Thailand post 3

Hello again! This post will be divided into three parts: 1. disclaimer, 2. activity recap, and 3. random comments. Let the fun begin...

1. As I blog about my Thailand adventures on this site devoted to all of these amazing Summers of Service, I can't help but feel guilty, because physical service is quite a limited aspect of this trip. Maybe the Bonner Foundation will find this blog and take my credit away, and maybe not, but I still want to argue why this summer of mine should count. These time of health care involvement and education is kind of like one big Training and Enrichment session (Bonners will know what I mean; family and friends, I apologize) for future service to come. This Thailand program is teaching me how to devote my future to a lifetime of service, and I think that is much more valuable than helping a couple of patients who will never see or think of me again. Right? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is legit.

2. Yesterday we went to the Ministry of Public Health (which made me think I was living in a Harry Potter story [Ministry of Magic]), and it was...interesting. We had several guest speakers talk to us about what the MOPH is doing to eradicate diseases spread to humans via insects and animals, like malaria, chikungunya, dengue, rabies, leptospirosis, etc. I learned a few things: "zoonoses" are diseases transmitted to humans from animals. fun word. Also, candy placed in front of me stands no chance when my energy is fading and I don't know anything about leptospirosis and can't really understand the presenter anyway. And, I learned that candy isn't really a great source of energy...Woops. Really though, it was a lot of good information, and we had Pad Thai at lunch-- Sue Snyder, your Bahn Thai dish totally dominated this one, so don't worry.
After the speakers, we went to the helminthiasis lab (parasitic worms) and got to play with infested poopy. yay. here's me examining the slide i made. and no, i don't mean i actuallllly made it--gross--I just prepared the slide from an already provided sample =)



then today, we visited the Children's Hospital and learned from this amazing 82 year old female pediatrician about Dengue Fever, Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, and Dengue Shock Syndrome (in order of increasing severity). We saw a few cases in the hospital, and I really feel like I left with a much deeper understanding of the disease. I also confirmed my observation that Thais switch their "L"s and "R"s when speaking English. It was kind of funny to hear them talk about birilubin levels.
Then we visited the vaccine development center at Mahidol University and met Dr. Sutee, who was the most hilarious tiny Asian guy I've ever met. Not comedian funny, but I guess I was just getting to that loopy-tired stage and was so giggly when he was talking. It really is quite incredible the kind of work they're doing to figure out a way to protect against this emerging disease. Here's a scientist inoculating a "giant mosquito" with the virus, followed by me doing my part to eradicate the disease...



3. These are all very unrelated, so I think I'll do bullet points:
-Correction on previous post: I was wrong about the ages of the group. Besides myself, age 20, the other members are 21, 27, 27, 27, 30, 30, and 42. But you get the idea.
-Last night, I went to bed, only to discover that the maids had taken my white pillow case (actually, my mom's white pillowcase) and replaced it with one of the hotel ones when they were changing the sheets. funny, but kind of unfortunate.
-on that note, the beds here crack me up, mostly just because life is too short not to laugh at things. they are rock hard. i mean seriously, the only advantage to sleeping on the bed as opposed to the floor is that the raised platform allows one to tuck sheets in. really, that's it.
-Dunkin Donuts is definitely not as good here. if you can imagine a chewy donut, that's what i was given today.
-Bangkok is a huge city. I mean, I knew it was going to be crazy busy like any other big city, but no, the geographical area is also huge, which I wasn't expecting for some reason. Today when we left the Childrens Hospital and headed to the university, we were traveling via van on a highway, with generally smooth traffic (50 mph average, maybe), and it took us 40 minutes to get across town. i thought the 20 minutes it takes to get to FSU was annoying. geesh.
-Mom, I think I accidentally grabbed your camera charger...But it seems to be working. Hope the one I left there works for you!
-since this website is the Thai version, I can't figure out a way to have cool font or colors, or even italicize anything, so you'll just have to deal with the template version =)
-love and miss you all! till next time...