So whats been happenin' the last li'l while?

Been in Texas, takin’ a course, learnin’ to talk Texan.

Lynne and I bade farewell to our beloved Columbia Gorge and drove through central Oregon to Burns, then on back roads (way back!) to Twin Falls, ID then through Utah onto Dillon, CO where we saw my sister Jan and her husband Bob. Then to Denver where we stayed with our daughter Bethany for a couple of days. Then drove down the eastern Colorado border to the Texas panhandle and ultimately to Houston. Most of our travel was on "blue highways" through stressed rural towns many of which had strip malls at the outskirts and a decaying central core.

In Houston Lynne flew to visit family and I began a month long class with Baylor International Pediatric Aids Initiative. They are in several places in Africa, including the same medical campus in Botswana where I'll be based. The class was "Tropical Medicine and HIV, Lite" (my name for it). The information came at this aged learner at a pace that required much studying and time in front of my laptop, and was invaluable.

All the Baylor folks, indeed all the Texans I met, were genuine and welcoming. The medical campus in Houston is the largest in the country comprising innumerable hospitals, schools, and clinics of various specialties, all of which are able to make a financial go of it.

The class attendants were all BIPAI docs save three of us auditors. We were welcomed at any and all activities and received the same material as if we were enrolled. The BIPAU program is extraordinary and the physicians (almost all of them newly minted from residency in Peds) were all very bright.

To clear my head I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and pounded nails for a couple of Saturdays. There is a measure of extreme satisfaction that is rare in medicine when you show up for work at 7:30am and frame an entire house by quitting time at 12 noon. I would drive home drenched in sweat with a novel sense of fulfillment.

Forrest flew to Houston on the last day of class and we drove together to Jacksonville, FL where he and his family are currently stationed. We stoppped in Mobile and gorged ourselves on barbeque (in the South barbeque is a noun as well as a verb).

Now for an all too brief family reunion at the beach and then on to Botswana on the 24th.