Tomorrow: Port-au-Prince, or ‘Did anyone check that the stove is off?’

The worst part is, the metaphorical stove ISN’T off, and by that I mean, of course, garlic mustard continues grow and flower.  I’m going to try not to obsess too much, but, of all things that could be bugging me, this is one.  Alas.  I will continue to hope for cool, wet days for Portland while I’m gone (sorry Portland), even while the 10 day forecast calls for 65 degrees and mostly sunny every day (yay, Portland).

Meanwhile, Port-au-Prince weather seems squarely set on 96 degrees, with a low of 72.  Mari Kay reports temperatures are typically 10 degrees cooler where we’ll be in the mountains, so….that’s bearable, anyway.  The prospect of having scrubs provided for the clinic folks (that’s me) means I have less to pack, so….sweet.

And it seems like I’ve gotten out of spacey head cold land just in time.  You may have seen a post that went up for 6 hours and then came right back down.  I’ve come to the conclusion that one should be fully in possession of one’s faculties (or as fully as one ever is) to blog responsibly.

At the moment, my throat feels great, though a fairly wracking cough shredded my voice last night.  Apparently there are no nerves in your voice.  Much of the morning at work was spent whispering (with everyone whispering in response [power of suggestion, right?]), because it wasn’t clear if my speaking voice would be Barry White’s or Pinocchio’s.  And very often it was both.  Oh yeah.  The memories.  And since there’s only so much time a guy wants to spend with his 13-year-old self:  whispering.  

Meanwhile, the packing is nearly done (ahh, scrubs).  Margie, with whom I’ll be working in the pharmacy, will be swinging by in an hour en route to the airport.  Margie and Debbie have worked pharmacy for all or most of Mari Kay’s Haiti expotitions, so I’ll be in good hands with them.  The first hurdle will be getting our …. 40 CHECKED BAGS through to the plane, so we’re giving ourselves a lot of time.

By the way, the current tally for the team, if you’re keeping score at home, is 23:  21 from Portland and 2 from San Francisco.  We were sad to learn that Dennis, our dentist, had a family crisis and had to withdraw on Thursday or Friday.  Better luck next year, I hope.

And finally, it’s not clear to me, yet, if there’s any way to get online and update while we’re there.  Got the camera, got the voice recorder (so you can hear my fantastic new zombie voice), but may not be able to pass it along in realtime.  Wish us luck and watch this space…..