Taking stock

Important happenings in the last 3 weeks:
1. The celebration of two Christmases (possibly more; depends on how you add them up)... including waking up the patient's at 5.30am on Christmas Day by singing carols at them. (Well, carols by candelight is a Christmas tradition...)
2. Explaining the meaning of the word 'bogan' to an American couple.
3. Being introduced to 'The IT Crowd'.
4. Learning Christmas carols in Pidgin.
5. Seeing an 8-year old girl who had severe weight loss and malnutrition (among other things) from tuberculosis - she's now running around, smiling, talking to people (including doctors!) and has a beautifully round face.
6. Laughing with the staff about nothing in particular. And occasionally about my marital status (or lack thereof).
7. Watching the faces on the staff as they heard themselves in a copy of the radio program about Rumginae that was earlier broadcast on ABC Radio National.
8. Trying to convince someone on the other end of the radio that a 3 week-long illness did not require a medevac on a Saturday.
9. Getting used to Rumginae having internet access! I can now google all the conditions I come across that I have forgotten about since medical school...
10. Trying to write a blog post about what I've been doing in a hospital without either breaking confidentiality or making my reader(s) nauseated.

Love to all - am leaving here tomorrow, overnighting in Port Moresby and getting back to Australia (all being well) on Sunday.

Shar