A few Questions Answered

We are all mostly recovered from our illness and life has returned to normal. We were housebound much of this last week and I don’t have many new, exciting stories to tell, so I will answer some of the questions that I‘ve been getting!

What is the weather like?
Winter has just ended here and we are entering the short raining season and summer. It is very dry and we have had only one decent rainstorm in the last 3 weeks. Temperatures during the day are in the low 90s, but it’s a dry heat and there is usually a good breeze. Mornings and evenings are nice and cool (upper 60s) because of the altitude. The short raining season is supposed to last into early December and I guess we can expect daily short rainstorms although those haven't started yet.

What is rounding and what is its purpose?
Rounding is when the physicians, interns, students, and nurses go around the wards and see all of the patients. We usually see one patient at a time and the interns and students “present” the patient to the attending physician and the rest of the team. This means we say what the patient was admitted to the hospital for, what diagnostics and treatments they have had (their hospital “course“), and how they have done since the last rounds. The team then decides what further studies and treatments should be done or if the patient can go home and on what medications. The physicians also use this time to ask questions of the interns, teach, and point out interesting physical exam findings.

How do you do your laundry?
We are very spoiled because we have a maid that comes to the house 3 days a week. It is the norm that “wealthy” people here hire maids, night guards, and day guards/lawn maintenance people in order to provide jobs for others in the community. Who would have thought that 3 indebted medical students could be considered wealthy! I have never actually watched our maid Mabo do the laundry, but I believe she puts everything in a bucket with soap and then either beats it or rubs it on washboard! She gets things surprisingly clean and then hangs them on a line to dry! There is no fabric softener, so our socks stand on end when they come off the line!

Do African ladies really carry things on their heads??
Yes!!! It is incredible what the women can carry on their heads! Large tubs of vegetables, heavy buckets of water, huge piles of wood and sugar cane, or just their little purse! It is also true that very young children carry their siblings on their backs in shawls. Kids also play in the street rolling old bike tires or other wheels with sticks. I’ll have to try to get some pictures!

Are there lots of bugs in your house?
We had a few cockroaches when we first moved in, but it appears we have scared them away! We do have several salamanders and they are cute unless they fall out of the tea box onto your shirt and scare you half to death (yes this happened to me!). There are mosquitoes, but we haven’t gotten too many bites. At night we hear lots of fruit bats that make this high pitched beeping sound. At first we thought it was something electrical in our back yard, but the locals set us straight. We also have bush babies, which are little marsupials that live in the bushes and make noises that sound like babies crying. There are cows, goats, roosters, and dogs all over the place. I have tried to make the flea infested, worm carrying tiny black kitten in our yard my pet, but my roommates say no!

Hope that answers some of your questions and I’ll be back with more stories soon!