Why a leap day...

So, today is leap day! Why? Well, it sounds simple- adding an extra day every four years compensates for the fact that a solar year is almost 6 hours longer than 365 days. But not quite, when you look at the details it gets a little more complicated. Some exceptions to the basic rule of adding a day every for years are required. Because a solar year is not exactly 365.25 days. It is slight less. So, how do we account for this????

Years evenly divisible by 100 are NOT leap years, UNLESS they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they ARE leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. By this rule, the average number of days per year will be 365 + 1/4 − 1/100 + 1/400 = 365.2425, which is 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds. Got it?

Supermarket let down...

For those of you who have lived at our team house over the past year, you'll know how excited I have been about the Freetown Supermarket Chocolate Milk. I usually have a couple of half liter bottles in stock at all times. Well, this evening, much to my disappointment, there was no chocolate milk to be found in the supermarket. It wasn't on the shelf. I even went to the fridge- nothing. They have the peach and strawberry flavored, but no chocolate. What will I do? I have 1 lone bottle in the fridge and will have to save that for a special moment this weekend. After that I guess I wait for a new container with chocolate milk to arrive at the supermarket!To lift my spirits I went ahead and bought a milk chocolate and almond Magnum icecream :)

8 year old talking...

Last week Thursday 8 year old Samuel came to the clinic with a history of fever, vomiting and a cough for 5 days. He really didn’t look well. He looked miserable. And he wouldn’t say anything, to anyone. I examined him and sent him to the lab for tests. I kept my eye on him throughout the afternoon. His tests showed there was no malaria and his urine was fine. He was moderately ill and so I thought he might have typhoid (which is hard to test here) or another bacterial infection. I decided on a strong broad spectrum antibiotic- chloramphenicol. Used often in the developing world but banned from some countries in the West. Despite the possible side effects however, it is an excellent drug; also recommended by the WHO for a number of diseases.

As I was explaining the plan to the mom I saw the child had a coin in his hand. So, in an attempt to get some kind of response from him I asked him for the coin and ‘hid’ it in one of my hands. Presenting my two fists to him, he had to decide where the coin was. He caught on quickly. No smiles yet, but he was playing along. By the time his third turn came along, I closed my eyes as he ‘hid’ the coin. I chose his right hand- nothing. I chose his left hand- nothing. A grin appeared on his face and he produced the coin from under his leg. Smart boy! As he left with his mom I told him that when I saw him for review I wanted him to be well enough to talk to me.

Today he came back. Mind you, he showed up at 4:15pm for his 1pm review. African time! Anyway, he was full of smiles AND he was talking to me! He was much better and had no complaints whatsoever. We joked around again about him making the coin disappear last week. He went to school again today (hence the late review) which was a good sign too. Another child better. And the end of a good day.

UNICEF Fact of the week...

9.7 million = the number of children who died before their fifth birthday in 2006.

In 2006, for the first time since records have been kept, the number of children dying before their fifth birthday fell below 10 million, to 9.7 million. This milestone follows a long-term decline in the global under-five mortality rate since 1960. However, many countries still have high levels of child mortality, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and in recent years have made little or no progress in reducing the number of child deaths. Global progress is insufficient to achieveMillennium Development Goal 4, which is to reduce child mortality by two thirds.

http://www.unicef.org/factoftheweek/index_42745.html

Dislike for snakes AND spiders...

Okay, I've blogged about snakes and my GREAT dislike for them,
Now let's talk about spiders.
Up until this morning I never thought I minded them so much.
A friend of mine was saying she can't stand spiders,
I thought, oh come on, they're not that bad.
That was until this morning,
When I saw a HUGE spider within a meter of my pillow.
Fortunately I had just gotten out of bed.
But had that spider been there all night?
The thought made me shiver.
After spraying half a can of insect repellant on the spider,
it fell onto my bed!
My first reaction was to grab a shoe and hit the spider.
As I watched it shrivel up and die,
I had to admit I dislike snakes AND spiders.

PS: I don't think these pictures do the spider justice.

Hottest run in a long time...

I just came back from a 20 minute run.
It was hot.
I am exhausted.
It was the hottest run in a long time.
What am I saying?
It’s one of the first runs in a long time.
Who was saying they wanted to run a 10k in January???
Well, that didn’t happen.
Early November my running partner got sick.
In December she went home.
Since then I haven’t been running.
Noone at the team house to run with.
And I don’t like being out alone around dusk.
So, it has been a long time.
Last Friday was the first run in about 3 months.
Today the second.
I feel drained.
Yet in some strange way it feels good too.
Exercise.
Sea breeze.
Sun.
Fresh air.
It was worth it.
And now, the day is done.

Ultimate cookies on a Saturday...

I’ve felt exhausted the last two weeks so I decided I really am going to take it easy this weekend. Yesterday evening I watched a movie with some friends and then a few episodes of Lost. Didn’t go to bed early in the end, but knew I could sleep in. Woke up a couple of times around 730 ish this morning and heard people going in and out but stayed in bed. Lovely! I have spent the day doing stuff around the house. Catching up on email, (yes we have national power today- so electricity on a Saturday!!!), blogging, listening to music, booking my flights for my holiday in April, baking cookies (Ultimate cookies- the best cookies ever!), watching Lost, playing guitar. Lots of nothing much really. It’s been good. This is what weekends are for.

So – the cookies – they really are the best. Chocolate, peanut butter, oats, raisins, cornflakes, the works! A perfect cookie for a Saturday, well for any day really. Here’s a quick glimpse into our African kitchen – the oven door doesn’t close properly so we have to prop it closed with a broken off broom stick and 5 gallon container of water. :)

Kit kats...

We have new additions to our Mercy Ships Team. Our cat, Kit, had 2 little cats on the 7th of this month. Aren't they cute? Kit delivered the cats under a rain water storage tank and kept them there for a few days before moving them into a cardboard box outside of our kitchen. Closer to her food I guess! Once these kits are 6 weeks old we'll need to find a new home for them...