Life, in a nutshell

Time flies when you’re having fun!

Some news:
(Life trials)
My computer is broken. Kaput. Oh well, May it rest in peace. Thank goodness for external hard-drives…

After a long and protracted inner debate that lasted about a month, I decided to apply to medical school. I then spent the next month trying to verbalize this decision into a personal statement, as well as take care of other odds and ends necessary in the application process. I’m still doing these things. Overall, I would say it’s been REALLY fun. But seriously, I’m happy I took the time to really think about this decision, to talk it over with a number of people, to consider the alternatives, and I feel good with the decision I have made. Please remind me that a few years from now when I am back in school, drowning in work, and upset over the condition of the world.

(city life)
I recently went on a 10 day “business” trip with Hotlin to Kota Kinabalu, located on the exact opposite side of Borneo in Sabah (Malaysia). It really is opposite of Sukadana in more than just geography. After a full day of traveling (3 plane flights!), we arrived in KK like a couple of heathen jungle women seeing civilization for the first time. It was (and is) hard to believe it’s the same island. KK is a modern city with clean streets, shiny shopping malls and a surplus of Starbucks. It also boasts an enviable location directly on the aquamarine ocean, a twenty-minute boat ride from five different off-shore islands each with its own reef to snorkel. We were there to train with Cynthia from LEAP, but managed to also find time to go snorkel at Pulau Sapi (Cow Island), check out the Kinabalu National Park with the premier expert on the endangered Borneo Rhino, get fancy haircuts and strengthening treatments, do a bit of shopping and eat a lot of delicious food. From fancy Italian dinners, to BBQ fish in the market by the water, from Thai food to Cynthia’s Mom’s delicious home-cooking, as well as the ability to buy yogurt and cheese at the grocery store, we were absolutely in food heaven.

While we were generally heavily scheduled from morning to late evening (and up WAY past “ Sukadana bedtime”) I also managed to have a bit of R and R at the end. I stayed with Suzanne, who works for Cynthia while we were there and has a beautiful apartment downtown with a giant lap-pool. Suzanne also has a side bag-making business (www.thebagbar.com), and as I stayed in the room where all the fabric and completed bags lived, I simply couldn’t help but buy one.

(village life)
Back in Sukadana things are going well. I’m on my fourth cycle of volunteers, though of course they don’t all line up perfectly. It’s hard to have such wonderful people come, and then just as you really get to know them, bid adieu. Jenny and Roberto, a lovely doctor and architect who were here before, were gone by the time I returned; Jenny was replaced with Maggie, a family practice physician from Denver, CO. She’s cool. We went on an attempted adventure yesterday in what turned into a torrential downpour; returning home with our tails between our legs we discovered neither of us had brought a key and we were locked out. Luckily, it’s hard to go too far in Sukadana and we soon located one.

Overall, I’m really enjoying living in the “girls house”; with the 5 Indonesians and 2 other Americans, there’s almost always someone to talk to, and as much of the dinner conversation takes place in Bahasa Indonesia it helps me practice. At first I wasn’t crazy about the 5:30 am alarm clocks and music (in addition to the ever-present roosters), but I have adapted and become an early to bed early to rise individual in the truest sense. Also, a number of the barn-like aspects of the house that I wrote about so lovingly (below) have also been modified since my return from KK. The improvements include puting in a kitchen sink, building a little bicycle garage, tiling the bathroom, and screening in the back-porch with bamboo and chicken-wire; the house has been blissfully chicken free for a week and a half now! Of course there are still some minor hiccups, such as the muddy color of the water now highlighted by the white tile, but we’re all too happy to really give it much thought.

(clinic life)
We are currently having free cataract surgeries for those blinded in one eye at the clinic. We have two visiting doctors and 4 nurses from a missionary hospital about 12 hours north of here as far as I can tell, performing the surgeries. A lot of effort has gone into planning this event: getting permission from about 10 different parts of bureaucracy, as is necessary in Indonesia, putting up signs and sending out text messages advertising the surgery, arranging the transport of the doctors and supplies, setting up three large tents loaned from the government and rearranging the entire clinic to create makeshift screening, pre-op, and operating rooms, just to name a few of the recent activities. Needless to say, it’s great to see it all come together and this morning we had several hundred people show up. Around 200 were potential patients, many blind in both eyes. The doctors are here for four days of operations and can do about 80 eyes. The screening process will probably eliminate about half of these potentials, selecting for those who have cataracts that are not only operable, but also completely obscuring vision in one eye. Preference goes first, of course, to those blind in BOTH eyes (who will get only one eye done this year). The surgeries began today and the first patients will be able to remove their bandages tomorrow and see for the first time in many years. I’m excited to see their reactions as they see their grandchildren for the first time and return to a world of light and color!

(that’s life)
My time here is starting to go by very, very quickly. Upon return from KK I had the rude awakening of only 7.5 weeks remaining. The new total is 6. Every morning running along the beach and hearing the gibbons’ call, every evening spent attempting to communicate in broken Bahasa now seems that much more special. I’m struggling to continue my “ organic farm survey” and am now worried that I won’t be able to finish in time. What started off as seeming like a good hunk of time in January now seems to have withered away into practically nothing. While I have learned a good deal here, I worry if I will be able to accomplish all that I want and that I aught, before heading home. I worry that by the time I am able to return to this special corner of the world, there will be no more rainforest and all the friends I have made will be gone. On the bright side, I AM looking forward to returning home to you all, dear readers! And also to ice cream, yogurt and cheese; they are practically family members, really.