Friday, Holy Friday and full moon which is a Sri Lankan holiday

The medical team had a doc with today, so we could get some work done. We met the doc at Negombo hospital and then went to a Red Cross refuge camp that we had been to previously. It was a good set up and we saw lots of patients. I did wound care and blood pressures, I sing while I work. It brings happiness to me and others around me. (sometimes they may be laughing at me, but hey at least thy are laughing). A very thin woman with bad teeth (lots of bad teeth here) came for a dressing change. She has a cut on her little finger that is 1" long and very deep, through the skin. It had to be soaked to get the bandage off. It was infec...

Thursday

On the road again. To the village. We stopped at a hospital in Colombo, a private hospital, very nice and clean. A few of the nurses were accompanying one of the Sri Lankans for a minor surgical procedure. I stopped at the pharmacy and picked up some prescription drugs, they are dirt cheap here. Fosamax which is used to promote bone growth, usually costs about $80/month, in the U.S. that's 4 pills. Here it is $32/year. Hopefully I wont' have a problem getting it through customs. If I don't show up at home in a few weeks you'll know where to find me. In a Sri Lankan jail. (just kidding).

Then we went to the village. We wake up at 6am, try to leave the farm by 7(which is usually)730 sto...

Wednesday

I worked with the building crew today. I carried block, buckets of cement and rock. We are still working on the community center.
We also picked up trash on the beach. There is so much garbage that it seems hopeless. There is a river that runs into the ocean. The people just dump all kinds of garbage in it. In addition to all the tons of refuse being washed in and out due to the tsunami. Not environmentally friendly here. Hopefully our examples will plant a seed.

Tuesday

Wow I can't believe it's the start of week 3. Time goes by so quickly. We are always busy in some way. I love being a part of a team.

Today we painted the orphanage at the farm. The building is made of cement, there is next to no furniture, cement ledges used as benches are for seating. The kitchen stove is a large fireplace a few feet off the ground, small pieces of wood burn under cast iron pots that hang from chains. The walls are very dirty, group1 painted the entry way room yellow. We painted 2 large bedrooms blue. They are used for the 7 girls. All that is in the room are the beds, wood frame, single mattress. It was very rewarding to see the smiles on the girls’ faces when...

Monday

Back to work, we run into road blocks occasionally as a medical group. As you probably have figured out there really isn't much critical care for us to work on. We do a lot of washing of wounds, applying antibiotic ointment and bandaging.

We had plans to work in one village but they didn't need our services at this time, so back in the van to peddle our wares to another village. We ended up at a refuge camp in north Colombo. These people lived along a canal that runs into the Indian Ocean. As the giant waves came, water rushed up the canal and flooded out 100s of homes. The homes were very closely spaced and didn't look too good in the first place. The place was a mess. So all the peopl...