January 4th

Rounds this morning mostly consisted of patient review,
nothing really exciting. There was one patient of interest
however, he a cut half an inch into his heel from a Honda
accident. It looked pretty painful. After having finished
rounds I was on the way to house when I decided to stop
by the operating theater and saw them just starting a
procedure. A woman had a serious cut into her heel, and
had bisected her Achilles tendon. I got to watch them sew
it back together and then sew the rest of the ankle back
together. It was a little gross to watch but very fascinating.
The resiliency of human skin and other tissues just amazes
me. We may be pretty fragile in many ways, but God knew
what he was doing when he made us. I find it a little
disconcerting to watch them working on a patient who is
still somewhat awake since they can’t put them to sleep.
They have no way to manage their breathing. She was
restless and kept trying to move around. I think those two
cases were God’s way of saying be very careful on the
Honda, and I plan on paying attention. It’s not hard to do,
but you have to be careful and pay attention, if you get
distracted it would be very easy to have an accident. I
went back to the house after that to run the generator
and grade some exams. I went to school at one for my
first day of classes since the break started. It wasn’t too
bad, I managed to get right back into it almost like we had
never had a break. I got done at and went 4 went home to
change into something cooler and more comfortable and
at 5 I had a second Honda lesson with Solomon. I think it
went well, I drove to the house and back to the school with
Solomon then back to the house. Then Solomon had me
drive from the house to the school and back to the house
by myself, I was a little nervous but I’m getting the hang of
it pretty quick. This place has changed me in quite a few
ways, one of which is being a little more open to adventure.
I used to swear I would never ride on a motorcycle, while
Solomon’s bike is more like a dirt bike it’s still a motor
bike and I think if someone told me three months ago I
would be doing it I would have said they were crazy. On
the way back up to the house the bike died on me, I had
managed to run out of fuel, haha. So Solomon took the
bike to get fuel and I went up to the house to have dinner.
On the way I met Tom and he told me to be very careful,
which I can understand, he sees all the people who come in
after having accidents. I intend to be very careful. For dinner
we had my favorite African dish, jolof (not sure on the
spelling) rice, it’s a lot like fried rice, only better. I love love
love it. After dinner I went over to the nursing students
residence and we played a game for a little while. Saidu and
Foday were there as well. I don’t know what the game is
called but there is a prompt like “Something harder than it
looks” and everyone write an answer and passes them to
one person. That person reads them and then everyone
takes turns around the circle trying to figure out who said
what. If you get the person right they are out and you get
a point. This goes until there is only one person left and
then the round ends and a new round with a new prompt
starts. It’s a game where it pays to know the people you
are playing it with. After that I paid Solomon a little visit
and now I’m home for bed.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks