First Day

I am volunteering at the Northwest Health Clinic. My first day was this past Friday. I was assigned as a greeter/crowd control. The clinic is not overly big but it can get busy. For some strange reason, it doesn't get very busy on Friday but rather Thursday, so I was not overwhelmed on my first day.

I was given a tour of the facility and introduced to some of the staff. Everyone is very nice and helped me out. I mainly offered assistance to patients and patrolled the main area, to make sure that patients did not wander into the wrong area. I was able to answer some of the questions posed to me but I felt bad when I didn't know.

An interesting thing that occurred was that a lady needed help and showed me the slip of paper that she had. She was looking for the pharmacy (which I directed her to) but on paper she had written down some information in Japanese. I didn't understand everything that was on it because I didn't look at it for long and it takes a while for my mind to process Hiragana to English, but I recognized some of the letters and that made me very happy.

A lot of the signs and information packets are in three languages: English, Spanish and I'm not completely sure what the third one is. I am curious. They must get many patients that speak that language for there to be signs and paperwork. I'm going to try to find out more today when I go volunteer again.

Thus far, it's been interesting. I am shy so I am jumping a personal hurdle by meeting and greeting so many people. I don't know if today is going to be busy or not but I just hope that I can answer the questions that I am asked.