The Unexpected

Yesterday I spent the day on the island of Timor-Leste!Things I did not expect…….

    1.   I did not expect to hear Dixie Chicks playing on the radio in the bus
    2.   Roosters. There were lots of roosters, chickens, and dogs on the streets.

    3.  I didn’t know they drove on the opposite side of the road (like Australia).

    4.  Kangaroo meat. We ate at a restaurant owned by an Aussie and I tried kangaroo for the first time. Not bad! Not particularly good,but not bad!
    5.  Dollars. Who knew!? They use American currency.

    6.  A large statue of Christ. I didn’t know until our ship arrived atthe island about this statue- but it is quite remarkable. It a large(maybe 30 foot?) statue of Christ in a very prominent spot on the very tip of the island. (Remember, the island is 99% Roman Catholic). We climbed to the top. The view of the island and the ocean was stunning.
    7.  An old lady sitting by her fruit stand playing solitaire with a deck of cards. I’m not sure why that surprised me so much, but it did. I guess because there seems to be so much poverty and life seems SO different here that it was odd to see her doing something that I would see back home. Granted, she wasn’t playing it on the computer, but still.
    8. Another side note:--We saw lots of beautiful fruit. I spent the day with my friend Stephanie, who works for Utah County Health Department and she does food & restaurant inspections. She is here as an environmental health specialist and she found out at a meeting with the health ministry from Timor-Leste that they like to use formaldehyde to preserve their fruits and vegetables. So, you might want to take it  easy on the 5-fruits&veggies-a-day thing here. We also saw fish stands out on the street, keeping company with plenty of flies. Fresh fish, anyone?

Today I was back on the pediatric ward. For those who may be interested in the kinds of patients we are seeing, here are a few ofthe cases we had from today:

•  A boy with polydactyly (6 toes on his left foot). Not anymore!
• A boy with bilateral strabismus (lazy eye)
• A girl who had a lesion in her eye- they biopsied it and they thinkit could be malignant.
• A girl whose hand had healed incorrectly so they did a scar revision.
• We received several other children to the unit who will go forsurgery tomorrow for hernia repairs and repairs of cleft lip & palate.