So Cerebral

one of the ladies carrying laundry

Cultural note of the day: Something that I have found very impressive in Lesotho is how all the women carry everything on their heads. I know I have seen it before on t.v.- but it sure is amazing to see the real thing. I don't know how they do it! They sure do make it look easy. Most of the time they also have a baby on their back. They will wrap a blanket around their waste and leave a little pocket for the kiddo. In the US it would probably not be recommended as it doesn't look terribly secure. . . but I have to say, I have never heard of anyone dropping their baby.

mom's with their kiddos and baby on the back

Yesterday I took another trip to an outreach clinic in Mahale. This was very different from my last outreach experience. Apparently word had gotten around that the doctor was coming and so we had a line of adults, in addition to the children, to see. The patients usually only see a nurse since there is such a shortage of doctors. The nurse was better than the last site, but she still did not have the experience or expertise to be dealing with the problems these people were facing. Many of them walked in, cachectic (thin and wasted appearing), and smelling of cancer and disease. A lot of them had long standing TB, or even signs and symptoms of cancer. We had to send a lot of them to the hospital. It was very sad. Of the children however, we only had to send one for further medical treatment. Most of them were doing ok, all pretty malnourished though. They have zero resources out at this site, so there wasn't much we could do to help with the malnutrition. I sure felt helpless.

We didn't get to leave the clinic till 6:00 pm because of the patient load. The drive back took about 2 hours as we had to keep stopping because the doctor I went with had gotten ill. Not the best drive to have nausea on- lots of turns through the mountains and bumpy roads. I saw her this morning and she was feeling better.

Alex also started to get sick this week. Probably something she caught at Queen II. I am hoping to stay well, or at least get sick soon so I am better for my trip with Ryan. It feels impossible not to catch something here. . . everyone around me is always coughing.

We may go across the border to South Africa this weekend to try a popular restaurant. Otherwise, I think we will keep things a little more low key this week. . . we are still exhausted from last weekend.

Love you all so much.