February 3rd

So today went pretty well. I started out the morning going around
the women’s ward with Dr. Tom and part way through the medical
student Laura joined us. One lady has what is called
spleenomegaly, which is an enlarged spleen, and hers was huge.
It was so large you could see it bulging all the way down her side.
Normally you can’t see it at all but hers was clearly visible. Usually
here it’s due to prolonged malaria which attacks the red blood
cells and the destroyed red blood cells get stored there. Sure, you
probably don’t care to know about that, but it’s my blog and I can
do what I want so there. Haha, anyway, we continued on in the
ward but then I had to go help Alusine out. He’s been sick the last
couple of days but doesn’t have the means to pay for a visit to the
hospital. When he gets sick his method is to scrape together
whatever little he can run to one of the town pharmacy’s, buy
some Tylenol and take it. Not gonna work when you likely have
stomach parasites. So I got him registered to see the outpatient
nurse then returned to the wards. I went with Tom and Emily to
see the pediatric ward. I still have a love hate relationship with
that ward. The kids are cute but I can’t stand to see them sick.
Anyway, today wasn’t too bad, most of the kids were healthy.
Just as we were about to finish Alusine let me know he was done
so I went over to help him get his medicines. He also had to give
the lab a sample to test for parasites, which he couldn’t do until
the afternoon. Since I had to be teaching then I left the money
with Tom for anything he might need to get. I was right about
him having parasites but they set him up with the meds and that
should be all handled. Overall paying for his visit, lab test, and
medicine cost me very little (I wish I could get health care that
cheap) but he could never have paid that himself since his only
living family is his grandmother and she doesn’t work. He is at
the orphanage but I guess they don’t have provisions for the
kid’s healthcare because he said he’s not been to the hospital
since he was a very small child. Anyway, teaching went ok today.
I took the cockroach I had caught before to school to show to the
SS 1s, they laughed that I had actually caught one. I passed it
around but most of them didn’t want to hold it so I’m not sure
how much they saw it. I didn’t pay attention as I kept teaching as
they passed it around. I was two periods into my three with them
when they told me that it was time to go. They had to go up to
the school proper and register for their “house” one of four
groups they break the kids up into for spring sports. They do
track type stuff for their spring sports. It could be interesting
but I’m hoping they don’t let it interfere with school too
much. The teacher’s tell me it is part of their curriculum that
the kids do spring sports. So I let them go do that and headed
home and finished off the book I was reading. It was really
good. After dinner Laura, Emily and I were playing a game
called Bananagrams. I did really bad the first game. Then
Karen joined us. I proceeded to win the second one, lost a few
more and then won the last two. I don’t know if you know what
the game is, but it’s like speed scrabble. Each person has their
own tiles and has to make their own words. You work your way
through the tiles one at a time and the first person to use all
their tiles after they’ve all been taken wins. You have to keep
the words all connected just like traditional scrabble. It was fun.
I am particularly proud of my words I used to win the last game.
I had most of the letters to spell the word triumvirate and so I
decided I was going to build my puzzle around it. I made some
other words, like zealot, winnow, and fie. All four of which
were contested and I had to use a dictionary to prove it. I didn’t
even care if I won, I just wanted to spell triumvirate (part of my
obsession with Ancient Rome I guess). I didn’t have the T I
needed but I kept waiting and it paid off, I got it and ended up
winning. Of course, due to my use of several bigger words I
several pitiful words like pig, gum and so. Anyway, that was the
finisher for this evening (other than that we just learned that
our two cats are not in fact female but male, four months after
we got them…). Oh, and I called and talked to my dad which was
really nice but I didn’t get to say bye because I wasn’t paying
attention to how long the call was going and used up all my time.
Which makes me sad since it’s my Grandpa’s birthday and I don’t
have any credit left with which to call him. I’ll just have to call him
tomorrow after I’ve gotten some credit. Anyway, that will actually
wrap this entry in my adventure up. I wish you all a good evening.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks