Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We fear, alas, that our Christmas song was a
tad too prophetic, since indeed, there was NO water for Christmas (not so handy
since we had 20 people for Christmas dinner!), very nearly no power (it went
off on 23rd Dec, but luckily we were able to get it fixed on 24th!),
and a little less predictably, we also had a case of typhoid (poor Tim , and
his innards which took quite a battering!). Nevertheless, it was a great day – lots of
kiddies, since Marvin, his Auntie and his cousin came along, as well as a
couple of White Eagles and a family who lives nearby. Lots of kiddies = lots of chaos, but also
lots of fun!
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| Noah enjoying the delights of the Christmas BBQ! |
A bit of Baby Unit news: we’re mega-chuffed to have
appointed a deputy head nurse, Esther, to help Cathy – she’s been with the unit
for the past year, but has experience on Children’s ward previously, and she’s
frankly a bit of a star!
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| Esther, our new assistant head nurse |
As well as looking after our teeny and sick babies, we’ve
also been doing some training! Firstly
we recently trained 5 of our interns on the ins-and-outs of working on the Baby
Unit. And then we did a CME (continuing
medical education) talk for the whole hospital on bubble CPAP. It’s a technique that gives a little extra
pressure to babies’ lungs, preventing them from collapsing down at the end of
each breath. Think about a party
balloon: hard to blow up initially, but easier after a little air is inside the
balloon. Same for lungs!
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| Cathy setting up homemade bubble CPAP |
We’re getting excited for Sarah’s parents’ visit… and can’t
believe their luck…Having had another month with no toilet-flushing, showering
or washing machine, we’ve just had the water board around, who discovered a
block at the inlet to our property, and unblocked it. The result?
A full tank! First time since NOVEMBER!!
Literally. Can’t. Believe.
It! David and Jane will be blessed!
Hopefully they won’t have any run-ins with what we
discovered on our lawn 2 days ago. It seems that our trusty mutt Sierra is
giving Timmo a run for his money when it comes to the rat-catching stakes, as
she bagged this humongous beast (this is not a photo using clever perspective, it really is THAT big)!
To be fair such a monster would have laughed
in the face of a mere rat-trap. Suffice to say had we discovered it inside, it
may well have been enough for us to say 'Au revoir' to our house here in Bwala!! Thanks to Sierra, we will stay....for now...
Anyway to finish back
to water issues and a parenting silver lining:
Parenting silver
linings:
Your toddler has stuffed a whole roll of toilet paper
(unrolled, Andrex Puppy Stylie) in the toilet.
He presses the flush handle.
Gahhhh! But luckily, since you
live in Bwala, there is no water for flushing, so you don’t end up with a
blockage! Better luck next time Noah!
