Round two

Well for all those brave souls who made it through the first novel.. ill try to keep this one a little shorter.
I was able to return to the TB hospital and work with Linda again. This time I was able to teach her some one handed dressing techniques (thanks to the many hours of working side by side with the best Occupational Therapist(OT) ever!) She was grinning ear to ear by the end but was also exhausted. I let here rest until lunch time and then we "walked" to the table where several of the patients eat lunch. She did much better than I expected as the previous visit she wasn't even able to stand! Unfortunately all this hard work wore her out and that put and end to our work together (despite my continual asking if she wants to do more... a true therapist doesn't let no stop her! :))

Matt returned from an eventful trip to Seattle on Sunday and was sad to leave his burgers and chips behind! We made a walk down (and back up) "the Hill" for ice cream and pizza... well worth the sweat and increased heart rate!
This week began with me actually getting a response from Healing Hands (the organization at which i am trying to volunteer) but it was from an email that was sent in march...hahah. so at this rate ill get a response to my current emails right about the time we move to NYC! Im still hopeful but with each day that passes my optimism fades a little more. I am contemplating returning early since I am not being utilized at all and spend many boring days sitting around AND there is a house in AL that needs to be packed and apartment in NYC waiting to be discovered as my new home. Ill keep you all posted on this, but for now I will continue to be hopeful.
Thursday on the way home from work we stopped to buy some fruit on the street corner(a corner we always shop at). Ive been wanting a watermelon since i arrived here but they've wanted $5-6 for a small one. Meanwhile I had heard you could buy them for much cheaper by the beach. We had actually just had a conversation with a Haitian that had bought one on the same corner for $2.50. So the bargaining began and she just laughed when Matt told her we wanted it for 2.50. He then told her a friend had bought one here for that price.. again she laughed and shook her head like "you're crazy!" He then said that his friend was Haitian and he wanted the Haitian price not the white price. At this all the bystanders and her burst out laughing- not quite the response either of us expected but we joined in too! This was quite effective and we were successful in our purchase ($3 and we probably could have gotten it down to $2.50 but we were so happy to get the Haitian price we went with it! The laughs alone were worth the extra 50 cents
Im making a special shout out here to Doris... THANK YOU for the hand sanitizer and gloves... they have been well utilized! Matt the other day turned to me and said out the blue "we need to tell Doris thanks for this" and I agree.... hopefully she will read this as she avoids computers like the plague.
Ok well back me.. haha... This weekend we went out on our typical weekend shopping trip but this week shopping for 3. We have a guest from Cornell coming to stay for the week. This means we stocked up... well things got exciting Sunday afternoon when all the sudden the power cut off. This is typical in Haiti but not where we live as there are 3 different sources (Haitian power, generator, and battery). Typically this would be no problem but we just spend 80 in groceries... so of course we were trying to figure out how to fix the problem. So Im at home today waiting for "them" to come by.. when you ask? I have no idea... I'm just waiting. Its amazing anything gets done here with schedules like this! :)