Friday afternoon in Salone...

It's been a busy week, with about 130 patients. Good but busy. Some frustrations, lots of highlights.

Some frustrations included:

- parents that came in with a very sick infant rather than going to a hospital (where they can admit) days earlier
- the microscope breaking down at noon on Thursday with 40 patients waiting in the clinic for blood tests
- realizing that we actually have 3 broken microscopes in the lab. And our lab maintenance man didn't show up today to fix the problem. He should be coming on Monday.
- my sore throat lasting for 8 days!
- finding out that there has been ongoing thiefery at our house compound for the past few months (at least we finally caught the guys)

Of course there have been highlights:

- the smiles of my little friend pictured above who I have known since he was very small.
- finding a lady in downtown Freetown with apples (we haven't seen any apples for awhile)
- a 4 year old that accompanied his sick cousin yesterday to the clinic, who was full of smiles and asked a million questions. He was quite entertaining while we were waiting for the last couple of lab results.
- no election related trouble in the country reported this week!
- our surgeon Dave and his wife Helen finding out they became grandparents last night
- a fun dinner with a friend on Sunday...chatting about life

Anyway, it's almost the weekend. That's always a good thing. It'd be really nice if it was sunny tomorrow - that would mean a possible beach trip! The election results may be announced on Saturday. So we have a curfew again, meaning we have to stay on the compound from 7pm to 7am on Saturday and Sunday. No problem...we are in the middle of watching season 3 of 24!