The First Week

Welcome back!  We have now officially been in Jamaica for 1 week.  The first week was crammed with activities.  We started out by lugging our 9 tubs full of stuff to Portland.  I had called the airport ahead of time to confirm the cost of our baggage - Jer gets 3 free bags for being military.  When we went to check in, miracle of miracles, the boarding passes all printed out and said they were free!  What a blessing!  Our kids were awesome on the flights, although not much sleeping happened.  Once finally on island, we spent 2 days recovering from a sleepless night and my parents arrived to help out.  We quickly realized that living in Jamaica is not going to be cheap.  I went to get a set of plastic drawers - the kind usually sold in Walmart.  They are charging $80 USD for them here!  Maybe I can do without...  Work started bright and early Wednesday with a 1.5 hour drive out into the jungle.  On the way, we picked up my favorite Jamaican food - peanut porridge!  That kept me full for most the day.  The morning was a bit overwhelming adjusting to old equipment and working through a huge waiting list of patients, but by late afternoon, things were running more smoothly.  Sadly, I saw many patients with terrible retinal disease that are already beyond repair.  But I also saw many patients with just dense cataracts who are going to be incredibly blessed by cataract surgery.  We made our way back down the winding road to Montego Bay that evening, on which my car sickness started to sink in - time to start driving myself!  So the next day, I took over driving into town for our "city" clinic.  Its quite an experience driving on the other side of the road, especially when you add in all the traffic and avoiding pedestrians.  But both Jer and I have made the transition and are navigating the town pretty well.
  On Friday, we visited the girls school, which is just down the street.  Adria met her classmates and she observed that they are all "brown people."  They were equally fascinated by her and curious to know all about her.  She had to take a little test to assess what she needs to work on prior to starting in a few weeks.  The test had things on it like metres and kilometres, and airplane was spelled "aeroplane."  Welcome to the metric system and Queens English!  Then we headed back into the jungle where we got to hand feed hummingbirds while they sat on our fingers!!  Tomorrow, a surgery team comes into town for 3 long days of surgery.
  I'll get pictures posted soon.  Thank you for all your prayers!
Eileen

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