Back to work...

Wednesday was an early start considering my late night! Instead of going to the clinic I went with Jenny (my replacement) to the local children’s hospital and visited some patients we had referred and brought them christmas gifts. A 6 month old I had referred to the feeding center weighing 3.4 kg was now much better, weighing 4.8 kgs at 7 months…still small of course, but she had chubby cheeks which is always a good sign! After that we went to the clinic. That afternoon we had our Christmas party. It was quite different than your average western party. It was quite African…loud singing, dancing, cheering etc. The staff definitely had a great time.

Thursday was my first clinic day and the last of this year as my staff is now on holiday! I saw about 30 patients and it was easy to get back into the swing of things. One of the nurse’s ask if I would see the patients on my own in Krio or if I needed translation. I said ‘well, I’m not sure if I remember everything”. Her response was “try, if you get stuck, call us”. So I did. And I was in their on my own for the majority of the day seeing patients in Krio…once in a while asking one of the nurses to come in and help out! The most fun part of the day was playing Santa. I bought cookies for all of the children and let each child pick out a stuffed animal. They loved it.

It’s Christmas time. My staff has taken leave up until the new year. So for me this is a quieter period…time to catch up on sleep, work on admin stuff (statistics etc), enjoy the season etc. We have some visitors coming from the Anastasis as well so I’m sure we’ll have a great Christmas here in Freetown.

I’ll post some pictures on my blog sometime soon!

Merry Christmas!!!