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DOWNtime

May 1, 2020 by byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

Self-isolating in a hotel room between 12-hour shifts on a COVID ICU is truly DOWNtime. 

While on the unit I’m focused and busy. At the hotel, my mind has too much time on its hands. Its favorite way to while away the hours until the next shift is to torture me with a hyper-awareness of every tight breath, sneeze, or tickle in my throat. It’s back in the hotel when the worry and anxiety show up. Keeping me company while I lay in bed, failing to day-sleep.

Earlier this week, I dragged myself out of bed and went for a jog around Mets Stadium. I read somewhere that making your bed in the morning is somehow good for your mental health. So I did that too and promised myself I wouldn’t get immediately back in it.  

There is a CRNA staying in the room next to me. Joey from Jacksonville. We arrived on the same flight. I can hear him facetime his kids through the walls. I haven’t told him. Having their muted conversations makes my room feel less empty. Like turning on the TV while cleaning the house. It’s nice to just hear their voices. 

I’m trying to learn how to do a handstand. I’m envious of the handstands I see in the online yoga classes I do. They scare me a little, so I use the wall as a backstop. Joey hasn’t complained about that noise yet. 

There is breakfast every day in the ballroom. They’ve set chairs up six feet apart, four per table. Sometimes Joey and I have breakfast together. Loud conversations consistently supported by the same three pillars; personal financial concerns, nurse to patient ratios, and deaths from the previous shift.  Runny scrambled hotel eggs. We put our masks on the table while we eat, like macabre centerpieces. It’s all so surreal. 

We had a shared day off early on here. We ventured to a nearly deserted Times Square. I saw a Grubhub runner on a motorized unicycle zip down Sixth Ave in all black motocross gear. Later that evening I walked past a homeless man playing 99 Red Balloons on a melodica. It’s like being inside Bladerunner. 

I haven’t turned on broadcast TV in days. I can’t handle the news anymore. My Facebook algorithm fills my feed with stuff that either makes my blood boil or makes me cry. I watch a lot of The Great British Bake Off on my laptop. I’m up to season 4 and now know the five basic types of pastry: Shortcrust pastry, Filo pastry, Choux pastry, Flaky pastry, and Puff Pastry.

I find the stress here sneaks up on me. On the unit, there is an air of machismo and detachment. Understable coping mechanisms that no one acknowledges. Even back in the hotel, it doesn’t light up my frontal cortex in a big Hollywood-moment mental health alert! Instead, it is just harder to get out of bed. Harder to work on the handstands. I can’t focus on reading the book I brought. 

All of this proves no matter how hard my conscious cortex tells itself everything is OK, the little reptilian limbic system knows this is fight or flight territory. I picture it deep in there, burrowed into my brainstem, smelling danger. Unable to run.

I’ve found entire new genres of YouTube videos that are the equivalent of staring into a lava lamp. Last week I watched two hours of videos about hand pulling La Mian noodles. Today I spent an equal amount of time watching videos of folks carving wooden spoons. 

My brain must be yearning for something so simple, tactile, and yet fulfilling. 

I want to sit by a fire and carve a spoon. It might be my highest calling. Taking a piece of once-living tree and urging it into a tool that can feed a baby. I can’t really think of a more beautiful act right now.

 

Filed Under: COVID-19 Response Tagged With: being of service, coronavirus, covid-19 response, crna, Medical Mission, new york city, travel nurse, volunteer

Kigali Transport

November 29, 2018 by byerswithoutborders 1 Comment

Kigali is a city of 1 million spread out over a handful of steep hills. Unlike some of our other homes abroad, it is not feasible to navigate the city on foot. As such we’ve been forced to educate ourselves on the varied modes of Kigali city transport.

At 5000 Rwandan Francs (RWF) for a cross-town ride, taxis occupy the top spot in the food chain of transport. No real difference from those at home, assuming your stateside taxi has mirrors held on by zip ties and worn springs that bottom the car out on every bump. Jen normally takes the front seat because of her superior French, however, most of the drivers only speak Kinyarwanda, so the ride often devolves into frustrated pointing at a phone map.

If 5000 RWF is too much the moto-taxi is an exhilarating option. For 1000 RWF (helmet included) you can hop on the back of one of these motorcycle taxis and zip across town, weaving in and out of traffic, in an affront to local traffic laws and every nuanced clause of your travel insurance policy. Arriving at your destination vibrating from adrenaline and itching from the community helmet are just part of the experience.

Cheap, scenic and likely a bit more safe than Moto-taxis are the bicycle taxis. It’s just what it sounds like, a padded seat behind your driver pumping the pedals. By far these are my favorite because no one can look serious riding shotgun on the back of a bike, legs held out to the sides in a tin-man pose. It’s like trying to look mad while sipping out of a straw.

Finally, there is the city bus. At 100-200 RWF, this is the cheapest way to get across town. Overcrowded, smelly, with cryptic routes and stops that change like the stairs of Hogwarts, the kids refuse to take the bus with me. The rugby scrum getting on and off is intimidating.

 

Plus, a family motorcycle race across town is loads more fun.

Filed Under: Adventure, transportation, Travel, travel with kids, Uncategorized, Volunteer Tagged With: getting around, getting around kigali, health volunteers overseas, transportation, travel overseas, traveling, traveling with kids, volunteer, volunteer overseas

Asian Aftertaste

June 7, 2018 by byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

Imagine you’re lucky enough to snag a table at The French Laundry, the chef’s tasting menu, multiple courses with wine pairings, ingredients locally sourced and Michelin-level prepared by Thomas Keller himself, and after swallowing the last morsel of dessert perfection you pop up and rush to the restroom to brush your teeth. Unthinkable! No! An experience like that warrants time on the palate, time for savoring. Those exquisite and complex flavors need a chance to imprint themselves. They should be allowed to fade slowly.

Our re-entry to the west is always like this. It takes us a few weeks to allow the recent experience to fade. Time to process, to reorient, to recalibrate to this cultural baseline.

Our last port of call in Asia was Singapore. We had the good fortune to stay with our friends Kim and Tom. Not only did they store a mountain of cold-weather gear for us, while we played in Indonesia, they acted as wonderful hosts and guides in a town that now ranks in our personal top 3 Asian cities.

Everyone has heard how clean Singapore is (yes, it is against the law to chew gum in public) but really, it is insanely clean. My mother’s housekeeping standards are based on the magazine layouts of Southern Living. As a kid she made me vacuum my way backward out of rooms so I wouldn’t walk over the sweeper lines in the carpet’s nap. Even she would be impressed with Singapore. Add in its tropical flora, and it’s understandable why the kids kept saying “I feel like we’re at Busch Gardens”.

Somehow Singapore has found a way to blend English, Chinese, South Indian, and Maylay cultures without watering down any one of them. The best place to see this is in the food hawker centers. Tiny mom and pop owned food stalls specialize in the authentic cuisine of the owner’s heritage. By picking multiple stalls our mealtimes often resembled a buffet at the U.N.  Satay and coconut rice, saag paneer and tandoori baked naan, chili crab and buns, even a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, all laid out on long communal tables and washed down with bottles of Tiger Beer.

Singapore is famous among foodies and was even featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. The celebrity chef called Singapore the most food-centric place on the planet, and our host Kim made sure it lived up to the hype. I had a religious experience with soup dumplings, Jen spent an afternoon sipping authentic Singapore Slings, and the kids discovered the little-known Singaporean Ice Cream Sandwich.

Even food expert Bourdain missed that one. An inch thick slab of ice cream slapped on a slice of psychedelic colored sandwich bread, eaten taco style. It

sounds ridiculous, but the lines at these carts attest that it is ridiculously good. The texture of the bread makes the whole encounter reminiscent of a strawberry shortcake.

Savoring Ice Cream Sandwiches with friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

The food, the mix of cultures, the clean streets, a crime rate that is conducive to 10 year olds taking the subway unaccompanied, Singapore left a taste we wanted to savor.

Even departing Singapore was pleasant. Smiling immigration officers stuffed the kid’s pockets with candy. In contrast, their kevlar-clad U.S. counterparts welcomed us home with scowls and the news of the latest school shooting.

Culture shock makes sense. You’re in a foreign environment, so obviously you should feel a bit off balance. But reverse culture shock, the struggle to feel at home when you’re at home, is much more distressing. You’re in an environment that should feel comfortable and normal, and yet things still feel alien. There are too many cereals to pick from at the grocery store and not enough smiles to help soothe your indecision.

Rob & Sharon’s pet bear/dog Hagrid

For the past month, this has been our little struggle. We’ve felt out of step and misunderstood. Fortunately, we returned to New Haven for another month of work at Yale. Hearing Arabic or Russian on the bus is nothing special in New Haven, and 90% of the kid’s friends here have passports. Also, we have been able to connect with some of our HVO-Bhutan-volunteer buddies. We had

Having fun with Hagrid

dinner in Avon with surgeons Rob and Sharon, and their giant Newfie Hagrid. Charlie and Carolyn had us over for cocktails in Branford. And

Sunset on the beach with the Mizes.

Jen and the kids spent the better part of a week in Maine at Betsy and Randall’s camp. Spending time with these people, friends who understand why we go and how we feel when returning, has helped pull our heads out of the sand. We’re all feeling a bit more at ease. The kids no longer balk at brushing their teeth with tap water.

With Betsy at her and Randy’s camp in Maine.

So we’re back to normal. Or at least as normal as Byerswithoutborders can ever be, which means… moving day!

My month-long contract at Yale is over. It’s time to hit the road again.

”We’re like birds. Wherever we land we build a nest” Given

 

Filed Under: Adventure, Family, Travel, Volunteer Tagged With: adventure, culture shock, Family, family travel, friends, ice cream, Singapore, travel overseas, volunteer

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