The Bulletin
Sunday, January 11, 2004
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STUDENT UPDATE
by Ben Johnson

Happy New Year Grandma -- and everyone else! I think I have a few minutes to update you on my doings before I get kicked out of the office.

Work has been going good lately, but now it is coming to an end. Just as I am really getting the hang of all the routine things and some of the not so routine things around the shop, I am getting ready for another two month stay in the cities, which isn't too bad of a thing.

I will be moving back down there on the 10th, after the Xmas get together at Donnie's. Then I will start school on Monday, the 12th, and my semester will end around the 19th of March.

Well I better surrender my position at the computer, but I am looking forward to seeing everybody who is attending the Xmas get together on the 10th, and also you and grandpa after the move back north the following weekend. Good luck with the move, and hopefully everything goes well.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Don and I will be off line and unable to receive mail starting on 1/14/04. We will send out a message to you all upon our return!
DMA

"Little Man's" Golden Birthday, January 5, 2004

Well, it was a big day in our household today, as Jayce turned five years old. He was one excited little guy. I'd waited to wrap his birthday gifts until yesterday, so he spent last evening going down to our room and looking at them and turning them over (except the bigger ones-he couldn't budge them) He was very impressed with the Spiderman wrapping paper, right up his alley. Today he woke up with a smile and many questions, when could he open his gifts, eat his cake etc. Anticipation is a good thing :-)

While he was sleeping this morning I made a cake and decorated it with some Buzz Lightyear and friends little figures, another favorite of his. He was TOTALLY impressed with my creation, hmmmm, lucky he's five :-) I dug through the drawers and luckily found some candles, as he'd asked about having candles on his cake. At lunch he was talking to his two little daycare buddies about how much he liked his cake (suppose it did beat last year's cupcake, without a contest!) And they were too, one little guy even asked his mom to have one for him on his birthday.

Peggy stopped by with four card games in a nice tin for him, thanks Peggy! Which was a really fun thing for him, as he got to open a present earlier that way.

Then finally, after nap, it was time to get on with the show. Grandpa got the digital camera out and I tried running the video one. I've decided I really do need to read the instructions so I have a clue as to what I'm supposed to do, hoping I actually got some video on the thing!

We got the daycare kids and Caity to sing Happy Birthday to him, then he blew out his candles after giving it a few good trys...all of which seemed to please him immensely. (to be happy with so little :-)

He could hardly wait to pile into opening the gifts. He got bubbles, pencils, a little firetruck, playdoh from one of his teachers. Caity gave him a fireman and policeman with all sorts of accessories. >From Beaver and I he got an old fashioned looking bike (great sale last fall), helmet, kneepads (more sale items :-) , a box with a small tent, sleeping bag, binoculars and a little camp chair (you guessed it..). He jumped up and down saying how "cool" his gifts were!

They did take the time to eat some cake and then started playing with the new toys, the daycare boys wanting the bike opened-but that will have to wait for a while (now isn't that cruel?)

This evening he went to Burger King with his Mom, Caity and Kenny. Sounds like they had a good time, I wasn't there early enough to see him open his presents from his Mom, so haven't seen what they are yet. He was still playing full tilt when I arrived. I brought Caity and Jayce home to bed, as they have school tomorrow.

I'd say he considered his big day a total success!

We have to remember to open the card from Great Grandpa and Grandma..got too busy today and forgot, this way he'll have something for tomorrow. I haven't told them about all the pennies Great Grandpa is giving them either..that will be a big hit!

So, a golden birthday, come and gone. Happy 5th birthday Jayce!

Grandma Johnson

Wyatt's Photo Correspondent Report - December 27, 2003

My mom works at Viking Valley Hunt Club near Ashby. This year, for Christmas, she gave Weston, Ben, and me a pheasant hunt at the hunt club. We went out on December 27th and got 15 pheasants! The hunt club gets pheasants from a nearby game farm, then they put the pheasants out in a field.

Since we don't have our own dogs (don't think Atley would be a very good bird dog), one of their guides came with so we could use his two dogs, a chocolate lab and a black lab. We walked twice through a field, with the dogs out in front to flush the birds.

In a normal pheasant hunt, once a bird is flushed, you must look first to tell if it is male (colored) or female (brown), since you can only shoot males. In this case, we could shoot either one, so as soon as they got up high enough, we could shoot away!

After we were done, they even cleaned the pheasants for us. They gave us some already cleaned and frozen ones to take home and eat!

It was a great time, and the beautiful weather (over 40 degrees!) made it a perfect day to be out.

Wyatt

L-R: my stepdad John, me (Wyatt), Weston, my mom (Donna) and Ben.

Miss Kitty's First Christmas

The Bolivian Beat
By Kjirsten Swenson

I spent nearly all of my time observing and helping at the local hospital located a five-minute uphill walk through a potato field from the center of the village. Although it serves a regional population of nearly 40,000, the hospital is very tiny and often quiet. It consists of a consult room; a separate procedure room where babies are born and cuts are stitched; a tiny nurse's office containing a cabinet that serves as the pharmacy; a blocked-off area with three beds for overnight patients; a kitchen; and the dentist's office.

A waiting area equipped with the only TV and VCR I saw in town serves as the informal cine. Once I counted 16 kids crowded on the floor and steps watching a terrible Jackie Chan movie.

The hospital is also home to the entire staff; they live in rooms in the basement and maintain separate houses in Cochabamba.

The staff consists of two general physicians, a nurse, a cook, an "ambulance" driver, and a student dentist who mostly pulls teeth at a price of $1.30 each. They're all really wonderful people and I consider them my bestest of Bolivian friends. Lucky, 'cause I was with them nearly perpetually for a month and will soon be back for much longer. My lack of knowledge of double meanings and other Spanish subtleties makes me particularly vulnerable to their endless jokes, but I'm learning.

The hospital contains nearly nothing in terms of medical technology. Care is really basic ... most of their patients are pregnant women who come for free prenatal exams. Deliveries are free, as well, thanks to a government insurance program designed to combat maternal and infant mortality rates, which are among the highest in the world. But a lot of reasons related to culture and fear prevent women from giving birth in the hospital. I think there were only five births while I was there.

Other than that, people come when they're too sick to work. Lots of back pain, respiratory problems, occasional gashes needing stitches. My favorite patient was a super old woman who declared that a bug had been living in her ear for the past three years and was preventing her from hearing clearly.

The purpose of my investigation was to study manifestations of the indigenous Quechua-Andina culture in the space of a western hospital. Western medicine has only been available in rural Bolivia for roughly the last 20-30 years. It was imposed on a cultural context in which the indigenous people maintained notions of sickness and cure that differed, and still differ greatly, from Western perspectives.

They had developed, and continue to maintain, a system of traditional healers who employ herbs and ritual to cure. I found it fascinating to observe the encounters between patient and physician. The negotiation of language, culture, and treatment is really amazing. Traditional healers have intriguing relationships with the hospital, too, in which they occasionally bring their "healed" patients to the hospital after treatment rituals in search of IV's or injections. Fascinating stuff!

I also helped in whatever way I could. Mostly that meant injecting people, but I assisted on two births when the only other person in the hospital was the doctor. :)

After completing my investigation in Morochata, I returned to Cochabamba to write up my results, in four days of furious typing, and prepared a presentation. All of us foreign students met at a hotel outside of the city, where we spent an additional four days presenting our work. The course is now officially over and I suppose I've unofficially graduated!

Immediately following the conclusion of the course, I headed to Chapare, a tropical region that produces a lot of bananas and cocaine. From there I returned to Morochata for a two-day visit. Now I'm back in Cochabamba and getting ready for the upcoming Chile/Argentina adventure.

Sunday morning I fly to southern Chile. Monday I'll take a bus to Torres Del Paine National Park, where I'll meet my parents. We'll backpack together for about 10 days before they return to the U.S. and I fly to Santiago to meet Tami. We're going to travel from there to Buenos Aires in time for her Jan 9 flight back to the States.

I'm allowing myself until the end of the month to end up in Bolivia. At this point, it seems most likely that I'll return to Morochata to help implement a project of free elderly medical care and, hopefully, help them set up a donated computer from the U.S. and make it useful. I'll teach English to anybody who wants to learn and continue to help at the hospital with patient care. They let me do anything I want. The doctors are teaching me to stitch and deliver babies.

Kjirsten

Last Friday and Saturday were very busy. More people than last year came [to the Garden Center in The Netherlands] to buy new plants and some tables were almost empty. I placed my biggest order for new plants as far as I can remember. In the coming week, I will be alone, starting Wednesday. My colleague will be on skiing vacation in Austria. I do have help for pricing and unpacking plants, but it will be hectic.

Ary Ommert, Jr.

Thanks, Mom, for another great read. It seems like awhile since we had a college kid update. What's with that, are they going quiet on you? I sure enjoy those impressive, professional quality photos!

I have a few errands to do and am not relishing the thought of going out into the horrible cold!

Doug

I heard from a subscriber that my note to you made it into the Bulletin -- not a problem! I don't get The Bulletin, but I would like to. It's snowing hard again today, so most of Portland is shut down. The university is closed, too, so I don't have to go to classes today! --RDA (Rick Anderson)

That was a pretty picture of the plants at Ary's place of business. Makes me think of Mom, and how much she would have enjoyed looking at them.

Enjoyed reading one of your memory stories. The one about the doll that Grandma Mellon had, and evidently you weren't big enough to get it. I remember about two dolls in my young years. Grandpa Greer gave me one like a Betsy Wetsy doll, and I was so happy with it, and with Grandpa Greer for giving it to me.

Then when I was about 10, Grandma Mellon was going to give me my last doll. Being it was going to be the last one I would ever get I thought it would be beautiful. Evidently Grandma and I didn't think along the same line, because I was heartbroken when I opened the package and it looked like some kind of a clown doll made out of chenille bedspread material. I hated it! Was even a little bit upset with Grandma Mellon, but didn't take too long to get over that, because she was a fun Grandma -- and then there was Grandma Greer--

Had a full house for Christmas. Good fun and good food!

Your sister Gert

THE STAFF OF
THE BULLETIN&

THE EDITOR---------------------------------------Dorothy M. Anderson
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR---------------------Jerrianne Lowther
ST CLOUD CORRESPONDENT-------------- Douglas A. Anderson
ASHBY CORRESPONDENTS---------------- Donna and Beaver Johnson
SOCIETY COLUMNIST-------------------------Hetty Hooper
PHOTOGRAPHER- CORRESPONDENT--------- Wyatt Johnson
WAHPETON CORRESPONDENT--------------------Elaine Wold
ALASKAN CORRESPONDENT--------------Jerrianne Lowther & Miss Kitty
REPORTERS AND CONTRIBUTORS--------Any one that sends anything
for publishing in THE BULLETIN

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY: Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. --Will Rogers