Summer

Wow - you've endured almost 2 years of my ramblings! You deserve some kind of prize! This will be my last post until at least July 10 if not longer. We are heading out to the States one week from today - yikes! I'd better get moving! Here is a our schedule for the summer:

June 24: fly Casa - Frankfurt - Portland
June 26 - July 2: Large Friesen family reunion followed by the Herb & Ruth clan reunion in Oregon
July 3 - 8: Visiting Gerald's newly-moved brother and family in Abbotsford, British Columbia
July 9 - 15: Meade, Kansas
July 16 - 24: Coopstudies conference, Kansas City, KS & quick run to Topeka, KS
July 24 - 28: Clemmer family reunion, Indiana
July 30 - August 5: Topeka - 2 days, Cousin Kristen's wedding & family time in Nebraska
August 6 - 11: Topeka, KS
August 12 - 23: Combination of Hillsboro (mostly), Meade & Topeka
August 24: Fly back to Morocco!

Got that? There will be a quiz next Friday.

See some of you soon!!!

April/May/June

Our friends Gwen and Misty directed "The Importance of Being Ernest" at the nearby Haven - a children's home. They did a great job!

A custom-cutting picture for all you Reimers and Friesens out there!

Graduation 2008 - Gerald made it through two years of teaching!!! Yeah! Here he is pictured with Ashraf and his parents.

The AUI campus on Graduation day. No one is allowed on the grass -

Yesterday we were invited to our friend Lotfi's home for cherry picking and a lamb roast. Although Gerald said this was not the first idea that came to his mind for what to do on Father's Day, it certainly ended up great! Here is the unfortunate lamb which had been cooked in a community oven in the village below.

Lotfi bringing dessert - it's watermelon season!

...and cherry season! Katrina up a tree picking (and eating) to her heart's content.

The girls with Abla - a student of Gerald's who read in French to the girls on Wednesday afternoons since their mother can't...

Sorry - these are all mixed up, but I can't seem to cut & paste. Here is Gerald and his most adoring fans at breakfast on Father's Day. We decided it was time he has a Fezzi hat! Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!!!

The Village of Hope - another children's home where our foster niece, Abir, will be staying this summer and possibly beyond that.

"Un Jour mon prince viendre..." The girls in Katrina's class singing "One day my prince will come." They also sang several other Disney theme songs for their program a few weeks ago. This was a huge milestone for Katrina because, for the first time in all her 7 years, she really had fun on stage and had a huge grin on her face the entire time!

End of April - we combine both girls' birthdays and invite all their friends just one time. This was a princess castle party in the cedar forest. The game "pin the lips on the frog" game is at the back.
Over the years a few kids have built up a whole series of walls in the woods which we used as our castle. Here you see the Royal Parlor. The castle also had bedrooms, a hallway, a lookout and a kitchen - kids paradise!

Doctor, Doctor!

Our friend, Rebecca, has been sick with tummy problems for about two months now. On three different days, she has been violently ill but even when she's not, she feels terrible and weak. Already thin, she has lost a lot of weight and can barely eat anything, so on Tuesday I took her to Meknes (1 hr) to see another doctor.

They ended up giving her an IV for two days with antibiotics. I was able to stay with her Tuesday through Wednesday but had to return the next day. Ron and Laurie helped her while I was gone and then I returned to pick her up Thursday. Here are some of the things that happened during this time -

- Translation issues - always the hardest and not such a big deal UNLESS you are dealing with doctors in which case it is very important to know what you are hearing. Often we had to call Ron or Laurie and have them talk to the doctor. Once the doctor explained a bunch of stuff to me and though I understood it all, he either could not understand my questions, or didn't want to answer them. At one point, I asked him to talk to Ron on the phone and he wouldn't let me and said, "No! Don't! I can tell you understand me just fine."

- Which leads me to the second point - Moroccans do not ask questions to their doctors at all. Although Rebecca had been diagnosed with salmonella, her symptoms do not fit what we have found on the Internet. But when I asked the doctor this and other questions, he seemed very annoyed with me and completely unused to answering questions.

- The doctor prescribed an IV for Rebecca and later found out that the antibiotics he was going to give her were the exact same ones she had just been on orally - and the ones which hadn't worked.

- She was told she would have a sonogram in the morning and therefore should not eat from midnight on. Half-an-hour later, the nurses came it and started wheeling her out of the room for the sonogram. I followed them saying "No! She just drank! She had lunch! It's supposed to be tomorrow!' They told me it was no big deal.

- They found a cyst in her liver - which was an indication of Hep A, B, C, salmonella or AIDS. After telling me this, the sonographer said, "C'est ne pas grave!" (It's not serious.) Um, yes, I think it is!

-A little later the doctor came in and said, "So - I just read Rebecca's chart..." Let's see - shouldn't he have read it several hours before? Then he told us that she'd already tested positive for salmonella a few weeks prior and negative for the other things.

- When they'd check on Rebecca during the night, the nurse would walk in, turn the florescent light on, do her thing and then leave. Once a nurse came in, turned the light on, asked if we were all right, turned the light off then left. We were actually doing better before she asked!

- Rebecca can hardly eat anything without violent repercussions. The doctor said he'd give the kitchen a list of her special diet. Obviously the list never made it because the next meal she had was fried sausage. When Rebecca said she could not eat it, the nurse marched out offended. Two hours later she got her supper - a small bowl of soup at 9:15.

- And, after all that - the medicine she was given (which does not match the prescription) has made her feel worse.

- I had to bring her home Thursday because she was in charge of the whole school performance which she got through amazingly!

- The next day she went to Fez (1 hr) with the AUI ambulance where another doctor disagreed with the diagnosis, medication and sonogram.

Right now she is riding it out for a few more days but might have to go to Rabat (2 hrs) next.

This gives you and idea of the medical care available around here. There is a small university clinic and a hospital with no equipment, medicine or supplies here in town. There is also a huge, fully-equipped hospital one block away from us that has never opened (that is another story).

One hour away is either Fez or Meknes and the above account is from Mekens. There are good doctors around - I just know it. It's just that we haven't found them yet. And we are in a country with excellent medical care compared to half of the world!

Please pray for Rebecca. This is her first year hear and it has been rough in more ways than this.