I had a great afternoon today.  I still can’t get over the hospitality of the people here.

We started just like other days.  Breakfast at the hospital, post partum rounds, antenatal clinic.  We did quite a few sonos again today. Had to refer a patient to the big hospital for a complete placenta previa.  She was 32 weeks pregnant and her cervical length was almost 4cm so she wasn’t in any immediate danger.

For lunch they fed us way too much food again.  They have their hospital cooks (who are amazing) cook for us AND they go to the market across the street to buy market food for us.  Haven’t had anything yet I don’t like.  I think I’m adapting to the spicy food too.  My mouth I think has gotten less spice wimpy.  Dr. Siripen (the OB) is the nicest person ever, even for a Thai person.  She had a bunch of handkerchiefs that she spread out on the table and told each of us to take a few as a gift.  We should be the ones giving her a gift for letting us deliver babies and scrub into the OR (and even do a good chunk of the surgery).

Our community medicine experience today was so great.  We met in a village under a grass canopy to get the nurses, community health workers, us, and the community helpers together.

We then walked to the home of a man who was getting some physical therapy after a stroke.

The women in the community that do home visits with us made all of the girls hats out of their old tea boxes and milk cartons.  They cut them up to fit them together and tie them with yarn.  They didn’t want the sun in our eyes.  These people!

There were probably at least 20 people at this home.  They were all so excited to see us.  They wanted to show us all around.  After working with the patient, they took us behind one of the homes to show us how they make natural gas out of water buffalo poop.  They mix it with water in a 50 gallon drum hooked up to another drum by a tube.  When the 2nd drum is full, they use it to light their fires to cook with.  One poo drum lasts about a year.

We saw a woman grinding up leaves to make her own chewing tobacco.  Women in rural areas chew tobacco, but don’t smoke.  Women in the cities are expected to be proper and do neither.  They then took us to their community garden.  It was big and smelled like fresh herbs.  It was so nice!

Before dinner we went to a special market.  They had clothes, wallets, bags, and tons and tons and tons of food.

Dinner was at the same place as on Monday night.  I think our hostess from the hospital knows the families that own the restaurants.  Way too much food again.  As Americans we eat a lot, but we can’t eat that much!  They would feel horrible if they didn’t think we had enough though.

When they dropped us off after dinner Dr. Gibson asked how much we owed for our rooms and all of the food.  They said we didn’t have to pay anything.  We aren’t going to do that though.  They spent so much money on us.  We will leave a donation, and they can do with it what they want.

Dr. Siripen went to dinner with us, so she was here when we got dropped off.  She told Dr. Gibson she had another gift for him.  She gave him a deck of cards.  She heard me say at lunch yesterday that we should go buy some cards to have something to do at night before we go to bed, and she went and bought us some!

We are doing something (I don’t know what yet) at the hospital here in Pathai in the morning, then we are going back to Korat around lunch time.  We are doing a mobile clinic Saturday.  So probably no update until Saturday.