20100917-20 by Tom

The mumblingmeeting on Friday was short. Nobody was hooding a educative talk. Okoko was no longer there and Becki was supposed to be on her way to Lusaka. As it turned out their papers were not ready so the English had to wait until Sunday to go to Lusaka to get their visa and other papers. Tuesday was going to help them. The round was also relatively short as we only had 9 children in the ward, of which three were malnutritioned and another three were suspected measles that were all coughing but relatively well. I could hear no sounds on their lungs suspect of being pneumonia. The hot day was spent with a book, in my case by Jeffery Deaver, very good. About a magician who could vanish from a closed room. The evening was spent in a local “restaurant” drinking beer and eating local specialities. That means nshima and fried chicken. We spent the entire evening together with the English and the two architecture students from Malmö. It was very cosy and we had discussions on all subject imaginable. I do not know how long they stayed, but Maria and I went home around 11.
Saturday begun with a morning round, that was full of stress. There were 7 patients waiting to be admitted ad I was in a hurry because Maria and I were supposed to go to Ndola with a transport. It turned out that it was Tuesday Musaka that drove the two Swedes to their flight. We bought a lot of things in Shopright and went straight home. Nice but very hot, AC is something you do not use without cause.
Sunday is he day of rest so we stayed In bed long. Marias stomach was not ok, so she did not go to church. It was a special service with a lot of singing and choir-dancing. I gave up after two hours when they had a show in bemba that I could not understand one word of. Maria was at home “gardening” which means planting different flower around the house. More exact you can read in this blog by Maria.
Monday found the ward with 20 patients of which I had not seen the best part before. Nearly everything the CO had ordered in the way of tests and medicines were not done. Of course nobody knew why the given orders were not followed, although I know it is of no use being angry I ordered them again and was nearly rude. We had a ugly underarm fracture with some angulations and small fragments of bone around. Dr Chipaila was going to try to correct it in Ketalar analgesia. We will see tomorrow what was the result on x-ray. A small boy with a water-head (hydrocephalus) we will send for a shunt after ultrasound to establish the amount of brain tissue. A malnutrition child with HIV we were sending to another hospital to be nearer to its sick mother.
During the day Maria and the garden boys have continued gardening and soon there will be flowers all round the house. Most of the evening was spent in front of the computer to write this and to look for the results of the Swedish election.