Category: Uncategorized

Ugh… For the post immediately below this one, I was trying a new feature in WordPress that called for media and text together. In the editing stage, it looked NOTHING like the final published result with such large type! That’s the last time I’ll use that!

I’m way behind tonight and I have to get up at 3:00 AM so I’ll post here in the morning!

I just spent several hours online trying to complete some paperwork for Maryknoll. It took a LOT longer than expected and now it is really late and I need to get up early. I’ll be back tomorrow! Sorry!

There wasn’t supposed to be a Hospital Day 9 on this trip, but on Day 2, during the routine physical examination, a tumor was discovered on my kidney and the doctors decided they needed to remove it. That final decision was on Thursday and they wanted to schedule the operation for Friday but the operating room was not available. It was then decided to operate on Saturday but then the Bangkok blood bank had no A-negative blood that I needed. It took them two days to find it and finally we were able to have surgery Saturday morning.

This picture is of me is in ICU after the operation. I really never felt terribly bad and mostly only had pain when I made large movements like sitting down or getting up. All in all it has gone very well.

I often wonder if this is one of the “desperation” jobs in the informal economy. It could be that the young man’s family owns some land with fruit trees and the family kids hit the streets with fruit every day. More likely is that he can’t find a steady job so he rents the motorcycle from the fruit orchard and gets a cut of whatever he can sell during the day. How long will he do that? Just one day? One week? One month? Would anyone keep at it for longer than that, earning a dollar or two a day?

I had the photos and text ready to post last night but then I got distracted by numerous calls and messages from people seeking help from the St. Vincent de Paul Society of the church and I completely forgot about posting when I finished with all the messages.

The shape, the styles, the colors of the headgear almost match. One of them doesn’t give much protection, though.