Banana Island

The dentist I have been working with, Gabe, is leaving on Friday to go back to the states because his wife will be 37 weeks pregnant (she has been stateside for a month).  He will return sometime in April.

He decided to take his team with GCPN to Banana Island, just off the coast of Sierra Leone.  So what did John and I do?  Well we invited ourselves of course!

Here are the boats we took over

 Its about a 20 minute boat ride to the island

 Here is the island approaching

 Me before the sunbathing begins :)  That's right! I'm coming back tan... maybe lol!

 This was a wooden canopy/loft that you could go up to and read from or just have a wonderful view of the ocean.

 John Goes Snorkeling!

 This is Greg.  He is a neat character.  He owns the "resort" that we stayed at if you call it that.  Its a really neat place.  I wouldn't call it "nice" per se, but he has a neat vision for the place.  He charges really cheap prices ($12 per night which includes breakfast, $6 for dinner, and $3 for lunch)  And when I say its not nice I mean you may or may not have water to shower with or flush the toilet and there is most likely at least a critter up on/in your rooftop at night making noises.  I think we had both bats and mice staying with us.  But don't worry, they are the smaller bats that eat bugs!  AKA Roach killers!
He wants it to be a place for even non- well-to-do native Sierra Leoneans to stay... not just for a bunch of white people to stay.  And when he says it, it is totally non-offensive because he has an incredibly strong Greek accent.  And as all you Americans know, everything sounds better with an accent! He also teaches scuba diving.

 They are practicing some drills here before they go out into the open sea.

 And all smiles on returning!

 John had a great time!  They didn't get a 'real' scuba certification, just a crash coarse

 And here's my belly for all of you who have been wondering when it would show up :)

Banana Island Part II coming up!

Meet Snoopy

Our friend and Chad's employee John Barry got this local dog for Chad's kids.  Chad told John he would have to keep it till we moved someplace with a yard.  Once we moved to Allen Town, Snoopy came with us.

To be honest he is not my favorite dog.  Might it have something to do with his tick infestation?  Possibly.  John (my hubby) has spent several hours trying to de-tick him, but those buggers keep coming back.

Also, his fur is a little mange-like as our most of the local dogs.  At least he has no open sores.  He does love us and gets very excited to see any of us.  We hope to get a bigger dog with shorter fur but it will probably have to wait till we get back from maternity leave in the states.

Here are some more pictures of Snoopy who I fondly call "Snoop-a-loop" after Will Ferrell in the movie Old School.

Meet Bess

Bess is a kitty John brought home from the village Morthaim that he is working in.  The community members gave her to us for free.

As you can see she is quite scared.  When we first brought her home she was so scared that she would find these tiny places to hide.  We thought she had escaped out an open window but would find her the next day somewhere obscure.  After a few days, she started doing a little less of the disappearing acts and has learned to love us.  However, we decided to name her Bess after the late wife of Houdini for her ability to 'disappear' and 'reappear' after we look for her everywhere.  Her real name is Wilhemina Beatrice but most caller her Bess.

As most of my friends and family know... I am not a cat person.  I LOVE dogs!  If I could pick an animal to be it probably would be a dog because they are so sweet and loyal. 

But I have grown to love Bess.  She is playful, cuddly, she cries a lot which John thinks is annoying but I think is cute, she sometimes sleeps on me at night and here's the clincher:  SHE IS A BUG KILLING MACHINE. 

Read: the roaches and spiders don't stand a chance anymore!

Here are some more pictures of Bess:

Tomorrow:  Meet Snoopy

Makeni Outreach

These last two weekends I have had a blast doing dentistry/dental hygiene in different parts of Sierra Leone.  Last weekend was in a small village called Rokon and this weekend was in a part of a city called Makeni.  Makeni is the fifth largest city in Sierra Leone.

Last weekend in Rokon I started out doing hygiene.  After about 2 cleanings, there was no else waiting for hygiene, all wanted extractions!  I watched Dr. Gabe do some extractions for a few hours but then realized I could be a help to him.  I could anesthetize the patients prior to them coming to see him so he doesn't have the wait time for people to get numb before he starts the extraction.  It was a better use of both of our times.

Here is Augusta getting all set up for the clinic.

 I'm checking out which tooth hurts and what injection he needs.  In Krio, you say "uswan hert" for "which one hurts"?

 Injection which we call "chuck" in Krio... pronounced 'chook' also means thorn.

 So after I would give them an injection and they had time for the anesthetic to work, they would go see Dr. Gabe in this chair.  I would speak Krio to them but the area we were was mainly of the Timne tribe which Augusta speaks.  She was a great help to have there.

 Christine came on this trip and worked with the kids in the area.

 This picture is my favorite.... Isn't he the cutest little kid? 

 This is what I will be doing soon...

 Here is Christine after a hard day's work.  After the first day... she lost her voice big time!

 I did 5 cleanings in 2 days as well as injections.  Here is one of the cleanings...

 Here are the assistants Augusta and Alice after the frist day of hard work!

 All the girls pointing to the baby in my 'belle'

 Day 2... the line of people waiting outside

 Augusta giving oral hygiene instructions

I failed to mention that I dragged John on the trip with me this time.  I don't have any pictures of him with my camera, but I'll get some from Dr. Gabe's camera.  It was pretty nice as he was my personal assistant.  I think he got a good look into what I actually do!  I think he didn't really have a clue before that lol!  At least not when I tried to describe difficult cases.

There are only 2 weeks left of Dr. Gabe being here before he goes back to the states to meet his wife who is at the end of her pregnancy. Then I will probably just do cleanings at the clinic while he is gone.

Our New House Part IV: The Kitchen

Ok... here is my favorite room in the house.  Right this very second it looks a lot different than this because when I was doing outreach this weekend upcountry in Rokon, my husband was working very hard at home doing some DIY kitchen renovations.  I will update you with those soon.

We had this counter and cabinet made here.  We had them put formica on the counter, but with the humidity it bubbled up.  This is one of the DIY projects John fixed for me this weekend.

John made me this spice rack and I love it.  It really doesn't sit crooked on the wall but my camera skills sure make it look like that.

John made me this cupboard in our pantry out of plywood.  I LOVE IT!  While most of our house is pretty small, the pantry is huge.