Well it happened! We finally figured out when and where we’ll be working for at least the next few weeks! I say that because right now the hospital is looking to hire a dentist since the one they had left right before we got here. Once the hiring of the dentist is complete I (Jeff) will be working with him or her in the dental clinic! I’m pretty excited about that!
Okay, well for now let me tell you a bit about where we’re currently working. We actually started work by helping out with a diabetes screening clinic that is held here at the school of nursing every 6 months or so. It was pretty crazy! We ended up checking about 200 people’s blood sugar. Which is saying something since we only had two testing devices. (I’m not sure what they’re called…) The interesting part about this was that the lab technicians pricking people’s fingers didn’t use gloves, which would never happen in the US, but hey, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
This took up most of the day and so when we finished with the clinic we headed over to the room to eat lunch. Right as we got our plates filled our wonderful, magnanimous leader, Dr. R. N. Prabhu Das, BS. MA. MA. MS. Phd, (I’m not kidding it says that on his name plate at his desk) came and asked to see us in his office. We quickly finished eating and headed over.
When we arrived we sat down and he explained our jobs to us. I would be working in the pharmacy…and Zach in the Out patient department. This was better than teaching English for sure! So we finished the day out with some volleyball and then to bed for some rest before starting our new jobs. Oh and also, Dr. P sent us out the door with notes for our bosses just like we had from teachers in 2nd grade…I say that with a load of sarcasm, but I’ll tell more about that later.
Our first day of work was pretty fun, I think for both of us. I started it off by handing out drugs like candy and basically learning where everything was, like the anti-venom for when we get snakebites. (That happens quite frequently) Zach discovered that he’s basically the secretary for the nurses in outpatient but the nurses were super nice and it looks like he’ll get to give some shots and take vitals for the incoming patients.
We work from 8:30 to 1 and then have a 2-hour siesta from 1 to 3 and then come back and finish off strong with 2 hours of work from 3 to 5! It’s not bad at all! Anyway, the rest of the week went pretty normal, ya know, a few snakebites, a few cases of typhoid but nothing too serious.
Now, let me get back to the Dr. Prahbu das stuff. I sarcastically mentioned the teachers not he sent with us but here’s the background to that. Ever since we’ve arrived in this lovely little town, emphasis on little, we’ve of course been exploring the town by foot even though one of the first things Dr. P said when we got here was not to. That may be a Gilbert thing or just a brother thing to disregard the overprotective warnings from a man with a mustache the size of California (If you turned Cali on its side). This exploring has been mostly in the daylight but we do go out almost every night to buy bananas and other fruits or a nice cold beverage. We’ve run into no trouble, never felt threatened and have always used good judgment when navigating the crowded streets but still Dr. P told us to never go out without a local at our side. This was partially because he didn’t want us to get ripped off by the vendors and partially for our physical safety (he didn’t want us to get hit by a autorickshaw or something like that) but mainly he’s playing the role of a “helicopter parent” who doesn’t want their precious child to skin their knee…Anyway, this really hasn’t been a big deal for us though because Dr. P is never around the front gate when we leave and the security guards are pretty useless so we just do our thing and he doesn’t know, so no worries.
Well this Saturday night we headed into town to grab a Limca (Indian Lemonade drink) and we happened to meet Dr. P at the gate. He asked us where we were going and why and why we were doing that so late and why we weren’t taking someone with us and on and on. We explained we had been doing this for weeks now and it was okay and we were just going into town for a few things. He explained to us again that he didn’t want us out after dark and we should always take someone with us and that if we got hurt it was on him so we needed to do what he said. We politely said we would be fine and told him we were going to go. Meanwhile one of our friends had stopped to talk to Dr. P and Dr. P told him to go with us but we talked him out of that, thankfully, mainly because our friend Satir seemed to be in a hurry somewhere else and we didn’t want to be a burden on him. Anyway, we ended up going but Dr. P told us to never go out after dark again…we went the next night…
Anyway, Dr. P tells the same thing with travel. When we travel he wants us to have someone with us to take care of us and make sure we’re not doing anything stupid and the list goes on and on… Needless to say, we don’t plan on always traveling with a flight attendant escorting us from gate to gate like when we were 12 and 9 years old, that’s just not going to happen.
Suffice it to say, we are going to take advice with a grain of salt from Dr. Prahbu Das. Don’t worry mom, we’re not going to go walking through the “Red Light” district of every town we come to but we didn’t come over here to stay in the hospital compound every waking minute. =)
Anyway, week one of work was great and I’m looking forward to week two!
Blessings!
How do I get a work schedule like yours? Don't overwork yourselves, now!! :-)
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