Mamba Forever

We are staying at a "hotel" this time, up the street a bit from the Methodist Guest House where we have stayed previously.  It's a little more per person per night but offers rooms versus dormitory style living, and a/c (until midnight,when the power goes out). . . .and willing to prepare American-style pizza if you bring fixings, like pepperoni or mozzarella.

Unlike the Guest House, however, we are in our own for lunch, but they will provide coolers for whatever you assemble.  So, in the interest of simplicity, we have had PBJ sandwiches EVERY DAY!!  We've reached our breaking point. . .the "mamba" (peanut butter in Creole) jokes and puns are piling up, and a few in our party are just about to swear off peanut butter for life.  Some have taken to reversing a great tune from Les Miz. . ."one more day. . "!

We have many helpers on any given day and make 20 PBY sandwiches for our party if 9. . .and as we only have one each, EVERYTHING else. . .sandwiches, bananas, yogurt, Laughing Cow cheese. . .is eaten by our Haitian crew.  With gusto.  With thanks.  As if, otherwise, most wouldn't have anything close to that in either volume or nutrition that day, maybe that week.

So, Mamba forever.  If our friends relish joining us at the PBY table, we'll soldier on!

But I digress for today we visited the seaside village of Gommiers, conducting mobile medical and dental, and distributing some dresses and skirts to the young ladies.  Yesterday, with one Doctor, 170+ patients were seen and treated.  Today, we had Dr. Rosemond and "planned" to see maybe 60 patients.

As the John Lennon lyric said, "life is what happens to you when you're busy making plans" for they just kept coming, all day. . .all 120+. . .and the Dentist probably performed 30+ extractions. . .and Scott saw another 60+ patients at the Gebeau eye clinic, including 3 surgeries.  Scott's day lasted until 8:00 tonight.

But we saved him some pizza, although walking back to our rooms we kicked ourselves for not saying we ate all of that. . .but made him a fresh "mambawich"!

Scott is back in the eye tomorrow with 2 more surguries in the morning and follow-ups on those operated on today.  The rest of us are off to the nearby village of T-Madline, the hometown of one of our Haitian crew, to do another mobile medical and dental event, to do fluoride varnishing of kids's teeth, and to see if we can get a bunch more smiles from the dresses we'll distribute.

It is our last full day, and it seems the week has flown by. . .we all have great moments and memories, which we'll add to on the morrow.

John Smith