Manila

Wow! It has been a crazy couple of days. I am moved here to Manila, and the first day I arrived I turned on my computer to find that it decided to not work any more! I kind of freaked...but it is finally fixed, thankfully. Anyways living here in Manila actually isn’t all that much different from Olongapo. I mean I am definitely living more of the Philippine lifestyle...no flushing toilet, no water pressure, ants, cockroaches, and geckos are part of the building no matter how clean we keep it, and last but not least nothing is convenient. But this is all part of living in the Philippines, right? I have been here for 4 days now, and we have already had 2 births! I am living here in the clinic, currently there is another wonderful student here named Megan with me who has been able to show me around and teach me the way things are done here. The other day we went out to eat at a really awesome restaurant called the coconut house where all of the food, drinks, and dishes had coconut incorporated into it someway or another. It was sooo yummy and unique. but, Megan is leaving in a week and then it will be just me living here in the clinic. We do prenatals every Wednesday and Friday, where we start by teaching a childbirth education class, then do the checkups. It seems to me, the main clientele here are teenagers, our youngest patient is 13 years old. My heart totally goes out to these moms and it is very hard not to fall in love with them and their babies! I am practicing my tagalog alot, because I will most likely be the one here who answers the door in the middle of the night to a laboring woman, and I need to be able to communicate with her. The midwife Gerlene who is my preceptor and owner of the clinic, just lives walking distance from here, and then there are 2 other staff midwives who rotate being here. So, I hope I wont be too lonely. It is definitely going to take me awhile to become confident enough to travel around in Manila on my own, I mean, I got lost in Olongapo, and Manila is just so much busier. As my friends and family know, I have never had a good sense of direction...but, I feel like that is going to change very soon :-) I hope all of you back home are doing well, and I will post pics of the clinic and Manila ASAP, I am alot busier here than I was in Olongapo so I haven't had the time to take many pics yet.

"I've heard there are troubles of more than one kind, some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've brought a big bat. I'm already you see, now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!"
-Dr. Suess