The Number 3 and the Letter V

For the Sesame Street generation, this blog is brought to you by the letter V and the number 3.

The first V is for Visitor. We had our first visitor from the States come out to see us this past week - yay!! Her name is Lisa, and she also has the distinction of being our only visitor during our time in Switzerland - she really gets around!!

We had a great time with Lisa, and were very encouraged by her visit. While she was here, we went to a couple of the local restaurants, had a cooking lesson from Mariam (our househelper), went to the river to catch some little fish (which we brought home to provide some hunting practice for the kitties, which they love), and played games. But most of all, we just enjoyed spending time together, showing Lisa what it's like to live here. She was a little hesitant about showering and washing clothes in river water, which is what comes out of our pipes (and drinking filtered water that was still a little brown), but she was a good sport about it all.

And she was a huge help to Wendy in the eye clinic! She started to take an inventory of the eye clinic supplies, but then realized that she needed to do some organizing first, which kept her busier than she had bargained for! She even roped Eric into coming down to help her on a Saturday morning! But the supplies are now well organized and counted, and Wendy has a good set-up for keeping track of how many supplies she uses going forward - thanks Lisa!!

Now on to the second V - Veterinarian. Can any of you guess what this is referring to? If you guessed horses, that was a good try (given Wendy's love of horses), but sorry - that's not it. But if you guessed the neutering of a cat, you win the prize! Wendy (along with her expertly trained team, which includes 2 fellow missionaries serving as scrub nurse and anesthesiologist), neutered our sweet little Johnny on Saturday morning.

Wendy was a little nervous operating on a member of the family, but the surgery went well. Johnny was a little out of sorts Saturday afternoon and evening, walking around like a drunken sailor, and getting knocked over by Pokey, who wanted to play. You can see from this picture that he was a little out of it. Or perhaps, he was just reverting to his childhood.

At times, Pokey was very sweet, hanging out with her sick brother to keep him company during his recovery.

But by Sunday he was up to his normal antics, crying for food at any and every opportunity (milking his operation for all it was worth - he probably learned this from Eric), and planning covert attacks on Pokey as a little payback for her knock-downs on Saturday.

With the stellar success of the surgery, Wendy is longingly looking forward to the day when she can hand off the eye clinic to Elisee, at which point she can start her veterinary practice in earnest.

And for the third and final V - Vegetables!!! Or more accurately, I should say tomatoes!! (OK - perhaps tomatoes are technically a fruit, but "fruit" doesn't start with a "V", and since the Vikings didn't make it to the Super Bowl, I had to come up with a "V" somehow!) Our tomatoes are still doing quite well, and we've been enjoying fresh tomato slices on our sandwiches (or even just plain) for the last couple of weeks. Yum!!! Who would have thought that fresh vegetables could taste so good!