Things at Bina Hill are incredibly quiet since the Frenchmen left on Monday to continue their journey to Brazil. In typical fashion, they left their share of broken hearts among some of the girls. As with any isolated community, there are the usual relationship entanglements and a sort of social bubble forms where small ripples tend to become larger waves. Kathleen had to join Linzii in Georgetown to sort out their working VISAs. Consequently, some of the classes are cancelled, and the Bina Hill Institute students are having a decidedly lighter schedule. Among the foreigners, only Nick remains to eat with us at the dining table along with the many dogs that run around the complex – one actually delivered 8 adorable pups last week.Since arriving, we have become something like the local medical experts. Medex B
artholomew, the other foreign visitors, and lots of students have approached us with medical questions on topics ranging from urinary tract infections to questions like “how can you tell if you have breast cancer?” It’s been fun for us to educate people informally, but without access to certain medications, our ability to treat is somewhat limited. This afternoon, Medex approached us about a young patient with 1 day of non-specific symptoms like feeling hot, muscle aches, and headache. In Canada, most doctors would attribute this to a common cold or flu, but here, malaria, typhoid, and dengue are also possibilities. There are illnesses here that we would only rarely encounter in Toronto, and they definitely require a modified approach.It continues to be extremely hot, making it difficult to even think sometimes - a cool breeze is such a gift! The project seems to be going as planned, as we continue to develop our handouts, etc. We are glad that we picked some star fruit from the trees in Rock View to supplement our starch diet here.
