December 5th, 2017 by georginagreen

A few random thoughts:

-The water has alum in it. All drinking water must be filtered. I brush my teeth with filtered water. My hair is not a great fan of the water. Some people rinse their hair with collected rain water or do periodic vinegar rinses.

-The mosquitoes are huge. Seriously huge. Not as big as birds but certainly too big to get through a mosquito net. Except the other night when a creature came through a hole in the top of the net and was buzzing in my ear. They aren’t all over the place like the ones that feast on us during summer evenings in Kansas, but they’re here.

-At 6700 feet we’re not quite above the malaria line, but the long term staff don’t do malaria prophylaxis. Most of the patients here who have had malaria contracted it somewhere else. Short-term staff tend to do prophylaxis, because if we get sick, we might be useless during our time here.

-The weather here is technically perfect. Pretty much 50-70 year round. Flowers and plants grow well.

-Milk comes in small bags. It’s whole milk, UHT. The cook in the guest house, Emmanuel, taught me how to make proper chai tea today. Lots of milk. Would be a challenge if one were lactose intolerant.

-The hospital staff all seem to have mandazi or chapati and chai tea breaks mid-morning and maybe the afternoon. I will miss tea time.

-The hospital does a lot of surgery. Lots of burns and trauma. And the residents and attendings doing surgery are rock stars to me. It’s amazing. If I were a surgeon, I would probably be even more drawn to this place.