What's up Doc?

It has been quite some time since I have posted anything, and as you can tell by now I have been busy hanging out with local rock stars, visiting friends, and working (seriously). Ali got here almost two weeks ago now, and I just really can't believe how the time is flying by. She got here about a week before the other 20 (or so) doctors arrived on medical mission to do surgeries at the National Hospital. About 150 women suffering from obstetric fistula were waiting anxiously for them by the time they all got here. I realized looking out over the courtyard how mundane the scene had become for me until the sheer numbers trippled overnight. In addition to the women, there are nursing babies and infants toddling around. The physical exams began on Valentine's Day, although love seemed to have escaped most of those around me. I watched a mother shake a limp breast at a child dying of malnutrition; I stood and held the hands of women that I have been interviewing as they lay wincing on the examine table; and my translator got a call from home telling her that her 4 month old nephew died of cerebral malaria. It was one of those days where you realize how normalized all these things had become around you and how truly shocking and unacceptable it all is. After several hours I went home deciding that I was just in the way. And I seriously needed a moment to myself. I was back at the hospital today to find that not all the women that I have gotten to know have qualified for surgery. Some of the problems are just too complicated, or there is already too much scar tissue. And I am not sure that they understand. They look to the "Great White Hope"- all these Americans who have arrived to "fix" them. And now what?

Ali has been amazing. I had a moment when I watched her examining a patient and was so proud of my old friend. There she was- a doctor! And an amazing one, at that. Surgeries started today, and so my day passed in meetings. Sitting in one of the hospital board rooms, I looked up to see a cat's tail dangling through the hole in the ceiling. Waving slowly back and forth, the tail encouraged my mind to wander and I thankful for the little bit of whimsy it added to the day.