The priests and the quadruplets

The black shirt is used to hide any evidence of weight loss/gain on my new diet of carbohydrates and more carbohydrates:) This is my "pre-blog" pose and if you look closely you might see a smile :)

Yesterday afternoon I went for a swim in "Chemchemi" (sp?) the man-made natural pond in Ndanda, aka our swimming pool. From my house its about a 45 minute walk along a dirt path through some bush.
The pond is roughly the size of a football field, maybe a little larger and is surprising always very clean and Very refreshing during these hot humid afternoons. Almost every afternoon at four o'clock a group of four or five priests from the Abbey go for a swim; and unless the other couple of volunteers come with me, I'm swimming alone with the priests......

Last night I visited with two of the other "vols" who have been here now about a year. They have acccumulated quite a DVD collection......there is not a lot to do here at night. So after so many days of reading and studying Kiswahili, I took a break and watched A Beautiful Mind (again). The girl living next door to me is a Dutch doctor from the Netherlands. She arrived about a year ago and is focusing on improving the HIV program at the hospital. Next to her is another girl who is a "vol" from Colorado, also here since about Oct. last year. She is a lab tech, here to strengthen the lab. The two of them must have a love for cats, because they share four cats that stay in the houses. One of the cats gave birth to quadruplets the other day. One of the kittens died yesterday but the others look healthy. We are not expecting any more kittens because the girls performed a vasectomy or something similar on all of the males. (Not sure who the father of the kittens is:)

I think I'm starting to get into a routine. In the mornings after conference, I round on maternity patients. There are usually about forty to fifty patients to see. Usually three or four patients in labor and delivery and twenty-somethinng patients on both post partum and antepartum. I round with one of the assistant medical officers who has been covering maternity. And between the two of us, we split the patients.
Rounding takes us until about ten o'clock and then its time for the mandatory "tea break" which I believe all Tanzanian's believe is a necessary part of their day. I usually skip tea and go to the theatre.

In the theatre today, we had a laparotomy, oophorectomy for a large ovarian mass in a sixteen year old girl. She had a fifteen or sixteen centimeter mass that occupied almost her entire pelvis. Fortunately it was obviously benign in appearance, so it was easily drained and removed.

After operating we see the outpatient surgical patients. Outside the theatre are benches filled with patients. Usually there are thirty or forty patients waiting to be seen, referred from an outpatient clinic, or sent from the ward. There are four or five exam rooms, one gyn room and ultrasound. We document all of the findings/exam on a little card, that the patient keeps with them. Seems to be a very efficient system.

The short rainy season has started. We had a sprinkle yesterday afternoon while I was walking back from the pond, and a downpour this afternoon for about an hour. The short rainy season is supposed to last from about November through January. It is definitely nice to get a little bit of rain to cool things off in the evenings.

Hope everyone is doing well. And let me know when you plan on visiting!!