" "ok honey" "thank you sweetie" in their gerafuno accents after everything you say!)
I have decided that over the next few weeks, I am going to explore the lives of people on the island. We have the islanders, the volunteers, the tourists, the ex-pats, the hispanics that live in the colonia. What is it like to be one of them on this island sometimes thought of as paradise? By first impressions, I can tell you that is doesn't really look like paradise, that's for sure. What do they think? Why are they here? It just happened to work out well that Veronica came in today and was just itching to tell me all about her and her life. The things you can learn from people.
On Monday we received a new volunteer at the clinic who will be with us for a month. He is a med student in his 1st year of residency. While in clinic this week, he started off by doing some triaging to get used to the computers and to practice his spanish. I must say, you can tell that he is a doctor and not a nurse; aka, doesn't have to take vitals in the US. haha When watching him take people's blood pressures, he doesn't pump up the cuff once; oh no, he pumps it up about 4 or 5 times before he has gotten a reading. I had to laugh to myself when he was talking a blood pressure of this lady and on about the 3rd time, she gave a little wince. Then comes blood sugar testing. He is very considerate when he decides which finger to prick by asking them what hand is there dominant hand and so far; granted I would do this when giving shots, I would not consider doing this for a simple finger prick. Continuing on, he then goes about pricking the guys finger. You know how it goes, some people wince at a finger prick. His response? "Oh I'm so sorry, I know that hurts, doesn't it; yeah it does, I'm sorry, are you going to be ok? That's what we have to do in order to test your sugar though, I'm so sorry" How genuine is he?! Carrying on, I would then listen to him ask the patients why they came in to see the doctor and then later I would see what he wrote in the triage note. He would list the symptoms and then list possible diagnosis. While I often times think of diagnosis and ask a fair amount of questions, I don't go into an entire H and P with my triaging and arrive at a diagnosis. Oh to be a future doctor, stuck in the triage room for a day. Provided me with some humor non the less!
Forcast for the week (next 5 days)? Rain, rain, and oh yeah, more rain. Yippee! My main path to work has a giant lake in front of it that I could wade through if I wanted to, but it is all muddy and who knows what kind of parasites are groing in there. I think I will just stick to my alternate route. Hey, I think it may even be faster!
Well in the words of my favorite cartoon, "Tut-tut, it looks like rain!"
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