Everything Looks Better in the Dark...

... except the inside of my house that is.  That's right...all weekend long I had to live without power, and let me tell you it really isn't all that fun.  Here in Roatan, we have frequent power outages but they typically only last a few hours; during this time we have to rely on candles and flashlights.  Therefore, when I woke up Saturday morning and went to turn the bathroom light on only to find out that it didn't work, I thought nothing of it.  I went the next 3 hours living in the dark before the 2 PA students came over from there apartment in hopes of using the internet at Ms. Peggy's.  I informed them that the power was out so there would be no internet that morning.  They looked confused, so I asked them if they had had power that morning, to which they answered yes.  About at that time I heard our water pump running indicating that some of the power in Ms. Peggy's house was working.   I then ventured downstairs to see if Jess was without power as well and to my surprise she was just sitting there watching TV thinking nothing of it.  After checking out the breakers and flipping all of them with no success to getting power upstairs we decided we had a problem.  We called over Dee from next door and he too didn't know what was wrong.  Later that day he came back to look at it to see if he could figure out what was wrong--what did he find?  A bad circuit.  What did that mean?  We had to empty the upstairs fridge (which has just a lot of random stuff in it that gets left behind by volunteers but Peggy doesn't necessarily eat) and move everything downstairs to Jess's fridge.  It also meant, that since it was a weekend, we would have to wait until Monday before our power would be restored because the whole circuit needed to be replaced.  A whole weekend of living in a dark house with no electricity.  It wasn't all that terrible it was more of just an inconvenience.  What little things we take for granted back in the states.  While my power was out, I got to thinking-- the people living in the colonia here on the island live without power day after day.  How challenging it must be for them.  This means that their days with light go from about 6 am to 5:30/6 pm.  Then the rest of the night they are without any light other than candles or flashlights which they may or may not have.  Refrigerators?  They probably don't have them and therefore anything they have is either fresh or sits out for days at a time until they use it all.  What great lesson you can get from being without conveniences we have on a daily basis.  

Life at the clinic has been going pretty well, aside from a few stressful days.  Wow, who knew running a clinic could be soo much work!  Last week was pretty slow because most of the days it was rainy and therefore, people don't necessarily come in unless they absolutely have to.  We ended Friday on a good note by getting done a little early and by having a lot of english speakers come to the clinic.  Who ever knew encountering someone that speaks your own language could be so gratifying?!  Another thing that we take for granted everyday as we go about our lives.  Think if english weren't your first language or not a language for you at all, and the only people around you were people that spoke english.  Do you know how hard it is to get what you want and or need?  It can be so challenging to communicate if you don't speak the right language!  Then today, we had some new volunteers start (which seems to be pretty typical of Monday's....therefore I have decided I'm not a huge fan of Mondays!) so it took a little time to get them situated.  There was some miscommunication with one of our volunteers so that was even a little more frustrating on all of our parts just because we felt bad things couldn't have gone smoother with getting her to her hotel and then getting her set up in the clinic; but after a hectic morning, we got her all set up and she is ready to go for the rest of the week.  Then about an hour and a half into clinic time this morning, we realized the pediatrician still hadn't shown up yet.  Little to our knowing, he took vacation this week.  Maybe an important detail, just a thought!  So therefore, neither of our primary doctors were in this morning (because the other had a scheduled day off today) so we were running off all volunteer medical staff today!  Kind of a scary thought....and let me tell you it was very hectic!  But, we made it through, all the patients got seen and treated without too much of a wait and they were all sent on their way.  Tomorrow is a new day, all the volunteers have had a day to adjust to the clinic, and some of our primary (spanish speaking) staff will be back.  YAY!

I don't know if I made mention of this last time, but rainy season has officially started as it has been raining for about the last week now.  It usually doesn't rain all day everyday so that is nice, but still, we are ready for rainy season to be over with and we still have a few months to go.  Typically, I will wake up and it will be raining but I've been fortunate enough for it to stop by the time I need to head to the clinic.  Then throughout the morning it will rain for an hour here or an hour there.  If I'm lucky it isn't raining when it is time to go home from the clinic, but over the course of the evening it will rain another 3-4 hours.  Therefore, we plan our trips from one destination to another strategically so that we can make it there in between rain showers.  Doesn't always work, but a lot of the time it does.

We had a really nice day on Saturday, which we took advantage of by venturing over to east side of the island to check that out.  It is amazing how much we hadn't realized that we were cooped up in Sandy Bay.  It felt so good to get out and see the sky when looking up instead of the trees.  We also went to the grocery store to get a food supply for awhile.  It was much easier to shop this time since we have had some time to get adjusted and realize what we want.  Jess and I combined our groceries (because we do most meals together) and together our bill was 1460.66 (Limps that is.....not dollars, but it still seems like a lot) or something like that!  In addition to a grocery stop, we also just got a chance to see what the rest of the island has to offer.  Mom, I will have you know, there is a zoo on the island and we were going to go to it, but it looked like it was probably closed on Saturday; so when Peggy gets back we are going to inquire about that.  Across the rest of the island, it varied as far as population went.  There were several villages/towns of very, very poor people that build their houses out of whatever supplies they can find.  However, sadly enough, there are also a couple of plantations and a few high class condos and resorts.  It's sad to see that there are soo many poor people living amongst the few wealthier people on the island. How can people live in such a huge mansion and overlook a poor village and not think twice about it?  

That's about all for now.  I hope all is well in the lives of my readers and hopefully I will have a chance to chat with some of you soon!  I encourage each of you to take some time to count your blessings and consider those things that you may take for granted.  What would it be like to live without them?  

Have a blessed week!

Laura