Tuesday morning, I had learned the tricks of the shower – turn it on half pressure and voila!  Plenty of time in the drain race, and no crazy snake spraying me to death.  So, the morning was a bit less exciting.  We again took our traffic adventure to the hospital campus.   Each day the students start out with a moment of reflection.  Caroline, one of the students, read a passage on knowing that beneath the crazy façade that is your day to day life, you can find peace and connection in solitude – knowing there are greater things ahead for you.  The students then reflected on how that related to learning about substance abuse.  It was really a lovely moment to be a part of.  After the reading, we sat in silence with our heads bowed and people spoke as they felt moved.  The entire reflection lasted about 20 minutes.  After that each student wrote down “What Went Well”, “What Did Not Go Well” and “What Was Not Clear” from the day before.  They only had a few questions to clear up from the day before.  My favorite “What Did Not Go Well” was that Endsley and I had only shared very little about ourselves.  So, of course I opened the day with pictures of Joel and the kids.  They loved it.  We went for 8 hours talking about Diagnosis of Substance Use Disorders.  I taught them how to detox from alcohol and opiates using protocols I wrote specifically for Liberia based on their country essential drug list.  While they don’t have access to Methadone and Buprenorphine (medications for Opiate Addiction), the country will make them available now that the nurses have been trained.

We ate lunch with the Health Minister who invited me and my job, Anka Behavioral Health, to partner on a project to certify 150 substance abuse psychosocial workers over a three year period.  Now that is exciting!

After work, we went to a beautiful beachside restaurant (see the pictures) for drinks.  Now, I say drinks, but in fact I only had 1 drink.   And, I will never do it again.  I don’t know what kind of liquor was in that drink.  It was blue and fruity, and it killed me.  It was if I had drunk 8 drinks.  I guess that’s what I get for bringing my U.S. assumptions about mixed drinks to Liberia.

Of course I added more pictures.  Check them out here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/102428141509725093638/albums/5898032158734715585?authkey=CJWDwJb8wrXogAE