DENG DENG deng: Week 11

Deng is the Dinka word for rain. And let me tell you, we are having one heck of a season. We're in a brutal cycle right now. The rains come, flood the town for a day or maybe two, then they stop, the scorching sun comes out....you know where this is going....dries up all the rain and the itsy-bitsy, no wait! Then when the roads are dry again, it is the hospital that is flooded. All the patients that couldn't come earlier when the rain was pouring down finally make it in. Sicker. It's an overwhelming onslaught of very sick patients coming in droves. Anxious families. Sometimes it's too late.
Then, just like clockwork, the rain comes again and the hospital falls quiet while we wait for the sun.