First Aid in Korea

The first class of the day is usually about 20% purely playing with them. They're in the second grade, and absorb so much English without even trying to learn. Well, today the buckle on one of their shoes sliced into my leg, taking out a piece of flesh and leaving a 2-inch scratch. After class I sought out the first aid kit. The new secretary rolled her chair over to help me. She usually bandages up the kids, but I wondered if she thought I couldn't handle a cut on my own! I wanted to say, "Hey! My mom's a nurse, and my dad's a first responder. A little medical info has soaked into my brain over the years!" She looked at me strangely as I opened the equivalent of alcohol/peroxide to clean the cut. She offered the ointment stuff, but I said no, it's OK; I'll just clean it and put a band-aid on it. Well, she opened up the ointment anyway, so rather than protesting, I figured I'd go along with it.

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. The way they handle nose bleeds gives a strong indicator of how the everyday person handles medical issues--the kid leaves the classroom to find tissue, dripping blood along the way, leaving blood on the roll of tissue, tearing the tissue up into small pieces to stick up the nose. One time in Sandra's class a kid's nose started gushing blood all over the desk and floor. Sandra had to clean it up without gloves or anything, and there wasn't any cleaning solution to use, only tissues and water.

Anyway, the secretary unscrewed the lid to the ointment and I figured she'd do it the right way and put it on the band-aid, and then put the band-aid on the cut. Before I could stop her, she applied the ointment directly from the tube to my bleeding wound, then used her bare finger to rub the ointment the length of the scratch. So she's coming into direct contact with my blood, and my scratch is getting whatever germs are on her finger, and I don't want to even think about the tube of ointment. How many kids has she done the same thing to??? They just don't get the concept of hepatitis or AIDS or anything like that. In my first year I remember talking about some kind of disease like that with one of the teachers, and we had to look it up in the English-Korean dictionary. Even then, the person had to ask a couple of other teachers before someone knew what the Korean word meant. Those kinds of diseases aren't common here (well, hepatitis A might be) but they should still be more conscious of proper sanitation!

I instituted "Matt's Corner Method" in several more classes today. It worked fairly well, although in one class I ran out of corners--7 students being punished at the same time! However, the classes did a lot better about speaking only English.

The adults were whining about their test again. As I anticipated, Jennifer asked if she could use a dictionary for the writing portion--no way! They would spend all their time looking up difficult words, and then probably use them incorrectly. I'd rather them use words they already know and can use without difficulty.

I returned to the doctor and got 3 more days of drugs. One more visit, and my ear should be fine. At least the doctor's office appears to be clean. Perhaps medical personnel have learned the essentials, but important info has yet to trickle down to the everyday person?