I had an epiphany as I whooshed off an email to my Mum back in Cali. It painted a pretty good picture of our life here so far, and for some reason, addressing a specific person made it a bit easier to spell it all out. So, I thought, why not share it with the rest of you as well? You all probably wonder about the same things! So, maybe I’ll make it a regular thing? Let me know your opinion!
Dear Mum,
We’ve made it through our first couple weeks now, and getting to the end of #3.
It has been incredibly busy, and will definitely take a while to get used to: I have never been on my feet for so long so many days in a row - it is EXHAUSTING!
Houses here don’t have central heat, and it gets awful cold at night. So, when we wake up at 5, it is freezing cold and incredibly difficult to crawl out of bed and run to the bathroom. To make it worse, our bathroom is one of those fancy modern ones that doesn’t have a shower curtain to keep the steam in! Then, you finally get a little warm, and have to run back to the room in the freezing cold all over again.
Then, after cleaning up and grabbing breakfast we either walk in the rain and the dark to the bus stop, or lately, bless his heart, Michael has been picking us up and offering a lift to work.
We arrive around 8am, and switch on the machines and boot up the computer, preparing for the department to open around quarter-to. That’s when we start with the "wardies" (in-patients or 'ward' patients) and go through in- and out-patients all day long.
We get a ‘morning tea’ (a 15 minute break) and an hour lunch, and get off around 5pm. Lately, a few people have been kind enough to offer us a ride home, and we usually get out of the hospital and make it home around 5:30 or 6pm.
If we take the bus, we get home around 6:30.
For some strange reason, most of the stores close at 5 or 5:30 during the week, and since it’s winter, it dark again by this time. We are often too tired to cook, so we get take-away, sit down to eat around 7pm.
By the time we eat, wash up, catch up on news, and possibly check the email, it’s after 10pm, and we pass out. Chad’s still a bit sick, too, so neither of us have been getting the best night’s sleep.
We are learning A LOT though, and getting on with most everyone pretty well. There are a couple people, of course, who have personalities that clash with me, and same for Chad (often people that we disagree about - ones I like a lot that he's not too keen about and vic versa) but I already feel like I have learned more than I could have imagined.
We are still in "general" right now, and we just got our rosters for the next 8 weeks. I am moving to the “private” wing of the hospital next week, and Chad is going to ER. I can’t wait!!
We are about as sick of public transit as can be - we got all mixed up with buses one night last week and didn't get home till after 8. Needless to say, we were both grumpy and tired and hungry and GRUMPY (: Not fun.
You asked what we missed most, and there are a few things. One is my own transportation. The other thing, however, would have to be prices and store hours. I can't stand that most everything here closes so early - even on weekends. For some odd reason, Thursday night is the "late night" here. It was explained to us that this is because Thursday is pay-day. This makes shopping incredibly difficult during the week - if we run out of bread or eggs, or are missing an ingredient for dinner, we are basically SOL.
I miss costa vida, and el pollo inka, canned black beans and green enchilada sauce. Chad misses cheap Dr.Pepper (it's $2 a 12 oz can if you are lucky. $3 on average). There's no dollar menu's here either. Also, this country is severly lacking in the BBQ department - which is another thing I greatly miss: our BBQ grill! The things I love are the possibilities ahead of us. There are lots of places we want to see, and lots of "weekend" trips we are starting to plan. I also love learning all their terminology here, and how their daily systems work - like the hospital layouts, financial years, school systems, etc. There is so much it is hard to explain! I also love the fact that we actually made it here!
I miss you all – give the family hugs from me!
M
No comments:
Post a Comment