Happy Easter!

I'm late! I was on call on Easter, and just never made it to the schoolhouse to post.

I hope everyone had a very blessed Easter!

Saturday evening, the Christys and myself dyed Easter eggs! They came out surprisingly well for not having the usual little Easter egg dying kits you get in the US. We also made Easter baskets for the missionaries, which was alot of fun! The Failes had us to dinner for Swedish pancakes (Elisabeth is from Sweden, Dr. Faile met Elisabeth when they were both on the mission field in Yemen).

Easter started out with my usual tradition of going to see the sunrise. Ok, we didn't actually make it for the actual sunrise, but only because everyone felt it was a bad idea to walk in the dark up the "mountain" with waifu (snake) around. I'm pretty sure I scared the night gaurd, I think he thinks I was sleep walking. Because I come out of the house at 5:30 am and stare at the sky (it rained the night before), and we determined it was pointless to go if it was too cloudy. He comes running over speaking Mampruli fast, and I cannot understand him or explain that I am merely looking to see if it is cloudy. He had a very concerned face, I'm certain he thought I was sleep walking. I walked back in the house satisfied we could go.

Christy #2 and I did head for the mountain. We enjoyed some quiet time, until we were interrupted by bees, which Christy is allergic too. When I looked out from the top, I just kept thinking this is what the Garden of Gethmane must have looked like. Despite being cut short by bees, it was a very pleasant time.

We made it back to the hospital to round (there are sick people EVERY DAY of the year). I will spare everyone details, but I witnessed a very dramatic death. I've seen people die before, but not quite like this. The patient had been talking and answering my questions not 2-3 minutes before. What was more difficult for me is that I still had about 4 patients to see in the ward, we don't have private rooms like in the US. So I have this family, who just witnessed a very graphic death of their loved one, and now I have turn my back and see the patient in the next bed. That was my downer of Easter.

However, the Lord lifted me up. I had time to quickly change for church (and might I add, I had a second African dress made, which I wore and love). We had heard the Presbyterian Church has a very good choir, so we decided to attend. The church was tiny, like maybe the size of our living room and dining room combined, but it was PACKED! I mean my knees were jammed into the bench beside me, people were everywhere! We were NOT disappointed we came, the choir was AMAZING! The Christys and I often joke about Ghanaian music, because they tend to play very very very loud and off key, but this was not like that. It was the most worshipful beautiful singing! It's a sad comparison, but the closest thing I can relate it to is the African hymns in Lion King on Broadway. Of course, I don't know most of what was actually being sang, but I'm sure it was very reverent! It put me right back in the Easter mood. We are going try to locate some kind of CD of African gospel music.

I was on call, so I spent most of the afternoon at the hospital. However, we had planned a big surprise for one of our patients. Grace is a high schooler, who broke her leg, actually she had a pathologic fracture. What that means is that she didn't just fall and break it, but that some other pathology (in her case infection) had weakened the bone to the point of fracture. There are no orthopedics here, so her option was traction, which she thankfully took. (I owe you a post on traditional medicine/witch doctors, but often patients refuse to have bones treated here, instead opting for local treatment) Grace had been sitting in her bed since before I got here in traction. We got permission from Dr. Faile to move her into one of the operating theaters, which had American plugs. We plugged in my laptop, made popcorn and watched, "The Chronicles of Narnia." She LOVED IT! I actually missed most of the movie due to seeing other patients, but I know she loved it! We had told the nurses if her family came to tell them where we took her, unfortunately that message didn't get passed along. When I got called to see a patient, I found her very frightened mother thinking her daughter was in surgery. We quickly made amends, and showed her mother what kind of "surgery" we were doing! We've been supplying Grace with some books to read too, but she's really taken to the Children's Bible I brought, so I think I'm going to just give it to her. However now that I know Mrs. H reads this, when I get back I will need another copy of that Children's Bible!

Since I missed most of the movie anyways, I hung out with some of the nurses, who were sharing mangoes. They are messy to eat, and I didn't want to eat the skin because I didn't have the proper way to wash it at the nursing station. Needless to say, I made such a complete mess of myself! Whatever, it was fun, and all the nurses had a great laugh watching me.