randomness

• from a child's admission sheet under the "history and complaints" section:
  

"febrile ass with cough" heh heh heh :)

• The treatment room is a smallish room with a set of windows, a bed, a bench, and a set of shelves...otherwise empty unless patients are lined up on the bench waiting for IV placements or blood draws. Yesterday I stood next to the bed on which lay the body of a toddler whose life had just ceased and was overwhelmed by the deafening bone chilling reverberations of women wailing in the small room...I could literally feel their grief rattling my bones.

• "Those look like my sandals" I thought to myself. I was leaning against the nurses' desk as Jennifer went through her morning routine of telling everyone to get their paperwork out along with all of their medicines in preparation for rounds. My eyes were scanning the floor in the center pod, avoiding the stares of all of the parents, looking at the seguilis and basins stashed under the beds, at the jolo-jolos (flip flops) taken off beside the mats used for sitting and eating next to the beds, and then past a set of male feet next to one of the nearest beds...it was after those feet that I did the double take, looking up at him, finding him staring back and me, then glancing down again to his feet...dusty black leather straps that wrap around the big toe, cork foot beds with black rubber soles...I grinned to myself and after Jennifer had finished told her "The sandals that guy is wearing look like one of the pairs of shoes that were stolen from my house." She looked back at me to see if I was serious..."really?!" she said. "Yep" I confirmed. She looked at the shoes and said "they look like Birkenstocks." "yeah, but they're not, they're Naots, I bought them in Israel when I studied abroad there in 2000." She looked up at the man who was understanding our English and stated that he bought them in Fort Portal at Mpanga market...he was dressed like someone who would have the means to make such a trip and I believed his story. "Can I see the bottom of the shoe?" Jennifer asked and he showed her...looking at the side of the sole she read, "It says N-A-O-T?" she read looking to me for confirmation..."Yep, it's them." I confirmed. "These shoes were stolen from her house a few months ago" Jennifer reported. "EH?! Foh shuah?" he exclaimed. "It's okay," I said, "I'm glad you're enjoying them. They're good shoes. I bought them in the year 2000." "Eh? And it's now 2009" he pointed out. I smiled and nodded. What in the world is the likelihood that one of my all time favorite pairs of sandals I bought in Israel 9 years ago would be stolen, taken to Fort Portal (a 3 hour trip from here), sold in the big market there to someone who lives in Bundibugyo and wore them to Nyahuka Health Center? Craziness. We laughed. It's good to start the day with a good laugh.
• I don't think I ever mentioned that the day after my return to Bundibugyo after 3 weeks of travel/R&R, a snake was killed in my house...about the diameter of a quarter and black he slithered into my house before the door closed after I brought my laundry out back for washing by Asita...I turned around and saw him go into the house and yelled...Asita looked at me to see what it was I was making a commotion about, and she began to yell as well. Pat heard me too and came to see...Pat and Asita used sticks and rocks to bring him to his death just inside the back door of my house as I stood by and watched...good thing he didn't decide to show his slimy self while my mom was around :)
• I love rainy season...the cool that the rain brings to an afternoon or evening as it blows in, the way you can often hear the rain coming as it falls on the tin roofs closer and closer to where you are, the incredible clarity with which we can see the mountains most mornings after rain the night/evening before, the quieting of knocks at the front door when it's raining, falling asleep to the drone of the rain falling on the roof, and of course the changes in barometric pressure that Pat is sure causes her to sweat at random times throughout the evening :)
• I love it that my brother will tell me "Heidi, that sounds like a hellacious idea!" after mentioning to him something I am thinking about...he's probably the only person on the face of the earth who will say such a thing to me, but I love it! I need that in my life! (Okay, so I'm maybe not so excited at the exact moment when that comes out of his mouth and makes its way across the phone lines and over oceans from thousands of miles away, but a few moments later I smile to myself, and think "Webaleh Jeff!")
• I don't love hard copy record keeping and the disaster of budgeting that ensues in BundiNutrition.
• I watched Changeling the other night and was very well disturbed. Watched Vicky Christina Barcelona last night and was challenged and both discouraged and encouraged at the same time.
• I am feeling quite detached from everyone and everything in my life right now. It's not a sentiment I would recommend. Not quite sure what to do about it.