Happy Howl-o-ween!

It's amazing what you can do with some gauze, flour and ketchup.

Today

The smell of stale urine is overwhelming in the hospital today.

The Fried Dough Diet: Week 21

I'm down to eating almost nothing. Nothing is really the only thing that looks good. I guess tough, wormy meat, moldy flour, and bug filled fruit never really did look or taste good. But 5 months in, it really doesn't look good, I can't speak on the taste lately, because I haven't attempted to try anything that I'm not sure I will be able to choke down. Which brings me to my current situation: eating almost nothing. Luckily my current lifestyle doesn't include much physical activity so I'm not in danger of wasting away any time soon and the daily multivitamins probably ward off rickets, anemia, and scurvy. Not to worry.

Earlier this week, though, there was a fortunate development in the calorie acquisition department: for reasons unknown, eggs became less affordable/available in the market (some details were lost in translation). So, to compensate for the absence of daily fried eggs the cooks usually make in the morning, they decided to make fried doughnut hole things instead. After the initial resistance, everyone seemed to be excited about the change. Soooo, they made them for breakfast AND dinner the next day. And now they're here, albeit badly burned, for breakfast again. I sense I may see more for lunch. Oh boy. Calorie requirements for the day met early. Check.
Previously in order to make my caloric ends meet, I had been reduced to finding some sort of nutrition in whatever I could scrounge from the cupboards and a few departed expat care packages. It's mango season so I subsisted on just those for a few days until we ran out. Then I raided the banana tree behind the laundry. Turns out they were actually very green plantains. Yeech. Other delicious "combinations": Pineapple and mashed potatoes, canned artichoke hearts and jelly beans, and my all time favorite cooking oil and salt mixed together that I then slather on the odorless, tasteless flat bread they sell here. It's okay though. Just two more weeks and I will have the biggest salad ever made in the history of salads.

In the meantime, this is a relatively safe exploration of the realities of food insecurity that many people experience on a daily basis. My neighbors here in South Sudan may never get enough to eat and have probably never eaten a jelly bean. I'd like to dedicate my first salad to them.

Ants sold separately.

Goat ROAST!!!

The Dream Team

The saddest part about leaving soon is having to leave behind my team. They're absolutely amazing. I've never met a group of staff that has had to overcome such adversity. They do it with such a positive attitude every. single. day. Incredible. I will miss them so much.

Polish and Shine

For some reason, young men and boys here like to paint their last two fingers with sparkly nail polish. I don't understand it. When I ask the staff why they do it, no one can give me a straight answer. The women I work with say they don't get it either. Maybe it's some kind of decoration. Men just want to feel pretty, too. All I know is when I'm in the middle of teaching Marko how to properly insert an NG tube and he starts to pick his nose, the shine of the glitter is more than a little distracting while he digs in his sinuses. And we're back to the importance of hand washing....

Smokey the Bear: Week 20

The neighbors are burning their trash....again. This time it's a little too close to my tukal's thatch roof for comfort. There's nothing like a big, roaring bonfire of discarded plastic a mere six feet away from a structure made entirely of mud and grass that contains all the clean underwear and the one spare pair of pants you currently own to unsettle a person. Besides, isn't their house just made of grass? What the heck? Where is the fire marshal when you need him? Oh right. Better move my pants.

Sweeping the dirt: Week 19

Every morning around 7 am, the ladies of Aweil begin to carefully sweep all the trash thrown on the ground into piles to burn later. This mostly makes sense, but it's what happens next that really baffles me. Using homemade brooms of dried sticks tied with string, they then sweep intricate patterns into the dirt while stooped painfully at the waist. They sweep yards, paths, roads all the same. The patterns, of course, are soon destroyed especially on the main roads in town, but they'll be there again tomorrow morning sweeping patterns into the street long before anyone else starts to walk on it.

More Ethiopia

The Adventure continues.... Today we're in Lalibella, an ancient kingdom in Ethiopia famous for ancient monolithic carved churches freed from the bedrock. Incredible.

Ethiopia!: Week 18

Today I woke up in Ethiopia! Pretty cool. I'm finally on holiday. I thought it would never get here. A much needed break from work, drama, and heat. It's 65 degrees and raining in the birthplace of coffee. I'm actually cold. I've already seen more fresh vegetables and bread in the last 12 hours than I have seen in 4 months. It's glorious.

Excuse me, Ma'am. Is that your chicken?

A few days ago a boy came into the hospital after being hit by a car. Other than a busted lip and a broken toe, he was completely fine. BUT lips bleed a lot and as it would happen, so did the toe. He was covered in blood and pretty dazed, but I again, I reiterate, completely fine. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he would live.

As he had been shopping in the market with his family when the, ahem, incident happened, naturally it drew a crowd. Twenty people followed him into the hospital. He was carried by a stranger with his family and the rest of Aweil close behind. It was hard to figure out who exactly was a relative and who was just along for the ride. Tension was already building.

We get him into triage and onto the exam table to get a better look at the lip and suddenly this lady is next to me having a complete conniption. She's screaming in Dinka and in her hand, upside down, with its legs tied together is a live chicken. Her arms are up in the air and she's waving her hands around going absolutely nuts. We look around for someone to translate. She's screaming a) because she thinks her kid is dead and b) because there's a woman in the room that she doesn't like and she wants her out of there, her husband's other wife. Dinka men almost always have more than one wife and they often don't get along. Can you blame them?

Okay. So we tell her that yes, that looks like a lot of blood and yes, the lady you don't like can go, but no, your kid is not dead. In fact he is also screaming this whole time. In my experience, dead kids don't scream. Not usually. So we get someone to take the chicken and find a quiet place for mother and child until we can suture the lip. American Emergency Rooms look pretty tame from here. 

Man, oh man. And that was all before 10 am.