Well.
Either this is going to be a REALLY long post or I’ll break it up into two. I always want to write a post, then put it off for a day, then plan on doing it the next day…but that next day is so full that I not only don’t have time to write, but it makes the amount of stuff I have to write about that much more. Vicious cycle.
Random things with no chronology: Yesterday afternoon the water decided to stop working again. After maybe 4 days of getting to take a shower with water falling on my head, I’m back to the bucket.
Today they moved the wood stove outside to a little tin-sided building. Now there’s just a gas stove (that they don’t use for dinner because it’s too small for the GIANT pots you need to cook for this many people, but usually they use when cooking anything small enough. So I actually did a happy dance when I saw they’d moved it. Now there’s NO SMOKE in here, and I can breathe ALL DAY long! No more waking up to smoke and spending the evening shut in my room or hiding outside or breathing through my hood to avoid it. The kids were laughing at me for being so happy. I was singing this song that I learned here that goes “I’m happy today, so happy, in Jesus’ name I’m happy because he has taken away, my sins away, I’m happy, so happy today” to “because he has taken away the stove today”etc. They thought that was funny.
Ok. So. My interview at program #2 is scheduled for skype or phone as backup, on Thursday at 2pm EST. My application to program #3 is going to be reviewed Tuesday. I got my deadline to program #1 extended until June 1st so I don’t have to rush and make a decision. Have I mentioned how nice it feels to know that no matter what I can go to school in the fall? I’ve discovered that program #1, which I really like, is designed to take 3 semesters. It MIGHT be possible to do it in 1 yr but they don’t recommend it…but I don’t want to take ANOTHER year off…but I might have to anyways because of the timing of med school applying and transcripts from these programs coming out. So there’s lots to figure out there, but I’m trying to just be patient until I get all the information.
On Thursday Naomi decided it was my turn to be the doctor. I sat in her chair and asked the basic “what’s your name, age, etc” questions, then asked what the problem was and with Naomi’s help translating and asking the questions I didn’t think of, wrote it all down and made up a diagnosis. The first was about as easy as they come, a 30-ish yo lady with itchy, visibly watery eyes and an itchy throat, starting when the weather changed. Seasonal allergies. Antihistamine. Shazam. One down. Then came in a 12yo girl who cut her thumb on a knife and it was all swollen. Clean and dress the wound, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. I was on a roll. :-P A lady who went to Mombasa last week had malaria and a respiratory tract infection, and a 3-yo had chicken pox, though Naomi called it something very strange but I forget what it was. But anyway. It was WAY more exciting than it should have been to pretend to be the doctor. I wasn’t THAT good at it because I had the language barrier thing (though the incredulous looks I got when I started asking questions in Swahili were priceless. Only problem is once someone thinks you know Swahili, they’ll talk to you in it….and my ability to speak it far surpasses my ability to understand it, it’s too fast usually.) but I was in the middle of thinking how to say some questions in Swahili when Naomi asked them, check plus for Danielle, and just the feeling of actually being a doctor was awesome. Even though I didn’t know what to do half the time and I didn’t know which drugs to prescribe way more than half the time. It reminded me though how much more is learned from clinical experience than from just hitting the books…not that that helps me at all, since after I leave here I’ll basically be beating those books to death for 3 years. But it was/is/is gonna be fun while it lasts.
Thursday evening I was running outside, as usual, and as usual the kids were watching me. One of the girls, Tabitha, was standing right on the edge of the circle I was running staring at me. I asked her “why are you watching me?” she said “I want to join you” I said “do it!’ so she ran with me for the rest of the time. A couple minutes after, some of the other kids started running with me, and eventually I had 5 of them following me around the yard in circles. Then they started cheating by cutting corners and running across the middle, cutting in front of each other…but I told them, once I got to the complete back of the line, that we were running for time, by my watch, and not laps. HA!. :-P So then I slowed down to a walk and the whole thing just seemed really funny to me, that I was being followed around in circles by these kids…so I started singing the Star Spangled Banner to make it even more absurd of a situation. Dennis was behind me and singing something, I don’t know if it was a different song or he was trying to catch what I was singing. I told him I was singing the US national anthem and so the kids started singing the Kenyan national anthem, following me around in circles while I was singing the US national anthem. It was just strange. :-P
on Friday I talked to my sishter on the phone and she told me she got me a mother’s day card for my madre. Which is awesome because I’d been thinking I was gonna send her text to write in a card! So I will tell you about this card because it’s awesome and is perfect for my relationship with my mom. The front says “good moms let their kids lick the cake beater” and shows a picture of a cake beater dripping with batter. The inside says “great moms turn the beater on first” HA! How perfect is that!? So I sort of got to give my mom a card. (PS Happy blog-official mothers’ day to my mommy and my grandmas- I LOVE YOU and I MISS YOU and I’m so glad I got to hear all of your voices today but what I really want is to give you all a hug. Individually, and one all at the same time, just because I can. (or can’t)
Friday afternoon I got home from the clinic and MammaAlice (yes, it is one word. :-P) was like “remember, you’re speaking tonight at fellowship!” (meaning, all the kids get together and have a Bible study on Friday evenings) and I was like “Whaaaaaat, you said Sunday!” (She’d asked me to speak to the kids on Sunday for 15 minutes before they split into their Sunday school classes, and her reason was “because they have never heard a mzungu speak before” which sort of annoyed me…I don’t mind doing a 15 minute Bible lesson but I HATE feeling like a freak show freak that just gets shown around to all the interested people. Like… what else interesting can we do with the kids…oh, I know, they’d think a mzungu is cool, lets have her speak”. Now, this is probably NOT what went on in anyone’s head except mine, so I’m trying to remove my bad attitude, but it was there for a while) Anyway. So she said “no, Sunday AND today!” grrrr. So I had to quick quick come up with something, but it was easier than I was expecting because I’ve been doing a good job of writing stuff down as I read my Bible, so I had a lot of things that had jumped out at me to pick from to elaborate on for both of them.
So I did the devotion and it was fine and then MammaAlice recapped what I said (I think..it was in Swhaili) for 15 minutes (the same if not a greater amount of time I used originally) and then prayed for at least another 15 and then we had dinner and I went to bed. And they wonder why I never want a big dinner. Because 30 minutes later I’m lying in bed, and there’s no need to eat any more than is necessary to keep myself from getting hungry for another hour or two until I fall asleep! :-P
Saturday was AWESOME and FULL. Therefore I’m going to make it into a separate post. If the internet works tonight as it decided NOT to do a few minutes ago, I’ll post one today and one tomorrow, and if it decides to stay dead you will get both on Monday.
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