Waiting on the ibo spirit to knock on the door

1-The teenagers and other patients at Nuevo Luz- zona 5
2-Antialcoholico hospital/institution I visited in post #2

3-Same hospital with the head Dr. and nurse

4-plaques on the wall at AA

5-AA meeting, Lighting a cake to celebrate a member's 8 yrs of sobriety

I'm sitting next to the door on the computer awaiting our ibo delivery, it should be any time today...

Yesterday I woke up to the voice of a little girl. I could hear her chasing poor Lady around and screeching at her. When I got up to go to the kitchen I saw a small older woman that I figured out was the maid, Connie. Then a tan little face popped out from behind the door and a little girl about 5 or 6 ran up and wrapped her arms around my thighs and hugged me tight. I looked down surprised and said "Hola" she greeted me and asked about 5 questions (none of which I understood) without letting me out of her grasp. This is Connie's granddaughter, Michella Isabella.

Back when I first arrived the doc was apologizing for the mess at the house and explained to me that his maid has a very severe alcohol problem and she hadn't showed up for work in a week. He tries to offer her help but she wants none of it, she's still in denial. Michella's mom married another man and left her with Connie. Now doc is afraid Michella suffers from malnutrition because of Connie's negligence when she drinks.

This is her first day back in almost 2 weeks, I can tell he's relieved to have her back but is still pretty pissed about it.

From that moment on everywhere I went Michella was right behind me. She is surprisingly understanding that I cant speak her language and is very good at communicating with me in other ways. At lunch she told the doc that she's positive she can teach me and that she'll bring in some of her books that are dual language. Today we worked on "The Bad Wizard". She read to me in spanish and I read the english part to her. She is such a smart, confidant little girl. The nice thing is, she's the only one that will speak to me in spanish all the time even though she knows I don't know what she's saying, everyone else either tries to speak english to me or doesn't speak to me at all.

She's also the only that can understand my love for Lady, and doesn't think I'm weird for it. She comes along on our morning walks to the park now. She has a real fascination for my computer. I'm not sure if she's been on one before or not but she finds everything I show her endlessly interesting- she spent about 3 hours on Microsoft paint. I went though all my pictures with her and she still wanted to see more. Marta and doc think I'm nuts for letting her go near my computer, but she's so curious and I know she cant do too much harm. It's been kind of nice having a shadow, but it can get exhausting, she makes me aware of my age.

I finally started the free online spanish class (LiveMocha.com) I had been meaning to get to. Its an awesome site if you're trying to learn a language.

Yesterday we finally had a meeting about the logistics of the ibo house and sessions. Jeraldo came back to the house with doc. He helped doc get the house together and is going to be in charge of the finances of the clinic. Jeraldo is a sweet middle aged man, he speaks about as much english as I do spanish, so the meeting was difficult and longer than it needed to be because everything we said the doc had to translate to the other one...this is really getting old, I need to learn fast.

We covered a lot in the meeting though, which was great. I finally had some of the questions that have been floating in my head for the last 2 months answered. The name of the clinic & our association will be C.A.T.A.- Clinica Avenzada Para Tratomento de Adicciones, or in english; Advanced Center for Addiction Treatment. He has a logo in mind, a brain with an arrow pointing to a nautical star- The brain being redirected or having a new path. It's a cute idea but not very aesthetically pleasing, I'm going to help him tweak it.

Patients will stay in the house for a week, we'll do an intro dose on their 1st or 2nd day and then do the flood dose after a couple days. Then they'll be in out-patient care for another week, meaning if they are from Guatemala they can go home or to a nearby hotel but come to the center as much as they want to continue therapy sessions with doc, if they're from out of the country they'll stay in a hotel and come by the clinic for meals, therapy, talking, whatever. This seems pretty time consuming but doc insists it'll work out, he's used to being burnt out.

It looks like I'll be in charge of; nursing/screening the incoming patients, assisting him in administrating the ibo, night watching and cooking. Probably more when it comes up. I know it'll be a lot but I'm really excited to finally be an integral part of this process.

This is the first time I've been able to give knowledge back to the doc and it felt really good.

I tried to show them that if they want foreign patients, they'll need to look at this like a tourist- this is where I come in, because I am. So I suggested that when the website is designed (thankfully we have a designer, someone that bartered with him for med. treatment I'm sure) that we design a page that will explain the city, things to do around Guat, the weather, suggested hotels to stay at during out-patient recovery. This way we might be able to have the hotels pay us for advertising or work a deal with them that we get a percentage of every client we send them. They loved my ideas, Jeraldo kept calling me tesoro-a treasure.

Then we talked food-which is a bigger part of running a center than you'd imagine. People coming off of Ibo typically don't stop eating once their appetite returns. At the house in Mexico I would finish the dishes from the lunch and have to start dinner immediately. I remembered that Bobby (he runs the after care house in Mexico) knew a lot about what people need to eat after the treatment, so I emailed him today and he was extremely helpful. He let me know the foods contraindicated ibo which are those containing quinine; tonic water, Squirt soda, grapefruits. Papayas help metabolize medicine and aid the digestive system in restoration after treatment. Omega 3(fish) is very important and those coming off of opiates need a high fiber diet. I cant thank him enough.

Once we get the ibo (which should have come today) we'll do doc's treatment, then Jeraldo's, I don't think I'm up for another one. As soon as we finish with theirs and they get their strength back we'll get started on Josh. So if I'm feeling a little restless and bored at times, I just know what's on the horizon is going to put me though the wringer. I cant wait....