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Morris Family Webpage The update: Andy, Laura, and Luke ----------  ---------  ----------  ---------  ---------  ---------  ----------  ---------  ----------  ---------  ---------   February 24 Whew!  We are preparing for some big changes in our schedules beginning this next week.  Laura starts her Life skills course on Tuesday, which means that Andy starts having Tuesdays open to take care of Luke (well, it's really an "administrative" day, so he does have stuff to get done). The class will meet every Tuesday for the school year with a two-hour session in the morning and in the afternoon.   Andy starts his commute to Pinares on Thursday.  He will be going every week to the clinic there, about two hours away.   Since writing last, the brigade has left.  It was our first big brigade to stay in Santa Lucia since our arrival, and it went very well.  A lot was accomplished here in town, and in aldeas surrounding Concepcion and Santa Lucia.  There was a geriatric and disabilities group who traveled everyday to a village to be able to visit with potential patients.  There was also a survey group who went to the same village and surveyed a few homes.  The next day, the field clinic set up shop in the town visited the day before by the disability and survey teams.  The day of the field clinic, a group of female residents and med students did pelvic exams and referred any high risk patients to the Santa Lucia clinic for a culposcopy.  The Santa Lucia clinic had culposcopy days set aside when they would examen 10-18 women.  The dental clinic was open, also, in Santa Lucia, with a dental assistant, adentist, and a pedadontist.    So there was a lot of good work going on and good information gathered. We were able to offer devotionals every morning, for those who were interested, on our back porch.  It was great to be able to have some fellowship with other believers and to begin the day in such a way.   Since the brigade left, we have fallen back into our old routines.  Luke continues to thrive here.  He has been described to me as joyful by Hondurans.  He really is a very happy baby, which I credit completely to regular naps and sleeping more at night.  So the routine seems to be working for Luke.   Andy had time to relax and rest earlier this week, which was nice for all of us.  Today, Saturday, He is working while the O'Deas head for the beach with El Chadai, the restaurant outside the clinic gate.  El Chadai chartered a bus and sold tickets to take people to the beach.  The O'Deas are driving in the truck, though.  They left at 3am this morning.  It should be a fun time at the beach.  They are due to get back around 8pm, and Andy has the whole day off tomorrow!  On a side note, Andy was washing dishes earlier this week, and a glass cup broke in his hand, cutting up his fingers.  He now has a very gross-looking finger with about ten blue stitches in it.  The other fingers just had a little skin removed off the surface. February 10 Today the brigade arrives around 12:30.  We are looking forward to having all 60 of them.   Some of the members on the brigade are from our former town.  We will be hosting four people in our apartment and the O'Deas will have two or three in theirs.  People will be sleeping everywhere from the dorm rooms, our apartments, the air conditioned laboratory, the dental clinic, even the patients' rooms.  We are not sure if we will have water all week, or even today, so we are enjoying the ability to wash hands and dishes while we can.  As you can imagine, with 60 people the water is quite scarce at times. Luke has been sick all week since the last brigade left.  He has had a runny nose, a real cough (for awhile he had a fake cough), goopey eyes, a fever, red ears, and has even spewed his milk a few times.  He is now on antibiotics and eye drops to help him battle whatever he has.  A nice result of this sickness has been his sleeping the whole night for two nights in a row, which meant that I got to sleep for two whole nights without getting up to feed him!  It is the first time in a long time that such a thing has happened.   February 4 I can't tell you how many times I have been told my hair must be falling out because Luke is sucking on his hands!  In this culture, they don't let their kids suck on their hands, which definitely serves a purpose as most kids learn to crawl on dirt floors around here.  When kids do suck on their hands, it brings bad luck to the mom, aka thinning hair.  While my hair is falling out, it is not due to Luke's hands in his boca (it is due to hormonal changes post-pregnancy).  Luke has learned to comfort himself by sucking on some fingers every now and again.  It is one way that he has found to self-soothe.  And I am fine with that.  Everyone also thinks that he must be hungry.  So how do I let people know that their baby may have displayed their hunger by sucking on fingers but my baby does not?!  The different cultural beliefs are very interesting and frustrating, in part because they generalize their beliefs to ALL people, babies, etc.  Read Andy's medical section on the new mom with cotton in her ears and a cloth belt around the baby.  Like trying to keep a baby's hands from his mouth because the floors are dirty, perhaps these beliefs served a purpose at one point in time.   We had a great breakfast on Saturday morning of cheese grits, eggs, and bacon.  Then, tonight, we had breakfast for dinner with pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, orange juice.  Yum!  Food is a good way to reenter USA culture for a bit.   February 2 The satellite internet system has been on the fritz, so getting any pictures up and publishing changes to the webpage has been hard. We made it through the first brigade!  It will probably be the easiest brigade all year, though.  It was definitely tiring for the doctors.  Andy spent four days and one night away from Santa Lucia in Concepcion and Pinares.  There was a dental team here in Santa Lucia.  The main brigade, though, was in Concepcion.  My parents left with the brigade.  We were all sad to see them go.  Dad probably won't be back for awhile because of vacation time; but Mom is already planning her next trip back in April.  It is always hard at the end to say goodbye, especially knowing that Luke will change so much before they see him again.  This is what Mom and I worked on while she was here: Luke update:  He is as cute as ever!  His strawberry blonde hair is sticking up in the middle and won't lay flat, and there isn't really any hair growing on the sides; so he has a nice mohawk.  Very cute.  He is definitely grabbing at hair, glasses, necklaces, fingers, dishes, etc.  He likes to blow bubbles, eat food (avocado, banana, rice cereal, pears), drink water (boiled and cooled) out of a cup, play with his toes, eat his hand or fingers in any combination available, be tickled on his tummy, and swing in Jack's swing (which Jack refuses to swing in, himself).  Luke is really fun to wake up in the morning because he looks up at you with a HUGE smile on his face and gets all excited and would just about leaps into your arms if he could leap.  We are thankful that Luke is doing so well and that he is a very happy baby.   At church last Sunday, they had the baby dedication night; so I took Luke up to the front to be prayed over with about nine other squirmy babies.  The pastor prayed over them all and the parents (myself included) promised to raise our children to know and love God.  It was a neat experience.  The only downside is that we had no idea that the dedication was going to happen that night and Andy was on call!!  Someone had offered to go get Andy from the clinic; but he wouldn't have been able to come because he had a serious patient.  I decided at the last minute to take Luke to the front because I felt like it was appropriate and good and because I think God wanted me to.  By going to the front, we let our church community know that we aren't just observing but that we are participating fully in worship and fellowship with them.  In the end, it was good. Andy is sick again.  We're all trying to keep our distance so that no one else gets it.  Luke has a bit of a runny nose, but that is it.   The next brigade comes on February 9.  Very soon!

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