Another message from Hotel Matos-afornia 10/14/07

A new experience for me these days is the lake flies. They are called flies but they look more like big gnats than flies. In fact, they act more like gnats, too: they hover in groups, land on doors and windows, climb on your head, try to enter your nose and ears – extremely annoying creatures but thankfully benign. They don’t bite and are mainly a nuisance. I am not sure what they eat or what their life cycle is like because they seem to just appear and disappear which happened the next day. Recently, while I was at Barak’s house (the head guard), I looked out onto the lake and I saw this dense, grey cloud over the water. I saw multiple ones actually. I asked Barak what they were, for I thought perhaps there was some kind of river bonfire going on. He informed me that they were a cloud of lake flies. I was amazed. If one didn’t know they were benign, I think I would be frightened for my life to see this plague of insects moving towards me. They move fast, too. I have pictures of them that I will include, eventually. One of these days, you will have a photographic blog.

In my quest to learn more about how to implement a program to start treating pediatric patients with HIV, I took a tour of a nearby hospital – St. Camillus. It is a hospital that is owned by the Camillian Fathers, a group out of Italy and operates under the auspices of the Catholic Church, although they don’t receive any money directly from them. It was founded in 1998. Man, that place is seriously state of the art for the area we are in. It looks like any facility out of the U.S. – well almost. The children’s home they have definitely looks like any First World facility. They have their own power lines extending from 2 large fuel powered generators. They have enough land for half-a-dozen new buildings, if they wanted. Their children’s home houses almost 50 full time “effective” orphans and caters to almost 2000 other children daily for food and social and academic support. Unbelievable. It made me feel that our outfit was insignificant and puny when of course it isn’t. But that first impression was impressive.

After researching the Camillian Fathers, I discovered that they do fundraising around the world. Considering the real estate holdings of the Catholic Church, the elaborate nature of their Churches, the notion of the tithe, I guess it’s not surprising that so much money is available to support this endeavour. I’m glad. That is one thing that I have noticed in general, the Catholic organizations do some good work.

The other volunteer, Tami, has left the Matoso Clinic to return to the US after finishing her tenure here and I am here alone – well the only foreigner here. In fact, the rest of the Matoso Clinic staff is concerned that I am left alone at the end of the days and on the weekends in the compound. I actually am doing quite well with regards to that. There is always so much to do - I am trying to learn Go, study French, and just enjoy the free time I have on those days and evenings. I am reading a lot which is something I always relish. And of course, I visit people on the weekends, too. In fact, I don’t think I’ve gone through a weekend without spending it at somebody’s house or having a nice time on the compound.

Well, as the other volunteer left, I had to fill in the role of person in-charge of the PSC (patient support center, where they care for the HIV/TB cases). While I was here just getting the lay of the land, the responsibility seemed pretty big. My trepidation over taking over was such that on that first day, I really didn’t want to face the day. However, the day was slow and we were able to have an impromptu meeting with the whole staff. We went over all the goals to make sure everybody was on-board and they seem to be taking the transition in stride and were appreciative of my openness of communication. So, I think things will start to go well.

Another participant in the pest control here is the bats. There are lots of them. They are always flying and don’t seem to ever stop. Consequently, I can’t ever get a good look at them. Since I have no power in my house, I am always at the PSC to do any computer work. I leave the door open so that people know I am in here. Often, a bat will find itself in the PSC building and will fly around our heads looking for a way out. Their echolocation is good enough that we have not had to help a single bat out the door. They find it on their own – maybe not right away but eventually.

Well, until next time.