The pukers have all gone home.

We shipped out the latest bunch of Villagers on Saturday and the new ones arrived on Monday. The kids were great, but good riddance! Too much puking!

I had my first 24 hours off this past weekend… awesome! Jeff hit the road early and drove up here to attend the closing ceremony with me Saturday morning. Wowee was he a sight for sore eyes! Tears were shed!

It was also my birthday on Saturday. I have decided that this will be the last birthday I will be celebrating. 45 is definitely my limit. 45?! Really?! Wasn’t I just 25 a couple of years ago?

58 new Villagers arrived in my Village on Monday. After a crazy day of checking everyone in along with their meds, it has been a very peaceful Health Center (aka Club Med). I only hope it continues!View from Paris towards Club Med

  Paris

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Sunny and 75 degrees with a slight breeze. I actually had the opportunity to enjoy the weather today! Spent some time weeding the garden that is next to Paris.  The sun was warm, Guillame was playing the piano inside Paris and the music carried outside ever so lightly, and the smell of bread baking was wafting from the kitchen. When I closed my eyes I could almost imagine myself actually in France. After lunch I even got to spend a nice two hours lying in the sun on the dock.  Heaven!

Hmmm… if only all the days as a Camp Nurse were like this one.

Bonjour. Welcome to Camp PukeALot.

Bonjour. Mon nom est Gabi. J’ai quitte la Chine en France.

Hello. My name is Gabi. I have moved from China to France.

Can you say culture shock?! I had to quickly close out two sessions in Chinese, train in the new nurse, and then race over to French to be trained in by that leaving nurse. Not to mention pack up all my stuff, move it, and then unpack.

My first meal was dinner… it included rice but not sticky rice (mi fan) and it had veggies in it. And it included fresh homemade baked baguettes and butter. I almost cried. Seriously.

The new nurse gave me a very quick short tour and introduced me to a couple of key people and then left. Estelle (my health care assistant) was instructed to finish the tour with me later. Within no more than 10 minutes after the current nurse leaving, a Villager came in and puked in our garbage can. Welcome to French Bemidji.

French Bemidji has had an interesting summer so far. The Norwalk virus went through and they had 23 puking and pooping Villagers at one time. They set up a “sick bay” in one of the activity buildings and brought in other nurses and health care assistants from other villages to help. I came in at the tail end and have had 3 pukers of my own.

The nights have been rough since everything seems to happen in the middle of my slumber. I have had one full night of sleep since getting here this past Saturday. This is the hardest part of being a Camp Nurse. Well, that and I miss my family and friends.

 

Let’s talk about my Chinese Village. The kids there were amazing… they were fun, and sweet, and quite entertaining at times. I had more free time there than here and more opportunity to get to know them. Above are my very first patients as an RN. They were very excited when I told them this later and we all took pictures. Both have been coming to the Chinese camp for several years and can speak it quite well (of course, how would I know?!). The gal wants to be a nurse when she grows up so we had lots of conversations about nursing and nursing school.

This is Da Wei my First Aider and right hand man. He’s a very talented young man and it’ll be interesting to see where life takes him. He had been at Chinese for the first half at the summer and was moving to Portuguese for the second half. I would have been lost without him there.

I haven’t taken any pictures of my Village yet…been a little busy! Watch for a new blog soon…