Ok, so we get our first overnight trip to the hospital this week. I could certainly write alot here but I am a bit tired from running all over town for my daughter's birthday. The first thing that we noted was that there is some pretty old medical equipment still being used out there. Christine's first EKG reading was adminstered by a machine that had about 8 lines attached to it with suction cups on the ends. It reminded me of something you would see in Frankenstein's lab or something. Wild.
Like what type of room do you want? "What do you mean?" "Well, you can have an open room, a semi-private, or private." We choose private because we had no idea what the other's would be like with large Filipino families coming and going. We are glad we did. It was a basic room but adequate, it just looked like it hadn't been updated in a long time! The room had no windows, pale green walls, an old large refrigerator, a leaky shower and an old 12" TV. Meals came with no forks or untinsels. But luckily there was a set in the "Welcome Pack" you got. We had to wash them after every meal in the sink with a bar of soap. Everyday you got a roll of toliet paper and a bar of soap handed to you (even if you didn't use all of what you had the day before!) We realized later that we had to bring our towels, blankets and wash cloth. (Luckily we were in one of the nicer hospitals, a friend told us that she had to provide her own bandages and things at another hospital up-country). Crazy.
We actually got good medical care, they did run all of their tests on updated equipment. I think the older equipment is used in the ER. We had a lot of surprises because we assumed they did things like in the US. Don't all hospitals operate the same all over the world? I could write a whole nother post on the billing/check-in/check-out procedure. Good grief!!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
You Turn
Well apparently I am not a very good blogger since it seems like weeks in between posts. There actually are a long list of things to write about but life is so crazy that we can't write them fast enough!!
Anyway, back to driving pleasures here in Manila. As a general rule, there are NO left turns! In order to keep traffic moving they decided to make everyone go past the turn you need to make and make a u-turn instead. It actually does keep traffic moving but people don't make u-turns in an orderly fashion like you would expect back home in the good ol' USofA. People form not just 1 line, not 2 lines but usually 3 or more lines to try to force their way through the single lane u-turn that is set up. Fun stuff!
But wait there is more! The government like to keep people guessing so they often move the places you can make u-turns! There are little crews of guys who drive around with a mini crane-type vehichle, picking up the conrete barriars that are used and moving them to either fill in the u-turn spot or creating another one! Let's just say it keep like interesting!!!
Anyway, back to driving pleasures here in Manila. As a general rule, there are NO left turns! In order to keep traffic moving they decided to make everyone go past the turn you need to make and make a u-turn instead. It actually does keep traffic moving but people don't make u-turns in an orderly fashion like you would expect back home in the good ol' USofA. People form not just 1 line, not 2 lines but usually 3 or more lines to try to force their way through the single lane u-turn that is set up. Fun stuff!
But wait there is more! The government like to keep people guessing so they often move the places you can make u-turns! There are little crews of guys who drive around with a mini crane-type vehichle, picking up the conrete barriars that are used and moving them to either fill in the u-turn spot or creating another one! Let's just say it keep like interesting!!!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The Good Samaritan?
The other day we were driving back from a conference in southern Luzon (the name of the island we live on). It was rainy and traffic was bad. As we approached the on-ramp to the highway back to Manila, we saw a lady laying face down in a large mud puddle. She would pick her head up, look around and then put her face back in the water. At first, I thought "would you look at that? what in the world will these people do next?" I mean I had seen kids and others playing in puddles during downpours so I thought maybe this lady was just "playing" or swimming or something (yes the puddle was that big). The odd thing was that the puddle was right on the exit ramp!
Hundreds of cars were passing her. No one stopped, they all just drove around her. As we passed her by we could tell something wasn't right (actually Christine and a friend could tell, I was in a bit of a grumpy mood and at first didn't think it was a serious situation that warranted interrupting my long drive back to the city). So we went a few more yards and realized that we needed to find out what was happening. I parked the car, grabbed my umbrella and began walking back down the exit ramp. Our friend decided to come with us because she new a little Tagalog (the local language).
As we approached her, I began to cry out, "Mam, mam, are you ok?" "You should get out of the road." When she saw us she immediately began crying out in anguish. We couldn't understand her language but she was obviously in alot of distress. We looked around for someone to help us communicate with her and realized that there was a bus stop right across the street with people just starring at us. They would not help! The people in their cars saw us standing there trying to help this woman and they just drove on by. It didn't take me long to realize that I needed to go in and get her out of this puddle. So I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants and walked in. She didn't understand my language but she understood my actions! I reached under her arms and helped her up out of the puddle and onto the grass. She tried just to roll over on her face but I wouldn't let her. I rolled her over on her back.
We tried to wave down a motorcycle to help us but they just put their hands to their head and made the "she's crazy" circular hand motion. Unbelievable! As soon as we moved her out of the puddle, people began driving through it to get on the exit ramp. I waded back into the puddle to collect her sandles.
My friend tried to communicate with her. We also noticed that her pants were ripped. The best we could tell was that she had some type of fight or something with a family member. We think she may have been trying to kill herself. As she lay there sobbing, my friend just started praying. I thought I better start praying too. I reached out and put my hand on her knee and just began praying out loud in the name of Jesus for anything I could think of. I thought she might even be possessed because of how she was acting. Amazingly, she sat up and stopped crying. We thought her countenance seemed to change. I was able to wave over a tricycle driver. He began to talk to her. Then out of no where she jumped up, grabbed her shoes and ran down the road! It was bizarre. You just never know what you will see or experience living in a third world country.
I walked back to the car just shaking my head. "Lord please forgive me for my initial uncompassionate response. Thank you that Christine and Judy were compelled to stop." We don't know this lady's story but we were thankful that we at least were able to get her out of harm's way. I couldn't help but think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. How long had she been laying there without anyone trying to help her? What if we hadn't of stopped? What if someone didn't see her there in the heavy rains and ran over her? I was also quickly reminded of the message we had heard that same morning about reaching out the "least of these" (Mt 25:31-46). We don't know anything about that women but she certainly seemed like an outcast. The Lord obviously wanted to reinforce that lesson!
Hundreds of cars were passing her. No one stopped, they all just drove around her. As we passed her by we could tell something wasn't right (actually Christine and a friend could tell, I was in a bit of a grumpy mood and at first didn't think it was a serious situation that warranted interrupting my long drive back to the city). So we went a few more yards and realized that we needed to find out what was happening. I parked the car, grabbed my umbrella and began walking back down the exit ramp. Our friend decided to come with us because she new a little Tagalog (the local language).
As we approached her, I began to cry out, "Mam, mam, are you ok?" "You should get out of the road." When she saw us she immediately began crying out in anguish. We couldn't understand her language but she was obviously in alot of distress. We looked around for someone to help us communicate with her and realized that there was a bus stop right across the street with people just starring at us. They would not help! The people in their cars saw us standing there trying to help this woman and they just drove on by. It didn't take me long to realize that I needed to go in and get her out of this puddle. So I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants and walked in. She didn't understand my language but she understood my actions! I reached under her arms and helped her up out of the puddle and onto the grass. She tried just to roll over on her face but I wouldn't let her. I rolled her over on her back.
We tried to wave down a motorcycle to help us but they just put their hands to their head and made the "she's crazy" circular hand motion. Unbelievable! As soon as we moved her out of the puddle, people began driving through it to get on the exit ramp. I waded back into the puddle to collect her sandles.
My friend tried to communicate with her. We also noticed that her pants were ripped. The best we could tell was that she had some type of fight or something with a family member. We think she may have been trying to kill herself. As she lay there sobbing, my friend just started praying. I thought I better start praying too. I reached out and put my hand on her knee and just began praying out loud in the name of Jesus for anything I could think of. I thought she might even be possessed because of how she was acting. Amazingly, she sat up and stopped crying. We thought her countenance seemed to change. I was able to wave over a tricycle driver. He began to talk to her. Then out of no where she jumped up, grabbed her shoes and ran down the road! It was bizarre. You just never know what you will see or experience living in a third world country.
I walked back to the car just shaking my head. "Lord please forgive me for my initial uncompassionate response. Thank you that Christine and Judy were compelled to stop." We don't know this lady's story but we were thankful that we at least were able to get her out of harm's way. I couldn't help but think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. How long had she been laying there without anyone trying to help her? What if we hadn't of stopped? What if someone didn't see her there in the heavy rains and ran over her? I was also quickly reminded of the message we had heard that same morning about reaching out the "least of these" (Mt 25:31-46). We don't know anything about that women but she certainly seemed like an outcast. The Lord obviously wanted to reinforce that lesson!
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