in half an hour, there's a kipagenge

So I've come to the end of the (work) week, my last complete one of the trip. I'm on call this weekend, so it's really less momentous than it would seem, but I think the most notable thing about this week has been its calm. There have been only a few admissions to peds per day, and other than Kipkoech, the baby with gastroschisis who unfortunately died Monday night, none of the children have even been all that critically ill. It's been something of a blessed respite for me and the rest of the peds team, though I really do get a vaguely unsettled feeling when we finish rounding in nursery before 4:00 and manage to clear out MCH less than an hour after that. It's like I should be working harder. Here's a shot of the peds team (minus Rose, a CO intern who finished last week) that we had time to take after work and before 5:00 pm today. From left to right, it's me, Mercy, Kevin, and Laura. Go team!
The peace and quiet this week has given me some time to mull over some other things (besides neonatal jaundice!), which is nice. During the last couple of days I've been thinking about the tension that I sometimes feel here when things at the hospital don't go as smoothly as I think that they ought to. Obviously, there are constraints, and some tests, or procedures, or therapies just aren't options, but there's also a lot that can be done and sometimes doesn't happen or doesn't happen efficiently. And it's easy to get frustrated, sometimes just with a culture that doesn't always perceive urgency in the same way as we Westerners do, and sometimes even with specific people. The challenge, I think, is to find a way to respond with love but also with expectation that standards can improve. There is clearly a Biblical precedent for an expectation of excellence, and if we're providing care for people in order to give glory to God, is it not right to do that in the best way that we are able? So I'm trying to figure out how I can urge the people around me on to excellence while still maintaining a spirit of gentleness and kindness. No easy answers there.

This weekend there's a WGM Field Meeting at Tenwek, which has brought a number of missionaries from surrounding areas and has provided an excuse to have three (three!) kipagenge potlucks in the next day and a half. The first tonight seems to involve a Whole Lot of Pizza, and there are hints that dessert will include brownies. Mmm, yummy. There's nothing like a good Friday night pizza party to start the weekend off right, even a weekend on call.

One last picture for now, taken during a down moment this week in the PACU where Laura and I had been called a little prematurely for a neonatal resuscitation. That green blur in the foreground is the blanket on the baby warmer, where I perched the camera to get the shot while we were waiting for baby (who was just fine, by the way). We were contemplating setting up a shot from the perspective of a baby on the warmer table with the suction catheter coming straight at it but decided against it. We can't be serious all the time...