This is a dangerous place

Well, it's just another typical day around here.

Actually, it started off very good. We had our first weekly prayer meeting with all of the translation and literacy teams that have moved here to start working! It was really something special to have Bible translators from 4 different languages sitting around the table together to share a devotion and pray for each other and for the work. It was really amazing and reminded me of what I'm doing here. It's easy to get stuck in my own little computer and forget sort of the bigger picture sometimes, especially since there were so few actual translation projects based here.

But now, they're all coming, and these guys are terrific. I've really been enjoying getting to know them and to hear their stories a bit. And it's a real privilege to be able to sit around the table with them, to drink tea, and to pray with them and for them. Here's a photo that Jackie snapped as we were getting our tea.
Not a brilliant photo, I know. But it gives a little idea of where we all were gathered this morning. It was a really good time all together and I'm already looking foward to our next gathering next Monday morning.

Just before we all met together, Jackie commented on my attire. Yes, that's me in the blue tie-dyed mumu. Everyone who works in this country seems to wear one. And they are SO practical! I love wearing my mumus (um, yes, I have more than one!), and Jackie and Grace tease me because, well, yeah, it's a tie dyed mumu. I mean, I laugh at myself in it, too. But when Bennet, a team leader for one of the translation projects came in and saw me wearing it, wow, he was impressed. He thought I looked SO smart! And I've had compliments from African men on several occasions when I wear the mumus. They love it when I dress like this... I mean, it's the respectable African men who comment, not the "hey baby" man on the street!

So after our prayer meeting, I turned into the community health nurse again. Vicky, the girl who helps us in the house, had some kind of eye infection or something. So I poured some eye drops in her eyes from my own stock of eye products (of which I keep a fairly good stock. Contacts in Africa are just magnets for bacteria, though I haven't had any problems in a long time).

Then Tartisio, the old man who's been working on the compound for years came in to show me his prescription from the clinic. In the past, we've had medications on hand for basic things - I keep a huge store of doxycycline with me, as that treats cholera and is an anti-malarial. I also have a few other antibiotics, plus the usual pain killers. But he had a prescription for a malaria treatment that I don't keep in stock (I've been told that it's not a very good treatment for Westerners, and is 'iffy' for Africans, even). I don't totally understand yet how to treat malaria, so I didn't want to change what the doctor ordered for poor old Tartisio. So we sent him off to the pharmacy with some panadol (it's the British version, basically, of Tylenol).

So far, just another typical day.

We had lunch... yum yum - ratatoille (not sure how to spell it), which is a usual dish for us. It's an eggplant and tomato based pasta sauce. Yum yum. Vicky makes it so nicely, so we eat it a lot. After lunch, as I was putting away the food, I noticed there was smoke coming out of the refrigerator. Hmmm... I don't think refridgerators are supposed to smoke. So I quickly turned it off. We left it for a while, sort of following the computer logic of turning it off and then restarting,... but it still made a horrible buzzing noise when we turned it back on. So our fridge is now running off gas again, awaiting Richard's return.

So far, just another typical day.

Did I mention that I DID get a few emails answered for work related things, and sent off the book list that I've been working on for several weeks, as well as organized some documents for our upcoming language workshops, in and among all these other things.

Just after the fridge incident, Zane and Scamper started getting into another scrap. So silly me goes running out to try to shoo Scamper away. They weren't engaged in fighting or anything, and Scamper was already calming down... but for some reason, Scamper turned on me. I have never in my whole life seen a cat bite a person so viciously! I was so shocked, but I am, at the moment, nursing 4 quite deep teeth marks in my arm. John (Scamper's "dad") and Jackie were both right there when it happened and both of them were just completely shocked, as well. I felt so bad for poor John, since he just felt terrible about Scamper's attack on me. Seems Scamper's getting a bit tom-cattish, since he wasn't neutered as a kitten. I never would have tried to shoo away a wild cat, but I never thought that a house cat would attack like that. I was dripping blood everywhere, so I ran into the house to wash it out, and I have no idea what happened in the aftermath with Scamper and Zane.

Anyways, I was able to clean it quite well right away with a lot of Dettol (antiseptic), and I found some gauze in our box of supplies to cover it over with. Here's what it looked like:

Zane has no idea that this pain was inflicted on me in his defense! It was hurting quite a bit all afternoon, so I've actually been feeding panadol to myself, as well! And then this evening, I thought that maybe I should just go and ask our friendly neighborhood doctor (who happens to live across the compound) about cat bites, just to see if there was anything I should know...

And this is what he ended up giving me:
I got some serious antibiotic cream and even amoxicillian to fight any infection that might set in! Apparently cat bites can cause some serious infections. So Dr. Chris wanted to be on the safe side. I also had strict instructions to take a toothbrush and more Dettol to it to really clean it out. Ouch. It hurt. But now it's all slathered in cream, and I have already eaten my first antibiotic tablet.

So really, even on a typical day, this can be a very dangerous place!