9/29/03

Hello everyone. I’ve now been in med school for 6 weeks, so I decided to send you all another update. The weather here still hasn’t changed (and won’t till January). Its supposedly the wet season, but so far all that means is that once in awhile it rains for 10 minutes (although for that 10 minutes you don’t want to be caught outside). Last week it rained a few times in the same day. I haven’t seen an actual thermometer or even a weather report, so I’ll have to guess temps are in the 70-80s. Its usually humid, but luckily the dorms and lecture halls and labs have A/C. Unfortunately the gym is not. I’ve been to the beach only three times since I got here, twice in the first week before classes started and once more a week ago. Needless to say my tan is suffering. If you haven’t checked out my webpage lately, I’ve added some sunset pictures. (www.geocities.com/firecrafter93/files/sgupics) But even pictures are nothing like being here. I watched 2 hours of TV last week! That’s the most I’ve watched since I got here back in August. There’s only 2 TVs at the school, so its not like I can flip on the tube anytime I want.

I though I’d give you some history of the island, from something I read in the monthly university newspaper. To give you the recap of where exactly I am, the school lies on the island of Grenada, about 100 miles off the coast of Venezuela, in the West Indies. Its out of the hurricane belt, so we don’t have to worry about that (although you can tell they’re close when the weather changes.) It is one of the smallest independent countries in the Western Hemisphere, 213 square miles – twice the size of Washington DC. 90,000 people live here – 92% black, 13% mixed black and European, and 5% European and east asian. The government is constitutional monarchy with the chief of state being Queen Elizabeth II. There’s also a governor and a prime minister.

Columbus passed by the island in 1498 and named it “Concepcion.” It was already inhabited by Caribbean Indians, who gave the colonizing Europeans some trouble. The French took control of the island as the natives leapt to their deaths off a cliff to avoid being under French rule. This cliff is now known as Caribs’ Leap. The French kept the British at bay for the next 90 years. And in 1783 it was given to the Brits in the Treaty of Versailles. They then started importing slaves to the island. The country gained its independence in 1974. Then in 1979 (the same year the school was founded) an attempt, thanks to Castro, was made to establish a socialist/communist government. In 1983, 6 days after Grenada was seized by a Marxist military council, the US and several Caribbean governments sent forces to “restore order” and rescue the medical students, finally putting Grenada “on the map.” And finally free elections were reinstated the following year. So how’s that for a history lesson?

Some of you have inquired about sending me a “care package.” If you really want to lay down some cash, then I’m not going to stop you, but I’m actually surviving pretty well (so long as the nuts and berries don’t run out.) Here’s the deal. The cheapest way to ship anything is by the good old postal service – Air mail. Using fedex is way too expensive. It generally takes 2 weeks for mail to get here, although that has much variability. (If you don’t mark it “AIRMAIL” then I won’t get it till next semester.) My parents just sent me a box and it was opened by US Customs and the local post office. The post office opens up every package (I think envelops are safe) to make sure we’re not smuggling drugs and to assess a duty (they tax electronics 55%). For the box my parents sent, I had to pay $10 to pick it up (duty). The supermarket here is pretty well stocked (although they tend to run out of milk for weeks at a time) but some things are really expensive. But if you really want to know what kinds things I’d like, then here you go:

Canned chicken (you can buy all the tuna and salmon here, but apparently no one like to can chickens)

Granola bars (pretty expensive here)

Breakfast/nutrigrain bars (same reason as above)

Lipton and related pasta meals (make up ½ of my dinners and go nicely with canned chicken)

Poptarts (nothing beats them)

For all you labies - MAMA’S Oriental Noodles (Ramen only gets you so far)(Dr. Twerp thanks you)

And if you send home baked cookies, then you win the prize. (always a favorite with the ladies) J

Don’t feel obligated. Trust me I’m not keeping score. But as many of you know, I’m also not one to ever turn down food. Give me a heads up though, so I can watch my mailbox for the slip of paper saying I got a box. Ok, enough about food. That’s getting me hungry.

Once again here’s my address in case you didn’t get it :

Nick Peters, Box 1592

SGUSOM

PO Box 7

St. George’s, Grenada

West Indies

AIRMAIL

(despite what some people might think, addressing it as “third coconut tree on the left” won’t get it to me)

We have midterms coming up next week, so the next time you hear from me I’ll have a big load lifted off my back (approximately where the latissmus dorsi orginates) . Midterms here are like finals. The whole week we have no classes and only tests. Just to give you an idea of how much I’ve been in class, by the time midterms roll around, I will have had 43 biochem lectures, 26 anatomy lectures plus 7 four hour labs, 27 histology lectures and 6 two hour labs, and 12 lectures of embryology. We’re only taking 18 credits, but these are no undergrad credits we’re taking. We took a short course in medical ethics and I passed the test. So I guess that makes me an ethical doctor? (we also did some lectures on professionalism, but they didn’t test us on that.)

If you’re wondering if they give us any breaks, the answer is no, except for a 4 day weekend coming up. In case you’re counting down, after midterms I will be 1/8 the way to clinicals and 1/16 done with my medical education. Mark your calendars, I fly home December 15^th (and stay till Jan 11^th). Thanks for all the emails I’ve received. I apologize for the impersonal nature of such a mass-email. Let me know how things are going.