Bits, Bites [including bran] and Big Thank You's... and Reconstruction - Erv's Nose and the Hospital Plant

Joy! Joy! Joy!   

I remember many years ago one of my children was having a terrible time with Genetics in university and had to wait for the final mark to arrive in the mail.  There was a Happy Happy Joy Dance on the kitchen floor after reading the report card.   Well, the first year students were equally excited about their new laptops!

It has taken a while to get everything organized, so the students could use the computers immediately.  Most of the setting-up, modifying, adapting, etc. [for example we loaded a free virus software and Open Office] was done by Dr. Tony.   I knew he was in charge because he was always yelling at me about something, e.g., "Now you have really screwed it up."   He did praise me, though, as being an excellent "dummy" to discover the problems...

On Tuesday morning, we borrowed the morgue trolley to transport the computers to the classroom.  Earlier we had distributed and explained the contract.  Basically, the hospital owns the laptops until the student graduates in 3 plus years with an RN and then the computer belongs to them.  There was no student who owned their own computer, though several had home access through a parental one.

Tony showing muted amazement that we were ready to distribute the netbooks

John handing out the computer boxes

The computers [netbooks] that many of you donated some dollars towards are from a company in China, Hongkong Fortruth Technology Co., Limited.   They are 10" netbooks in five colors, 1 Gg Ram, 250 GB Hard DD, Wifi card, etc... The costs per unit were approximately $210 US, including shipping.  All the computers are working satisfactorily ..... Amazing!

It was Christmas in September when we arrived at 11 am.   As we distributed the boxes, there was so much expectation in the room it was electric.   We tackled the most important task first ..... Choosing a color!  If you wanted a different colour you had to swap with someone who wanted yours ..... and the next miracle of the day was everyone got the colour that they had wanted!

Tony and I had spent the previous afternoon setting up and locking the router and extension cords in the classroom.  Now they could take it out of the box and record the serial number on the contract.  Then, Tony led them in a step by step process in a way that only a true obsessive can achieve...  Small problems, but no major difficulties; all the students were soon online with their own accounts.

Red, Yellow, Black, Pink, White

"Yours looks exactly like mine."

 

"Do you think Dr. Tony and Rev. John will know we are on Facebook?"

I have written many times before about the gratitude of the Guyanese students and on Tuesday it was overflowing.  They wanted to write THANK YOU! notes to everyone...  It meant that I had to find snail mail addresses.  So they are writing as I write this.  I don't think I missed anyone, but if you do not get a note within a month tell me and I'll get another one written to you.

Speaking of "Thank You"s, we cannot forget a couple more:   Guyana Christian Charities Canada through whom the overseas purchase was completed, and who along with the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas issued tax receipts to all who wanted them; and, finally,  Mr. Taju Olaleye who shared his shipping company as well as his living space to store all the computers till we arrived. 
Also, we have furnished the Internet Cafe at the School/Hospital with three large laptops for student and staff use.   The computers that we [I use the "royal we", as it was Tony mostly] had rebuilt, did not fare well in the humidity and heat even though the cafe is air-conditioned in the daytime.  The three new ones will be enough along with a few that had been donated from other sources.

Peace Corps Grant Computer

Anonymous #1

Anonymous #2

Two were received anonymously from Canada and one was from a grant by the FROG group of the Peace Corps.  They are present and past Peace Corps volunteers who had made the grant available.
The future work/study that these students will do will be the judge of the benefit of your sacrifice to make these donations possible.  I know that as their teachers, Tony and I are very grateful.

Speaking of Tony:  there is now a bran shortage in Guyana; major supermarkets have reported barren shelves where there were various packages of bran cereal.    The papers have indicated that it may be speculators in bran futures, drug cartels hiding the merchandise in boxes no one actually uses, or someone has been building a two story home made entirely of bran.   The answer is  -  it's Tony!

Morning Mound [for perspective:  that is a serving spoon and platter].

One of our bran shelves in the kitchen.

Finally, and probably most importantly...our colleagues, Dr, Malika Mootoo, a Mercy Pediatrician; a nurse, Dianne Daly, just starting to teach a critical care certificate course, and Dr. Erv Janssen, the senior statesmen of volunteers to Guyana, were involved in a car accident on Tuesday night.  They are all recovering; Dr, Erv took the worst of the collision and has been a patient at Mercy Hospital since then.  He has had some bruising and a broken nose that refused to stop bleeding, so required surgery early Wednesday morning to pack his nose. 

Who is this Masked Man?

 And then on Thursday, to cheer him up, we gave him the opportunity of teaching all the first year students in his room.  I had spent some time with them to get a couple of questions, but there was no need!  Erv was in good form and might still be teaching except that the students had to go home.

Always a teacher...even when on the "other side".

In the picture above, there is a sculpture on the wall - coloured balls.  Tony bet me I couldn't make up a story: So  just so you know, it is The Three-Eighteen Helix, a human gene that is responsible for human caring and it is commonly known as the Dr. Erv Janssen Gene...  The students were in awe of such a great man; however, Erv being a Good Lutheran and  overwhelmed with the need to tell the truth, said, "No, none of that is true!"  At least it was a good story.

Yippee! The CEO's new office

May I have a "finally" finally?  The shack above is a most welcome site at the hospital as it signifies the start of the rebuilding after the Fire of May 2010.  Much more in following blogs.

More than enough; thanks for coming with me.

Jam-packed with Old Friends and New Students

"Not as funny" last week?  What happened?   I have sat and thought about that at least as long as I have sat and thought about nothing.   And I have concluded that Guyana is now so familiar that there is nothing that jumps out at me as strange or different.  Minibuses, canals, puri, noises, cold showers, clean-ups, heat, school: they all blend in to my awareness -- though our shower does have an orgasmic tendency as it starts and spurts, and I am developing some sensitivity about how a cervix must feel .....  They are all just a part of my normal living like a Cape Sable accent, Sterling's golf swing or a Pubnico Fog at the Creamy Treat.   Maybe it just means that I am getting old, or/and maybe all the differences we see when we first encounter a stranger or another culture are really not important, or at least not as important as the people who become like us as we become like them.

It is a good thing that I still have Tony to provide material!   Tony has slowly been introducing "rules" -- really, more like personal commandments that will guarantee good health.  For example, we now have two communal towels: a bath towel in the bathroom that is for hands only, not bathing; and a hand towel in the kitchen that is never for hands.  The ritual purity of these will no doubt offer a comforting aura to the germ phobias one of us has.   Given that there is mould all over, on every surface in the country which has not seen a detergent/antiseptic near it for a decade, we will have no fears.   This commandment is not without difficulty as I have run into a real quandary:  I have not figured out how to dry the dishes without touching the hand-towel-that-is-not-for-hands with my hands.   I had thought of buying a carton of sterile gloves, but that does seem a little over the top.   I have, however, been very careful only to use the shared bath towel for my hands, as I think Tony sends samples to the lab.

All joking aside, Tony and I have lived and functioned well together so far with way more pleasure than frustration.   We both share a desire and commitment to make our students the best that they can be.     And we both look past the strangeness of the other to achieve our goals.  

The first two weeks have been filled with "Hello Again".   There are old students - and their children, staff (present and past), members of Lutheran churches here, acquaintances in all parts of Guyana.   I could have spent the last  two weeks visiting, eating and liming with them all.  ("Liming" is roughly to casually relax with a group of close friends or family, and it sometimes occurs in the presence of alcoholic beverages.)    This would have been the case, except that I have also been meeting and liming with new people.  Claudette has introduced us to her circle of friends and we have been upscale-liming.

Helen Browman, Ian Donnelly, Nikki demonstrate advanced liming techniques at Claudette's home.

Speaking of old friends: I miss my companion/colleague of the last eight years. Pastor Richard Young - "Dick".  He left last year and wanted to retire to his farm in Oregon and serve the church part-time; however, there is no longer room for old missionaries, so he packed his bags and headed to Africa.    It is just not the same here without him.  Be well in Africa, my friend!

Our PBL experiment [The Sequel] has been going better than expected in that we seem to have generated some interest in the approach beyond Tony and me.  Claudette and Marysia have brought a Guyanese and Nursing perspective to the small groups.   And our "guinea pigs" from last year asked me if they could actually sit in to help the new students in their groups some day!    Strike while the iron is hot I say ..... always a good thing considering my memory, too.    So in less than a flash they were added to the first year groups that afternoon.   Supportive upper class students ..... I almost fainted!  

The second-year students in my group were great imitators of Tony and me.  They asked questions and supported the first year students' wonderings, and even asked new questions for themselves about the story they had explored last year.  This is another clear violation of the purist PBL rules, but it worked out great.  (I will now have to concoct a descriptive rationale so it seems planned rather than just "a good idea at the time".)

Speaking of changes, we had our students go to the wards to spend 30 minutes with a patient - just chatting and understanding what the world of a patient was like.   When I went to the wards to arrange this, I figured that I'd get the "overworked, too busy" stuff and I did -- AND I got "Sure, Rev"!  So on the following day, Tony and I led out 20 students to be thrown alive in front of patients and upper classes and staff... No one died - at least, not right away.   The working nurses greeted the students and took them to the best talkative patients on their floor and guided them with respect and interest.     Amazing!  No hazing, no intimidation; I figured that I would wake up at any moment.   Nope, it was really happening.

I took some pictures during that time and had them ready by the next day's class, in which the students had written individual thank you notes as a homework assignment and were giving them to "their" patients.   One or two patients had been discharged home and one had received the "Ultimate Discharge" and died.
Our student was devastated to find out her patient had died; and, she with her thank you note and picture in hand.   The first person who dies in our careers sometimes leaves significant marks on us.  (The first for me was William C. Rae... not bad 40 years later for someone who can't remember a name 10 seconds later.  I guess it was important.)

I chatted with the student, and her batchmates supported her, and with some encouragement she shared her experience and personal feelings with the whole class.  And she went back to the ward to get the address of his family to write a second thank you note.   She had almost not talked to him as he was very sick, but Tony sent her back to be with him.   She had held his hand and smiled at him and asked him lots of questions to which he nodded.  I guess having a beautiful young girl pay attention to you and hold your hand is not too bad a way to die ... but he was only 26 .....  And so the first scar appears on her nursing soul... She will remember him and herself... as I remember Rae and my own journey.  

We have added a new student, Zaheeda, who was a Mercy Graduate before my time even.  She is doing her Masters through St. Joseph College in Connecticut. (This is an unpaid announcement:  the nursing school/faculty at St Joe's College has been extremely supportive for Nursing in Guyana.)  Zaheeda has been asking us all sorts of theoretical questions -- I usually send her to Tony.   In true McMaster style, she moved from observer (actually, she hadn't even got to observe a group yet) to tutor, in order to gain a better perspective.  ( It may have also been that we were short a tutor .....)   She survived and is returning, even though she has filled the requirements of her course.   

You know this succeeding is so un-Guyanese... I should be worried, but hey, I can be depressed another day... Today we are winning.

I didn't get to write about my girls at St. Ann's, my Elmer Gantry impersonation, the gratitude for (and use of) the donated computers,  my "sons" Julian and Rashleigh - who always find me ..... but enough for this time.

Thanks for remembering me...