Cereal box killer

One of the unfortunate side effects of chloroquine (my anti-malarial drug of choice) is it can give you very vivid, very unnerving dreams. I haven't slept well in a few nights because of said dreams. 2 nights ago I dreamed that I had to lock all my doors and windows and food cabinets because "the cereal box killer" was coming and if he got into my food and decided he didn't like what he tried, he'd kill me. In retrospect it's a little silly but I woke up in a cold sweat. I'm still figuring out if I was more bothered by someone killing me or by someone taking my food without asking.

Work this week was a mixture of extreme boredom and extreme busy-ness. I don't honestly remember what I did on Wednesday, it must have been very important. Thursday we didn't hold consultations at the clinic because Melvin the boss called an all staff meeting for the entire morning. That was actually more interesting than it sounds, partly because I got to drink lots of coffee and partly because I like seeing all the ins and outs of how this business runs. 

Thursday night I met another north American volunteer who's living down the road and we went into town together to run errands. We also went to her friend's pizza restaurant and (defying any and all health standards the USA might have ground into me) went into the kitchen and made our own calzones. You know you're in Honduras when... 

Today was busy at work. 1 of the nurses and her husband (who also works for the foundation) were gone, so I basically ended up doing both of their jobs. I rode with Melvin the Bearded to drop off a post-surgery patient in her village, then tracked down a new patient there to make sure the parents were still planning on bringing their kid to the foundation, then took pictures of 2 old patients to track their progress. This was by far the poorest village I've seen with regards to housing, people's health, children's shoes (or lack thereof), etc. The longer I'm here the more convinced I am that better infrastructure and better education are the 2 most basic and most important factors in improving lives. With infrastructure and education in place, people have a choice between remaining in poverty or working their way out. Without those two, the cycle probably won't break.

After Melvin and I got back, I spent about 2 hours working on Excel spreadsheets with patient and financial data from this week to email back to the office in the States. Not only did I work frantically all afternoon, I actually ended up working an hour overtime. Being a workaholic, that was satisfying. However, last semester I told Katie that my idea of hell included making Excel spreadsheets all day, and I stand by that statement. 

Finally, I went back over to Elmer's house for a couple of hours this evening. The highlight of the night came when we were leaving so his family could go to church and I could come home. After shutting the door, which locks automatically, we realized that no one had a key to the house or the car. No problem. Elmer took the screen off his bedroom window, jimmied open the window and slid his 4 year old son Emerson through the bars protecting the window so he could let us back in the house. Apparently, this had happened before. 

Now would also be a good time to point out that when Elmer needs to get into the bus he also jimmies open the driver's side window, hoists himself up and pulls the lever to open the main door from inside.