rainy sunday

It's the end of the weekend - and nearing the end of my four nights-out-of-six-on-call sprint - and it's been rainier here today than it's been since I arrived. Consequently, though it's only 8:00, I think I could pretty happily tuck myself into bed, read a chapter of North and South, pray that the night stays quiet, and turn out the lights before 8:30. But I also recognize that I've hit the end of my first week without a real Tenwek update, and lest I get horrifically backlogged, I really ought to do a little documentation.

Ah, rainy season... beautiful.

The week has been a challenging one, as I felt somewhat torn between a desire to be back home while my city was going through tumult and a desire to really focus on being here. But I've found myself slipping day by day back into the routine of being at Tenwek, in spite of the several things that have changed. Mornings start with the sunrise, my showers are tepid (but efficient!), and I linger over the Psalms with a mug of Dorman's coffee before heading up for morning report. And there's a great community of visitors right now as well, which has been an exciting discovery, especially as the missionaries have been only slowly filtering back home after retreat and holiday. There have been phenomenal conversations and stories nightly around the guesthouse dinner table, and Livingstone and Helen are still cooking feasts - and an overabundance of desserts - for every meal.

Encounters with old friends have been incredibly encouraging as well... the joy of discovering that Agneta will be here the entire time I'm visiting... an invitation to the Bemms' Pizza Friday and getting to meet the "midgets"... people like these are much of what make Tenwek feel like a home to me.

Up at the hospital, neither the peds ward nor the nursery have been terribly busy (though there's still babies in wooden crates at every turn in the latter), and the interns pre-round entirely by themselves, which means that rounds feel more efficient. There's bedside ultrasound, and the X-rays are now computerized. It's been slowly dawning on me just how much more I know now than I did during my last visit, and how much more comfortable I am teaching. Which is not to say that my interns don't hear me ask "So... what do we do for that here?" at least twice a day. And it doesn't have a lot to do with being at Tenwek, per se, except that I think being here and recognizing the difference between me now and me four and a half years ago has been really illuminating.

Much of what I've spent time thinking about this week is just how many examples of humility, dedication and a servant's heart I have opportunity to witness in this place, and how that can challenge me. I know my attitude is often less than perfect, and momentary weariness or plain old laziness can tempt me to cut corners, but I want to be pricked by those moments, prodded by God out of my selfishness and sloth. Having that kind of sensitivity is certainly not a comfortable thing, but I pray that it will serve to refine me.

This weekend has been a relaxed one, in spite of being on call, and I realized this morning that peds call here is actually - on most occasions - much more straightforward and restful than my call on 11S back in Boston. This morning I sent both the interns to the ward to pre-round before church, and I assigned myself to the nursery, where early mornings can be quiet and peaceful before feeding time at 9:00, when green gingham-clad mothers descend upon the nursery en masse to feed their little ones.

The littlest guy I'm caring for is sunbathing under the blue lights.

We finished rounds after lunch, and after a quick run back up to the hospital for a delivery, I spent much of the afternoon meandering around my apartment and the guesthouse, watching the rain pound down. At one point, I accidentally woke Agneta out of a dead sleep by calling her apartment and was rewarded by seeing her appear in the guesthouse not long after, which provided a lovely opportunity to catch up on life. Taco dinner with chapatis (a complete and utter weakness of mine) followed, and now I really do think I might be excused for trying to get to sleep. I asked Mercy, my intern, to get a stat creatinine measurement on a patient on the ward, and that was a couple of hours ago, but "stat" here is relative, and I can probably sleep a while yet before the results are out.

My prayer this week is relatively simple: to be fully present here and to serve with humility and joy, much as Micah 6:8 exhorts. "... and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Lala salama.