Had a great first week of work. The mornings at Damien House have been fun and laid back. I spent much of my time getting to know the patients and staff there. Some of the patients are the funniest old men. They love to talk about women, even though any of the are in their 70s, 80s, and even 90s. They are always shocked to thear that i am not married and don´t have children at age 22. I want to explain to them that things are different in the U.S., especially these days, but i feel they won´t understand. I´m still not sure how to react when patients tell me that they are in pain It is difficult to watch them suffer and to not be able to do anything about it. One of the old men told us that he wanted to die because he was in so much pain. Luckily he was in a much better mood the next day. I also had a lot of fun in the women´s section. They like having a young man around to help them out, and a few of them remind me of my grandmothers. They insist that I eat with them (although one day I was served cow stomach soup for lunch, I couldn´t even go near it, and I consider myself an adventurous eater, but the smell just gave me nausea). In addition to talking to the patients and getting to know them, I did a wide range of jobs in the first week to help the foundation run. I helped the nurses to transfer some of the men from their wheelchairs to their beds, I helped Sister Annie organize the donation closet (still a long way to go), helped out in the kitchen, did some sweeping, and will begin working on the foundation´s newsletter and handling email correspondence next week.
I will blog about my afternoon job at a later date!!
Oh, I also had a great birthday get together with my fellow volunteers on Friday, who surprised Christina and I (another volunteer who´s birthday is the 23rd) with cake and cards. My housemates also made me some chocolate chip pancakes with banana on top for breakfast on the morning of my birthday. Thank you all for the birthday wishes from afar, I miss you!
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