Alright. Things are looking up. I have decided in order to stay here, I need a car. It basically entails getting used to drive on the left of the road and from the right side of the car. I can do this. As a driver for over forty years with not one ticket or accident I have new found confidence the more I get acclimated to my new home. The roads are very rough. Full of potholes and very narrow. And I live in the biggest city in the country and have been told they have the best roads!! Pretty scary! I can not stand waiting for a ride and being driven! I like being independent. What made me realize that I need to take control is being late all the time as the driver is always late. Love him to death but I am just the type of person who can’t stand to be late for appointments and usually attempt to arrive at least five or ten minutes early!! Part of my OCD personality I guess. So a car is at the top of my list. I can go get an international drivers license they call it here and can drive anywhere.
I am adjusting a bit better. Culture shock, homesickness and lonleyness (sp?) is improving daily. It helps that my pain is at least temporarily being kept at bay with morphine injections every twelve hours. And no for those of you not aware, I do NOT get high. When a person truly is in pain, the narcotics go to pain receptors of the brain and not the pleasure receptors. I have had to explain this even to medical personel for years. I held down a job for eight years taking large amounts of morphine deriviative meds. I drove, worked and functioned like anyone else. I don’t mean to sound so defensive. I have been judged on this by others so I always attempt to explain. If you have never had the degree of pain I am under, I can understand that it may be difficult for many people to understand. My spine was almost severed at L5 and S1 when I was 26 years old. I had six weeks of hospitalization where I was immobilized and then almost a year of physical therapy. I got better and better and even went back to work as soon as I got out of the hospital. I went twenty years with my back just aching a bit like everyone else but never needed anything for pain. Then at age 46, the pain came back with a vengeance and never has left me. It is like a fire at the base of my spine and runs down my right leg all the way to the bottom of my foot. All that works is opioids. It is because it is the only medicine that helps with nerve pain. And nerves can’t be fixed. Enough about that as that is not what I really wanted to write about but I feel I owe all you an explanation about my difficulties here with the type of medication that is available. Nothing like we have available in the states. The meds here are very inexpensive though but really old fashioned compared to what we have available to us in the states. Most people here could never afford our meds. Sad but true. Luckily for me we are rich over here and I can afford a cab twice a day to and from the hospital for the injections, (against the law for me to take them home and give them to myself) and the price of the injections. The price is equivalent to $2.40 here! So for around fifteen bucks a day I can get relief. That’s the taxi and the meds. You wouldn’t believe the hospitals here. Everyone is on one ward. Mothers with new babies, post op patients both adults and pediatrics. These nurses take care of everyone from newborns to elderly patients who are dying. I am truly impressed as this seems very difficult. WE are so specialized in the USA that I would be terrified to care for a new baby!! I knew in nursing school kids weren’t for me. They scared the heck out of me. Give me adults only please! One young male nurse asked me to find out an international address and phone for nursing jobs all over the world. Most people here don’t own their own computers due to the cost. So I got him all the info and there were so many sites to choose from. I wrote out six for him. I told him how we do nursing in the states and that it is specialized. I also told him his experience was fantastic as he could go to almost any field. I have been treated so kindly here. I absolutely love the Guyanese people. They are happy and appreciative of what they have. The young people here that work for my husband, they all dress up. I remarked to my friend Vic that call centers in America are very casual and don’t dress up like the people here. He told me having a job that isn’t manual physical labor is valued and dressing up is a sign of pride for having a job that uses your mind not your back. For those of you that don’t know, Mark is Executive Director for the second largest business (sugarcane is first) in this country. He is in charge of three thousand folk. The company is a not for profit. They give back to the country and charities here. So it’s a wonderful thing. Most of it believe me there are frustrations that I witnessed first hand yesterday. I need my History and Physical from my former doctor in Florida. I do not have an international phone line in my home like for a fax machine. My doctor here doesn’t have a fax machine either. My doctor in Florida I tried several times to fax from Marks workplace. There is one fax machine that works. After making several attempts yesterday, my request and authorization to release medical info for my doctor here, finally arrived at the destination in Lake Mary Florida. I even called my former doctors office which is beyond awful. There are two receptionists there that are the rudest individuals I have ever dealt with. They are that way to everyone so it is not personal. Just a couple of mean hard women. Before I could finish a sentence, she began arguing with me. You can’t have it sent to your house! It has to go to your new doctors office!! I explained my situation saying it was going to an office. I explained to her that this was a third world country and the doctors don’t even own fax machine. They email or call one another. After getting her to finally listen and concede my point, Mark came into his office and said, “There is no ink in the fax machine.” I was still on the phone to America so I told her I would call her back with an office fax as soon as I could find one. Can you imagine the frustration??? I spent two hours calling the mean chick in Florida and dealing with faxing from a place that never uses the fax machine. Sigh. Mark was so upset I left. I told Vic to drive me to an internet café in town. The third place had access for international faxes. Only took me around four hours to get this straightened out. And truthfully? I won’t get the return fax now until Monday so who knows if it will happen yet? I am so spoiled by the ease in which we have things in the states that I finally had to let go of my frustration and anger and just shrug it all off. It is a different world here. Simpler yes. That is both good and bad. The postal service is out of the question. It is a two to three hour ordeal to get anything that you may have received via mail. We don’t have mailmen in this country. I have cable tv. I just need to go in and pay my 8,000 dollar (Guyanese dollar) a month bill in cash before the sixth every month. One thousand Guyanese dollars is five dollars US. I even pay my rent in cash. No credit cards or checks here in this country. So I carry this big wad of cash as the biggest denominator they have here is one thousand dollars (or five dollars). One hundred dollars is fifty cents!! At least it is easy to translate to US dollars.
You would not believe how much appliances, electronics and cars cost here. A lot more than we pay and it is inferior cheap stuff usually made in China. No wonder people can’t afford this stuff. I would not mind paying so much if at lest the quality was there but it isn’t. I hate paying a lot for junk. For instance an eight hundred dollar refridgerator? About two grand here and it is cheaply made and inferior. All the stuff here is like that. I told Mark I will do without then pay the prices they are asking and getting. I don’t understand how they get away with it., I hear because it has to be shipped but many of our products do too! I am suspicious that the government gets a huge cut. Something doesn’t seem right to me about this at all. I need a wire rack for this kitchen or lack of that I have in this apartment. I went to every hardware store in town. Everything they had was flimsy and poorly made. I ordered one from Trinidad and I will get it in a couple more weeks.
Our landlords ninety two year old mother died three days ago. It was a very quiet easy passing. She had breakfast and sat down and took her last breath easily and painlessly according to witnesses. (The maid and I are friends!!) This landlord is incredibly cheap as I have mentioned before. He asked me for the rent to bury his mother the next day after she passed. I was thinking to myself (sarcasm here) why the hell doesn’t he just throw her over the seawall which is in our backyard! I kept my calm and paid him and offered my condolences. I also heard that he didn’t wait for guests to arrive from Europe and Canada as the funeral home charges for “storage.” All I can say is wow……
I hope all of you reading my blog are doing well. I miss you all so much!! Today is beautiful out and I may take a walk on the seawall. Everyone does that here. It is a wall about seven feet tall and we have it as the sea is actually higher than the land! We are below sea level by six feet here and you can look to the ocean and then look to the land and you can see the difference! Isn’t it Death Valley in California that is also below sea level? And New Orleans? Doni-Lynn my Cajun princess you can help me with that question! LOL.. Well I have talked y’alls ears off. Love and hugs and thanks for reading! Your replys and critique feedback is always appreciates!
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