March 12, 2017

Signs of the Times

"signs and wonders"

One of the more entertaining things about living in Guyana is reading signs of all genres.  Some have a lot of personality, like, “No urinating” or even better “No pissin ya.”  We went past a beauty shop named, “Shirleen’s Beauty Saloon.”  

 

Some billboards, especially in Georgetown, contain an amazing amount of information, so if you are passing by, you would have to stop and stand there for awhile to read all the information.

Colorful spray painted posters are stuck along the roads to advertise “Old Year’s Night” (New Year’s Eve) parties, dances, horse races, “all white” or “all black” parties (where you wear all black clothes or all white clothes - nothing racial about it) soca concerts, parades, or community events.  The paint colors are bright and fluorescent, similar to grocery store window paintings on steroids.       

This sign was prominently posted at the entrance to the hospital’s maternal and antenatal clinic advocating breast milk only for infants.  Women here nurse openly, and the missionary elders don’t quite know how to respond!                                                 

This house has a hand-painted sign, “Protey not for Sale.”   Those pesky real estate agents!                                                 

With socialized medicine, “ALL DRUGS ARE PROVIDED FREE TO THE PUBLIC.” This means long lines and a lot of waiting on the benches for your turn.

Somewhat common hand-lettered signs advertise chickens for sale, “Pluck or Live Chicken.” On this sign the painter questioned the original spelling and changed the

“V” in live to an “F” so the sign reads “Pluck chicken N life for Sale.”

You can go to a “Marriage Officer” to get married.  I wonder if anyone has felt like they were handcuffed for the double ring ceremony.

Guess I'll sign off now.

Another Day in Paradise

15 February 2017

Another Day in Paradise

"travelling into a far country"

Suriname Embassy in Georgetown

Today we had to go to Georgetown to apply for visas at the Suriname embassy, as we are preparing for a wheelchair project there.  This entailed going to the embassy standing in line signing the ledger going into the building to a caged window getting some papers showing our passports and then being told we have to have photocopies of our passports going and getting the copies then being told we need passport photos driving to get some more photos taken, going back 2 hours later because they close for lunch then standing in line again then going in with our filled-in papers then signing then paying 100.00 each then getting the visas.  

Then, since the local mission office told us we had a package, we went downtown to the post office and they told us to go around the other side of the building (which entailed walking down the road where all the homeless men were sleeping against the post office wall) and behind some market booths into the post office where there was an office to buy stamps and windows to pay bills to mail and finally to package pick up down a little hall where I handed them the slip for the package and the guy went into the back to get it walking as slowly and proudly as he could (looking mighty important) then put it on the table right before my very eyes but I couldn't get it until he cut it open, looked through everything then taped it up and put it on another table behind 2 glassed in sections and in the first section the girl wrote out a  bill telling what the postage was and the customs fee and then she had us take the bill to the next window to pay then get a receipt and finally get the package back at the place we started.  Mind you, the two sections were right next to each other and the clerk and cashier could have easily handled the transaction as one person.  And the package guy apparently had the "go fetch" job which was very important.  So when I got home and saw the package contained good stuff, including marshmallow Peeps, I immediately ripped open the Peeps and ate the whole package and felt like I had just shot up a happy drug.

But, to back up, after the post office it was off to the airport for another amazing business transaction to buy tickets for our flight to Suriname.  Thank goodness they actually used a computer.  Then the long drive home to Canje, filled with crazy drivers, school children, dogs, mules, carts, horses, goats, sheep, bikes, motorcycles and pot holes of unimaginable proportion.  Ahh, so nice to get to our oven house.  So just when I changed into my lovely house dress, took off my make-up and washed up and was going to just relax and breathe, the missionaries called and one of the missionaries had had a seizure so I got dressed again, put on my little badge, and headed over to the missionary apartment.  No one could get a hold of the mission president, who was in one of the many foreign outposts of the mission, so I suggested a blessing be given, which was given. We discussed the situation and decided the elders would stay and watch Elder W (a handsome athletic young man who was not quite having the happy 19th birthday celebration he expected) and we would check on him the next day.  So back home finally for some rest.  Again I changed into my lovely but amazingly comfortable house dress. Then as soon as the mission president, who is a doctor, got the news, he called and asked us to immediately take Elder W and his companion to Georgetown to the emergency room for an evaluation which would take another long narrative to explain the horrors of.  So basically after all of that then we had to turn around to go back to Canje, which basically adds up to what felt like a drive to California in time and distance.

The run on sentences are a metaphor for a run on day.

15 February 2017

The Lord is Mindful

"what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink"

The New Amsterdam branch president's wife beckoned me aside and showed me a bag full of staple foods - rice, oil, sugar, salt, flour - and told me the branch had given a lot of these out a few months ago to members in need. There were two bags left over, and she decided to take them to church on Sunday to give them away.  She gave one of the bags to a young father.  

The backstory is, earlier in the week Sister Kirton, the branch president's wife, had seen this man along the road and recognized him as a member who hadn't come to church for a very long time.  She greeted him and asked why she hadn't seen him for so long.  He said he spent everyday looking for a job, so didn't come to church.  She invited him.  Well, to her surprise he showed up with his wife and child.  She decided to give him one of the remaining bags (they call them hampers, here).  With tears in his eyes he thanked her and said, "We have nothing to eat.  I came here today and spent my last money on the cab fare to get here."

Fruits of Faith

15 February 2017

Fruits of Faith

"all manner of fine workmanship"

Relief Society, the teacher told about how she'd been to market for a whole week and didn't sell one single thing.  She felt discouraged, but read her scriptures (the lesson was on studying the scriptures), and read about the Lord strengthening us.  So she decided she would "be covered by the blood of Jesus" (must be a leftover phrase from her former church) have faith, be strong, and trust in the Lord.  She set up her booth at the market and said a woman came to her and said,

"I told you I'd come back. I bought from you a long time ago."  The sister did not remember her, but the lady bought a "full set of cherbuks." The sister was so happy she got seven thousand dollars for them.  (Roughly $35.00 USD)  Then she sold a lot more, more that she'd ever made in a whole week.

I'm still trying to understand Creolese and Guyanese accents.  I asked another sister after RS what cherbuks were.  Chair backs.  "Oh, what do you use them for?"  "You know, to put on de buks of chers."  "Oh, does she make them?"  "Yes, makes dem."  "What do they look like?"  "You jus trow dem ova da cher."  I think. Oh, like an afghan.  I ask "Does she use yarn?  Crochet them?"  "Yes."  So I learned more about faith, and about Guyanese afghan decor.

By Kirsten Ballering

15 February 2016

At the Ready

"prepare ye for that which is to come"

We were asked to help with New Amsterdam Branch's emergency plan tonight, and then, just as I was putting stuff together for this we get an email from the area office. So, we get this new assignment.  Guess the Lord figures, well if they can do it once they can do it some more...... "Coincidences" like this happen all the time. So now we have to  make sure all the branches/districts/wards in Trinidad, Suriname, Guyana, Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao are trained for emergency preparedness and make their own plans by the end of June.  (These plans will definitely not be as thorough as my ward at home.  My home ward is very diligent doing everything we're supposed to.  There, if there is a disaster, all I have to do is put a colored card on my door so when the neighborhood captains are checking on me and other ward members they'll know the situation.  If the card is red, stop to  help; if green, we're okay; if yellow, I can come help; if black; somebody's dead, or something like that. I'm not really sure what the colors mean, but I do remember that if I die, I have to put the black card on my door before I leave.)

They asked us to help before we got the assignment.  Guess the Lord figures, well if they can do it once they can do it some more......

A sweet neighbor.  I definitely fit in the neighborhood.

6 January 2017

Blessings in Georgetown

“the lame to walk and the blind to see”

We spent last week in Georgetown to carry out a few of the projects we have been working on: support for an orthopedic clinic, vision care training, and meeting with a partner regarding clothing distribution for the poor.  

LDS Charities works with a local orthopedic center, Ptolemy-Reid, to provide wheelchairs and prosthetics for those in need.  

Orthopedics (or as they say here, "Orthopaedics")

One of the people we are working with is this 17 year old young man, a national cricket team member, who lost his leg in a serious motorcycle accident.  He seemed so glum, and reserved, but by the time we left he was smiling and joking around.

We also were able to meet students with various handicaps that attend school at the center and are learning skills to help them as they face the world.

Vision Care

Dr. Smalley, ophthalmologist from Lehi, Utah, shares his expertise with Guyanese doctors. 

Following is an article from the Guyana Chronicle written by Shirley Thomas about the vision project we headed up by linking LDS Charities resources with the the Georgetown Public Hospital.  The purpose was to provide training, supplies and equipment for doctors to  improve vision care and cataract surgeries.  Having witnessed the rows and rows and long lines of people waiting their turns to see a doctor, we feel greatly blessed to have played a role in putting this together to help the people.

In this article I have a new name, “Sister Peterkin.”  and Elder Peterkin also has a new one.  We got a good laugh out of this.

Ophthalmologists learn better approach to tackle cataracts

By Shirley Thomas

THE Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (CJCLDS) is on its second humanitarian mission to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) in two years, this time around, providing training for ophthalmologists of the Eye Care Department, employing the use of advanced technology to perform cataract surgeries.Over the last week Dr. Aaron Smalley, ophthalmologist from Utah, USA has been delivering lectures for the local ophthalmologists in “The Introduction to Phacoemulsification Cataract Surgery”, and has also conducted several surgeries at the institution.

Dr. Smalley, a graduate of the George Washington D.C. University, did his ophthalmology training at Hershey, Pennsylvania and currently resides at Utah. He is accompanied to Guyana by his wife, Julie Smalley who, on Tuesday made a donation of some 200 reading glasses to Eye Care Guyana. The spectacles were received by Charles Vandyke, National Programme Manager who thanked the donor and said that the glasses will be distributed to deserving cases in the hinterland locations of Guyana.

Phacoemulsification, or ‘phaco’, as surgeons refer to it, is used to restore vision in patients whose vision has become cloudy from cataracts. Phacoemulsification cataract surgery is a procedure in which an ultrasonic device is used to break up and then remove a cloudy lens, or cataract, from the eye to improve vision. The insertion of an intraocular lens (IOL) usually immediately follows phacoemulsification.

Julie Smalley outlined that phacoemulsification is an advance approach to doing cataract eye surgery today. Some of the benefits include faster healing of the eye after surgery, with less chances of developing infection of the eye. Using the‘phaco’ method also takes a lot smaller incision; the recovery process is a lot easier and the recovery time is drastically reduced. It is easier for the patient to recover once the doctors understand and know how to use the machine, she said.

Sister Smalley collected reading glasses from friends and neighbors and donated them.  Thanks for that goodwill!

On Monday Dr. Smalley delivered his first lecture for ophthalmologists and general

practitioners, with about 45 persons in attendance. On Thursday, he conducted another lecture

at the Multi-Purpose Hall, GPHC compound.

Meanwhile, on Friday (Feb 3) he will deliver another lecture for Emergency Room doctors, training them how to respond in case of an eye emergency. He also had other engagements with Consultant Ophthalmologist, relative to the operation of the ‘phaco’ equipment.

PRESENTATION    While on their first visit to the GPHC in 2015, the CJCLDS Charities made a presentation of a phacoemulsification equipment to the institution which is being operated by Consultant Ophthalmologist, Dr. Shailendra Sugrim.

Vandyke, who was the first to be operated on, using the machine, attested to the fact that Dr. Sugrim did a ‘fantastic job’ on him, using the ‘phaco’ machine. Other items in the (2015) gift package included a Slit Lamp Biomicroscope, Auto-refractor and an Indirect Ophthalmoscope.

The humanitarian gestures currently being witnessed are in keeping with a promise made on that occasion, to send an ophthalmologist to conduct a training course for the doctors here.

This package is being rolled out under the remit of Elder Thomas Peterkin and wife, Sister Catherine Peterkin. The Peterkins who are on an 18-month stay here, arrived in Guyana last November, and reside at Berbice.

Ophthalmologists benefitting from the training are Dr. Damonie Lamy and Dr. Jennel Sarju of the GPHC; Dr. Celeste Hinds of Linden and Dr. Louisa Mc Donald of Suddie, who all report to Consultant Ophthalmologist, Dr Shailendra Sugrim.

Previous CJCLDS charities made donations of a Slit-Lamp Biomicroscope, Auto-refractor. The charities will also be donating some other equipment and consumables to the Department of Ophthalmology in a few weeks, the hospital’s Public Relations Officer, Mitzy Campbell said.

She said the GPHC is deeply appreciative of the initiative and would like to express gratitude to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

A rather elated Elder Thomas Peterkin commented: “We are so glad Dr. Smalley was able to come. We just arrived here two months ago and we are excited to be here to serve the people of Guyana the best we can. We like to do projects that will be ongoing, so we train the doctors here, and they will be able to train more doctors, so that more people would be cared for… So that’s our purpose, that’s what we are concerned about.”

His wife Catherine added: “We are so pleased to be able to work with the Georgetown Hospital. Dr. Sugrim, his staff and all the other doctors have been just wonderful and we are so touched by the warmth of the people of Guyana.”

Meanwhile, Smalley said she was amazed at the work attitude of the doctors who all showed a keen interest in learning, and were also very knowledgeable and willing to learn more. She had kudos for them, adding that the doctors and staff are doing a great job at delivering health care here.