the last days

Well, the time has finally come. We are in our last days here and the new unit is coming in tonight, late tonight. So I have to move out of my tin box and into a tent so the new group can have a place to live for the next year. I do have to admit, this is the most exciting move ever! Although, under any other circumstances it would absolutely suck it is a great, great thing because this means we are for sure on our way home. Our plan is to get the new providers in and give them a few days to realize they are actually here then do the ceremonial washing of the hands to rid us of this clinic. We will probably finish out the week working in the clinic, dang and I am oncall Thursday, then next week we will be free of all responsibilities.

We have actually had a good year working at the clinic and working with all of our medics. There are obviously stronger medics than others but overall they worked very well and they seemed to learn a lot. Their skills certainly improved and our trust in them grew exponentially. We are overall proud of the medics and the work they did. Hopefully one or two of them will pursue careers in medicine, if not then I am sure they will do well in whatever field they choose.

Well, to fill some time during this last month, myself and Mike Roscoe (one of the other PAs that works with me and was one of my instructors at Butler for the PA program) joined a soccer team to represent the great USA and our clinic. Mike is our only divison I soccer player. He play his undergraduate years at the great Butler University. So although I have the Evansville Courier and Press saying that I played 4 years under the great Yeagly, Mike is the only one to have actually played Division I soccer. There were several teams that were made up of different national groups, the Ugandans, the Brits and a Puerto Rican team that's actually US Army. As I said before we have been playing for the past month and the season is about to come to an end. The standings as of right now are.... Yours truly is in the #1 spot, the Puerto Ricans are in second and the Brits are in third. The Ugandans dropped out but would have been a really good contender. We scrimmaged them at the beginning of the season and tied 1-1. There are two other teams in the league but let's just say they are not that good. As of today we have 4 wins, no loses, and 2 draws. I am not sure about the exact record of the Puerto Ricans but I believe they have all draws, no loses. They might have a couple of wins but two at the most. The Brits have at least 2 loses. That puts us in the lead.
Below are a few pics of our team and the first game we played against the Brits. We won 3-1. They were not too happy about that. They beat us about two months ago in a different league, 3-0 So this was our revenge. Now we played the Brits last night and tied them 1-1. I have to say that we were short a player the entire first half and I was dying! I was pleased to come away with a 1-1 draw. The Brits certainly had multiple chances to open up a big lead but blow them all. We too also missed a half dozen or more opportunities to put the game away. I think both sides were pleased with the result although both sides would have liked to win, obviously.

Now there is something to say about playing soccer out here. This place is obviously a dessert so the playing field is nothing but sand and rocks. It sucks to play on. The ball bounces like we are on the moon and the ball rolls like you are putting on the fastest green imaginable. It's like the laws of physics do not fully apply on this field. Now what does apply is the tremendous amount of sand/dust that you inhale thus decreasing the oxygen-carrying capacity of your red blood cells They seem to have a hard time attaching to and carrying sand granules. We all have our cuts and bruises from this field but in spite of it all it really has been a fun time once we are out there playing.


Here's our team from left to right: top row (Gabe, Rieger, Edwards, Kim, Richmond, Owen), bottom row (Mike Roscoe, myself, and Ashley---the officers)

Here's just a close up of some of us before the group photo. We are ready to play the Brits.


Here's our first match against the Brits. Did I mention we beat them 3-1! That's right. We sent them home crying. They were all about 6 feet tall and weighed about 200+. So it was a tough game.