A village walk and a dance

Today our clinical course started. I felt fairly unprepared. I thought the classrooms had computers in them, but I was wrong. So I had to go after my computer. I hooked my computer up to the projector and it wouldn't work. So I had to leave again and find Mark, who was extremely helpful and got me set up.  After about 45 minutes, our class was raring and ready to go - finally! Fortunately, the students seem to be pretty laid back and understood why things were not going as smoothly as I had hoped.

After lunch, we rode into Grantham and did a walking "windshield" survey. This is when you walk or drive around and look at the environment, at people, and at resources that are available to determine the health of a community. We noticed quite a bit of smokers. Also there were many older adults riding bikes and there were not many green spaces for kids to play. We went into a pharmacy and discovered all sorts of things - for example, the pill boxes have braille on them so blind people will know what medicine they are purchasing. We also found medicines that had the same name in the UK as in the US while others had similar names or similar packaging but different names. There were also some things we just didn't know what they were. It was really quite funny - I just never thought that going to the pharmacy could be this entertaining.

We also walked past Isaac's school - the school is still out for the rest of the week, but at least he knows how to get there and back to the bus stop.

This evening, a local band came to the manor and we had a ceildh (pronounced kay-lee). A ceildh is an Irish dance with great folk music. Here is a picture of the band:

Ceildh Band

The guys were really funny and they brought a sound man who doubled as a dance instructor. The students and faculty danced and a great time was had by all - the dance was in the Great Hall - what a great place to have a dance :)

Although the pictures are a little blurry, I hope you can see that everyone is having fun. Tomorrow should be another adventurous day. I hope to get a UK phone so if I am out with the students I can phone for help if needed. My other goal is to try to get money out of an ATM - hopefully my card will work. Isaac has decided we should go to Dover on Friday. We will leave at 0700 and return around 2230. I am sure it will be a long trip but one we will both enjoy.

Isaac and I miss all of our friends in the US, but we are still having a fantastic time. The experiences here are so rich - we will never forget it!