It is Wednesday nite here in Timor Leste, and as I sit writing my first blog entry, Tom is killing mosquitos behind me with our battery operated mosquito killing racket….a great purchase for 1 dollar. We are moving up with our move to timor: we live now in dili, capital city, for 1 month,and we are in a nice 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms. We have running water…just outside our back door, that is, but the electricity has been on consistently in the 4 days we have been here! We just bought a nice pink fan today, and I am so happy to have it, as last nite the weather changed a bit and it was steamy in bed until about 3 or 4am.
I spent today at a women’s conference on HIV-AIDS, with women from all over Timor present to learn and hopefully take the info back to their districts. Tomorrow, I will do morning rounds at Bairo Pite Clinic; Caralee, I spoke with Cisca Monday and she is happy to see you in Nov!
My new clinic job in Los Palos will be exciting! Many patients come each day, up to 100 on Mondays, I hear. And, as there is no current maternity program, my hope is to begin one. Ihave been talking to women about Los Palos, about Timor women and perceptions of birth, and I think we can get a successful new program going , God willing, and women willing. Love to all for now: bytheway: Hannah is great, getting dirtier by the day (we bathe her, of course), eating everything (rice, meat, corn, vegetable) and enjoying chocolate powdered milk and frequent Fanta strawberry sodas (1 per day max). By the way, any of you out there with food issues/food allergies should try living in a poor asian or latin american country for a while, see if the clean, unprocessed diet fixes you right up! Ate amanya, Monica