Monday, Mar 8
It was a really slow day today. One, Lucner was very busy this morning and two I am a little under the weather.
As I have mentioned before I am so impressed with Brother Lucner Pierre as a minister, and as a representative of his people. Lucner is an attorney, minister, and school administrator, all of which he has the appropriate graduate level degrees for. He quit his law practice to serve the Lord full-time. He runs the private school, he leads the local church, he runs and orphanage, he teaches at the CBT school of preaching, he is the point of contact/advisor/confidant for most of the other area preachers. Quite honestly he puts most of us other preachers to shame in the level of work he does.
As another level of his standard of excellence, the government has cleared school to reopen for the first time since the earthquake. Two issues with that: one, there is still a scientific probability of another major earthquake in this area soon; second, though we had very little damage here there were structural and emergency exit issues. Many schools remain closed because the buildings are not considered safe. Lucner's school has been cleared to reopen today. Lucner feels that he won't have many students, as the locals are still very afraid of another earthquake.
The second reason for a slow day is a third world malady. You can try and try to be careful but it's hard. I have been really careful but I know I've been getting more lax. Here's how critical it can be, the only mistakes I've made have been rinsing my toothbrush with unfiltered water (stupid) and eating fresh lettuce and tomato on a sandwich (stupid). One of those two got me, so now I'm staying close to the hotel Monday and Tuesday waiting for the Cipro to do its job.
For those who aren't on Facebook let me share a couple of our recent eating experiences and both surround pizza. We just really wanted a slice of pizza so we tried a restaurant around the corner and it was crust, pepperoni, and velveeta cheese on top. The second experience was at the bakery the UN hangs out at, Great thick crust, good tomato sauce and cheese, but tuna fish for the topping.
Based on both paragraphs above I am back to being careful. I boiled my toothbrush and will only use filtered water for brushing. Back to rice and beans for all meals except my oatmeal for breakfast. Boring but safe, that's my recommitment,.
I did take one of the nurses down to a local artisans market to look around. It is on the old pier and everything is up for bargaining. The prices are incredible based on US standards but still everyone wants it cheaper.
A Group of nurses came in Sunday night and had seen a TapTap wreck. They stopped and helped but still had one fatality. The victims still had to travel more than an hour to get to a clinic, so they worried there would be another fatality by the time they arrived. They had another interesting story about the hospital they were working at; it seems a woman came walking in with newborn twins . The babies were born a little premature at a home in her village. Mom was stable but the babies needed care. The neighbor had carried them 4 ½ hours in her arms in a cool drizzle. By the time they arrived their temperatures were around 90/91 degrees. The babies appeared nearly dead but revived once in a warming bed. The nurses couldn't stop talking about those babies. God's creation is really resilient.
Tomorrow Lucner is hosting a free medical clinic at his school so we are helping with that. More later. jeff
