May 1st

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Fri 1 May 2015 09:01
This morning, Ellinor called the other doctors over to Salsa. They discussed the medicin situation and what they had done in different places. We are running short on supplies. They decided to ask the hospital here in Lenaka for more. ´Then Ellinor and Kim took off for another day in the same village where we started yesterday. There was a long line of people waiting and Ellinor told me tonight they had the house full and people outside waiting. I had school with the kids and an hour before lunch I wanted them to get ashore and play to get some exercise.
But just before we went we were called by Courage as he was on the beach with his kids, there were some young women that told him their village needed help as well.
Coming ashore we realized they were on our list of places to visit. So we figured that if we had all the facts they could tell their village when we would arrive and make work easier.
It would take a while and I learned that they had walked all the way from Lenaka on their way home. Since the hurricane they do not have enough food for all the students so they have to walk home for the weekend. I asked the girls if they wanted lunch and brought them out to the boat and I started to boil pasta. As I was cooking, Jessaya, the little boy we met first day came with a big root of Yam.
Yam is like a huge sweet potatoes, has a lot of starch and can taste good if done well. He wanted to give it to us, you should see him in his little doughout canoe made entirely of wood and natural materials, holding up the big yam. I was trying to refuse and told him that we are here to help not to be fed. He held it up and then I asked if he wanted some rice for it, he nodded strongly. Since I made a big pot of pasta I asked if he wanted to come abord and eat. And you bet he wanted. So we were six people for lunch and the apetite was good but not that they ate more than one bowl. I asked them if they liked it and they were honest; so and so... I served it with tomato sauce. One girl told me that they are used to only eat kasava, yam and banana. they have fish sometimes or meat. She said that the only "unnatural" food they eat is rice... Curtain down.
All was said with a very polite and nice way, do not read it wrong. I think the boat overwelmed them and they had big eyes looking at everything. Well looking at their simple huts I can imagine this is like a space ship for them.
Once we got message that we will have a truck on Monday for visiting their village they thanked and I took them ashore.
Tonight we had yam and it was OK, we have more and we will see if we can make it better next time.
Good for a change.
Friday night is movie night.
Now comes 2 days of no work. Everybody is looking forward to that.
Tomorrow the hospital will deliver more medicines to our bay, all working out.