I Have an Entourage.

After giving out stickers, I can now not move through the hospital without being surrounded by a horde of little kids. They aren't asking for stickers. They just want to be around the nice muzungu, from what I gather. They love it when I take their picture.

After morning report today, Richard and I rounded. It was so exciting to see our child with vitamin A deficiency and kwashiorkor suddenly without the massive peri-orbital edema from yesterday! I could actually see more than a rim of sclera today.

For the most part, the kids here do have a white coat phobia, at least the ones who are hosptialized. The kids see Richard and I enter the room, and they all stare for a long time. When Richard says, "go do your exam..." and I move forward (always smiling and saying "Mwarahutse! Bite?" (Good morning how are you?) and holding out my hand the traditional Rwandan way, they start getting upset. By the time I'm trying to auscultate the chest, it's tear storm.

The healthy kids just see a muzungu in a white coat and follow me everywhere. I've even had to hide in Caleb's office for 20 minutes or so to try to escape, but then they just find me again a minute later. I need to learn how to say, "sorry but I need to work right now. I can play later."

Today Little Dian saw me from a distance, as I was running to get my oto/opthalmoscope from being charged. I didn't notice her calling me until her older sibling yelled, "MUZUNGU!' and I turned around to notice that Dian was sobbing, and then face planted and cried. So I, feeling pretty guilty, turned around, went up the hill to where she was, picked her up and gave her a hug. She instantly started smiling. I then set her down and said, "Mwirirweho," which means "see you later today" and she instantly started crying again. I was too concerned with getting my opthalmoscope, so I ran to the next building to get it from the solar charger. I then ran back to where Richard was and gave it to him, only to turn around to see that Dian's sibling had brought her over, as well as my entourage of little boys. This time I held her for the time that Richard and I discussed how we were going to do the fundoscopic exam of this 21 month old child under anesthesia. (This is going to be another great case for my case presentations, even if it may not be an infectious disease.)

The answer to how we are going to do it is with ketamine and at 4 pm today, after the anesthetist and surgeon are finished with a hysterectomy.

In the meantime, the German men had left so I got to move back into Shyira Chalet. Which is awesome because I have my own room and a better view. Not that Katie is a bad roommate, but it's just that I would rather not worry about bothering anybody else if I decide to stay up and read about all the weird stuff I see here.