Our Last Clinic

We began the day around 9:00 am and made our way out to a neighboring town of Lupsa. We arrived around 10:00 and there was already a big crowd waiting in the lobby of the consulate/mayor’s office where we were holding the clinic. After basically herding everyone out into the foyer, we moved a lot of furniture and set up our pharmacy, intake area, waiting areas, and doctor rooms. Since we didn’t have a large, open space for the children, they basically waited in line and Elena and I passed out toys to them as they came through our “security” (i.e., Rush who is a very tall and intimidating man who had to block the doorway to prevent everyone from pushing through). I was also a runner for the day, directing people to the farmachia (pharmacy), communicating back and forth between the two doctor rooms (on other ends of the hallway) or helping calm children down. It was incredibly busy all day and a lot of families with children were standing in a small area for almost 2 hours at times. We had a few riots break out when we got out of order on our numbers and everyone noticed so we had to calm things down every now and then with our translators. Around noon, Rica came through and tried to tell half the group to go to lunch but he ended up telling almost everyone to go. A couple of us who had a problem leaving when there were so many people to see, stayed around to be in the second lunch group but once we found out that they were driving to Lupsa and eating there, we decided it wasn’t worth it to go during the second trip. During the first trip (when there were just a few of us there), Elena and I had to be security and the runners which was not easy. Dragoush, one of our interpreters, was supposed to be security but kept disappearing! After about an hour, everyone else came back and things were back to normal. The first group brought us some food and we had some bread and drinks from earlier (as well as the candy that was by me) that we had been snacking on. Most of us just didn’t feel right leaving all those people who had been waiting so long to go eat when we were ok with those snacks; it was not fair to everyone. We had about 350 people come through this day (I think) so there were a lot of people to see in just a short amount of time.

Halfway through the day we had a gypsy family come in and they were very respectful and patient. Everyone of course had to come out of their rooms to get pictures of them. We also played a lot of jokes on each other throughout the day. The doctors told Rica that he had high blood pressure and made him dance like a ballerina (I’m not kidding), stand on one foot, and then lay down in a weird position for about 10 minutes. Then, aside from making fun of his name all day, Sammy and I put some funky medications in Soso’s clinic bag, like things for diarrhea. We also had some fun with pictures at the end of the day. We tried to get an “under 30” shot and poor Jon felt bad because he was 31 (I meant to include him), so he got back in but Soso kept making bunny ears and everyone was just laughing away. We went back to Rica and Kathy’s for dinner (spaghetti and flan), took out all the leftover medicine and toys, and then came back to the hotel around 9:30 pm. On the bus ride back, Schantile pulled out a very phallic looking picture that she grabbed from the table (it had other info. on the back that she needed earlier) and told us that she thought a child drew it and that it was an ear. Everyone pretty much though it was something more phallic and after everyone passed it around and got a good laugh in, Dr. Stan told us it was his picture and it was an ear! We laughed for a good 10 minutes after that and cracked a lot more jokes about his drawing and anatomy! I know we are all happy that the group has gotten along so well and has enjoyed each other’s company. Bruce is taking another medical mission trip in June/July (they try to do 2 medical ones a year) and it is going to be in Africa. Some of us are trying to go and hopefully if we do, we can all be in the same trip again (there will be 3 going in the summer). I’m already planning ahead for that because I think going there with some people from this group would be absolutely amazing!

Since I’m not sure where we are staying our last two nights, this might be the last post until I get back into the states. We leave tomorrow morning at 7:00 am to head to Bran to see Dracula’s castle and then we’re going to some other castle. I think we are staying in Brasov tomorrow night but I really have no idea. On Wednesday we will see two more castles and maybe stay in Bucharest that night so we are close to the airport for Thursday. Even though I don’t know where we will officially be, I do know that we will slowly be making our way back east towards Bucharest over the next two days. So if you do not hear from me again, pa (bye) from Romania!

P.S. Since I am tired of getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and of smelling like smoke from the lobby, I did not upload any pictures into this post because it takes too long. Check them out from Day 5 at http://picasaweb.google.com/JELeventhal/Day5#