Some random thoughts

Today was nice. Hannah and I met for our usual morning breakfast in the hotel cafe. Every morning we both have a macchiato served in a play-sized coffee cup. We brought the last of the things we are giving away to the medical school and people here today. On our way here we both brought numerous books, which made our luggage quite heavy and which now will be a part of the medical school library here. I am giving away the 2 white coats I brought, but I have to keep one until the last day of course. And then there are random things I brought like a couple of notebooks, my reflex hammer, some gloves, an extra flash drive, some N95 masks, some alcohol hand sanitizer, a small but very powerful flashlight I have been using for a pen light/when the power goes out at the hotel, and in Hannah's case some clothes that we gave away today. If I had known how much little things like these were needed I would have brought more extra stuff that I have laying around my house. The people here appreciate all of these little things so much--so much more than I do--because it is so hard for them to get things here. Anyway, we got rid of the last of our stuff today because our interns will be changing on monday, and we wanted them to have a lot of this stuff.

Hannah and I both made rounds today on our respective sides of the medical ward. For some reason today seemed to be much smoother on my side than usual. I felt like I actually had a decent plan on people, which in many cases actually included consideration for discharge. Apparently the rate of discharges goes up quite a lot when we visit simply because we are so oriented to getting people out of the hospital. We also recognize sometimes more readily when the patients really shouldn't be in the hospital for outpatient issues and in the case where there isn't really anything that can be done for the patient in the hospital setting. I don't have a lot of cool patient stories because most of my ward has left and now there are a lot of chronic players. And as I have said before, there aren't tons of new admissions all of the time like in the US.

Henish made it out last night and should be back in the US sometime today. While he was here, he made quite a lot of corny quasi-jokes and his joking sort of brought out my idiotic sense of humor. When we were driving with Tsige the night before he left, we were driving behind a one-horse carriage. He then said, "look, its one horse power". This is probably a "you just had to be there" sort of moment, but it was really funny at the time.

After rounds today, we made it back in time to watch the royal wedding in full. It worked perfectly that it happened to be right a lunch. We sat in the hotel cafe in front of their flat screen TV where we watched the whole thing. I honestly can't remember a time when I was more into something on the TV. For us girls though, I think there is something magical about the royal wedding because we all sort of grow up dreaming about being a princess. It was so exciting to see a regular girl turn into a princess with an "I do". It was also awesome to see all of the dress for the affair including, of course, her dress. I was a little bit disappointed with the kiss, but I guess I will give them that it was very "British". :) There are two older men from Britain (Yorkshire) who are here on business working for the government while they are here. We see them every morning in the hotel restaurant eating breakfast while watching BBC news which is always on. We've talked to them a few times about what there is to do in Asmara and about going to Massawa. So, one of them came up to us today as we were watching the royal wedding and handed us some paper-towels for all of our tears--as a joke of course. I would like to say that not a tear was shed from either of us during the royal wedding today.

Hannah and I are going to be heading to Massawa this weekend for a one night stay in one of the hottest areas of this country. We are excited to finally see the Sea (ha!) and to see the countryside on our way there. Before we go, I would like to share some random thoughts/comments about our trip to Eritrea:
-The first several days here we were out of breath because of the altitude. Thats gotten a little bit better.
-In nearly every restaurant or even coffee bar, there is a full liquor selection, but there is never anyone drinking any of it. They all just drink the Asmara beer, which is the only beer available here.
-The cakes all taste like bananas.
-Every morning, I have to peel Hannah's banana. lol. She wont touch the bananas here because they have black on them, but if I peel it she will eat it.
-The exhaust on the streets is really bad because of all of the old cars even though there are relatively few cars here.
-The dogs like to pretty much only bark at night while we are trying to sleep. Thus, I wear ear plugs to sleep every night and sometimes by ears wake up hurting from them.
-Every item served in a restaurant is served from a tray. Even if you order a bottle of water, they will bring it over on a tray. If you order a banana, it will come on a tray and on its own little plate.
-Everyone here takes a 2.5 hour lunch break from 12:00 to 2:30. We also learned that if it is a hot day, they will take longer unannounced breaks and sometimes not come back (to open stores) until 3:30 or 4:00.
-I usually trip at least once per day while walking.
-Even though most of the people here speak only Tigrinya and not Arabic, most of the commercials are in Arabic and feature people from middle eastern countries. Presumably there is no such thing as Eritreawood to make movies and commercials.
-If a public bathroom has a toilet, it will invariably not have a toilet seat nor will it have toilet tissue. Luckily there a women on most street corners selling packs of facial tissue and gum.

We also constructed a top 10 list of things that we wish they had in the hospital here readily available. Number 10) A cath lab (or tPA). Number 9) Statins. Number 8) A pathologist. Number 7) Soap (consistently) Number 6) Pyridoxine (B6) for inpatients. Number 5) Ejection fractions. Number 4) Gloves (consistently). Number 3) Blood sugar test strips (consistently). Number 2) Oxygen on the floors. Number 1) Oral potassium chloride.

Thats all I've got for a couple of days. Hopefully we will come back with plenty of stories from Massawa this weekend.