hospital animals

So I don’t write much about what goes on at the hospital as I’m not there and as many of you probably know I don’t deal too well with that medical side of things…(I have this thing that what is in your body should stay there and can’t handle the sight of blood and even stories about it). I did go in with Rhona once (about 2 months ago) and sat through a ward meeting and started to do rounds with her. I made it through 3 patients before I started to feel lightheaded and I hadn’t even seen or heard anything that I thought would have affected me…but I went outside to sit and then decided I should probably just head home so she wouldn’t have someone else to treat.

However there are some unusual visitors (and possibly residents) at the hospital. While our hospitals at home are one very tall building (often) with very specific entrances that have doors that shut and visiting hours that are adhered to, the hospital here is set up more like my high school as an open air campus with different buildings that are mostly without doors. Walking through it is normal to see a rooster just walking through the hospital, through the wards crowing at the top of his lungs. There are dogs everywhere—wild mostly and the Malawians are afraid of them and most of the dogs are afraid of sudden movements so people are usually safe from them but still. There was a problem of the dogs cozying up to patients at night to keep warm…not really sanitary…Rhona has had people selling fish on her ward…not really what you want to be eating (or smelling) if you are sick in the hospital…and we were walking home one day and coming up the stairs when I looked to the side of the building and there was a cow sitting in the grass all by itself. We’re still not sure what it was doing there…