June 16th AM entry
Crawled out of bed at around 6:00 am this morning. Grabbed some prayer and devotions wherever I could. Breakfast was awesome again-they made enchiladas suizas-thats enchiladas with chicken and swiss cheese in a delicate green sauce. I also had some hot cakes that really made me feel like I was back in the states. Great coffee and orange juice, and I am ready to get out to the clinic.
I started with registering about 35 people and then we stopped for the time being, depending on how well we did, we may or may not have taken more. It turned out with the severity of their needs that is all we could look after for this day.
I then assisted with getting the dental trays. After that I learned how to sterilize instruments, which is the closest to a cushy job in the clinic, except you have to scrub blood off of dental instruments and be very careful to keep things clean and sterile. The tweezers had little grooves in them that blood collected in. I had to scrub them with a wire brush.
When we had enough instruments clean and trays ready for the next few patients, I gave someone else a break from assisting the dentists.
We finally went to lunch around 2 pm. It was over 90 degrees and 100% humidity. The pastor's wife set down in front of us a fish casserole that tasted of sardines with red chiles. From the first taste, I could tell this was going to be the meal that made me sick-not that I am a pessimist, but something did not taste right and I knew had no other choice but to eat it.
Two hours later back in the clinic, I was finally forced to become intimate with the toilet that I had made a concerted effort not to have more than a passing aquaintance with. I don't know what it is about remote areas of Mexico, but they all seem to see the toilet seat itself as some sort of superflous luxury. It didn't last long, and I took some Immodium AD and pepto bismol and got back to work.I had drank plenty of water, and two gatorades, but this had got the best of me and I was actually sick...Had a high temperature and according to Laura became grouchy. We were there a long time cleaning up until about 7:30 p.m., the service had already started, but our guide and driver Pete let us go home instead of making us go to the service.
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