Evenings

One of David's relations had surgery on Wednesday, so we went down on Thursday evening to pay our respects. He was pretty miserable and out of it the whole time we were there, but his son Dominic was around, so we stayed to chat a bit. David and Dominic were classmates in primary school.

I noticed after being in the ward for about five minutes that I wasn't smelling anything. Usually, there are all sorts of smells in the male ward, the two most prominent of which are urine and disinfectant. But that evening, I smelled nothing. It was pleasantly surprising! I also noticed some improvements in the male ward since the last time I'd been there (at least a year ago). There are now bright blue mosquito nets hanging over most of the beds. (These were all drawn up when we were there, so I don't know if they actually get used, but I assume they do.) Also, the lighting was actually quite good. Only one of the fluorescent bulbs (of perhaps ten) was working, but most of the half dozen incandescents were burning merrily. With music from someone's radio, it was almost cheerful in there - a thought I'd never have had a few years ago... But then I've never been a patient there, and I'm sure that makes a huge difference, too.

**********

Yesterday evening, as we were getting ready to finish up some packing and head to my parents' house for pizza, I heard crackling outside and knew immediately that there was a fire. This is a very agricultural community, and fire is just part of the package of dry season: slash and burn. So no one really panics when there's a fire. After all, that's how we get rid of most of our trash - by setting fire to it. I t hink Africans must be experts at controlled fires.

But it was still a very large fire, and the longer I stayed in the house, the more I worried that it might spread beyond control. I hurried David to finish what he was doing so that we could get out of the house. The smoke was billowing, and the stench followed us the 100 meters to my parents' house. And yet the fire was contained.

This morning, there's a very large patch of black earth outside our house. I guess the good thing is that if there's another controlled fire, there's so much ash in front of our house that there's nothing left to burn!